A short live-stream segment by TJ Walker arguing that a PowerPoint deck is not the same as a presentation. He warns presenters and slide designers against making the deck the priority, urging them to focus on the handful of core ideas, memorable images, and storytelling that engage audiences and aid retention. Uses examples (airline safety briefing) and practical advice to work backwards from ideas when building slides.
Chapters
Your deck is not your presentation. Your PowerPoint deck is not your presentation. Your PowerPoint deck is not your presentation. I've said it on other episodes. I'm really driving it home now. If your whole mindset is your presentation is about your deck, you are guaranteed to fail, or you're at least guaranteed to be a mediocrity. So many bad things happen once you tell yourself the presentation is about the deck. Because if it's about the deck, you fixate on the deck, you start on the deck, you focus on the deck, you start accumulating more data, more complexity, more bullet points, more charts. And you never step back and think, what are the interesting case studies stories, examples I can really talk about involving success stories with clients, customers. Those tend to be stripped out. You never really step back and ask yourself what are literally the handful of most important ideas? What are the images that will make these ideas come alive? That I can talk about, but there's not necessarily going to be text under. So realize this is difficult because some of you who are listening are the PowerPoint designers. So that is the only thing for you is the slide deck. And my advice for you is you've got to get some time to really talk to the person giving the speech. Because to just create a slide deck for someone in a vacuum, it's virtually impossible to do it and actually help them give a successful presentation. You may be successful in the sense that the client says great and sends you a check, but. But that is disconnected from the final outcome of that audience. Understanding the ideas and remembering the ideas. So please remember, your job is to communicate. If you are the speaker, if you are the presenter, your job is to communicate ideas. It's not communication if facts go on a slide, it's not communication if the facts go on a slide and you project it, it's not communication if facts go on a slide, you project it and the audience can see it and you read it to them. It's only communication if you can get the audience to pay attention, engage, understand you, and understand why it's important and remember it. And simple repetition won't do that. We've all heard airline attendants give the safety speech where they tell us about how to fasten a seat belt and how many exit doors there are. We've heard it a thousand times if you fly a lot, and yet most of us don't really know how many exit doors there are because we're not paying attention, because we are bored when someone tells us how to use a safety belt, because we know how to use a safety belt. And that's the problem with just going through the motions. When you're giving a speech or presentation and you're using PowerPoint, remember it's still a special occasion. People have come to a room, sometimes they've flown across the country, across the world to see you speak. You've got to make it an experience for them. You've got to put a spotlight on what's memorable. You've got to bring your ideas to life. Having someone type a bunch of text, cut and paste, put it on a deck doesn't do that. I don't want to sound anti PowerPoint. I'm not anti PowerPoint, I'm anti bad PowerPoint and I'm anti warped priorities. Your priority cannot be the PowerPoint slide, cannot be the deck. Priority has to be the ideas. Work backwards from the ideas and build your slides accordingly and you will be in great shape. You will be a success.
