Blinding Flash of the Obvious

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET BETTER AT SOMETHING, whether it’s presentations or golf or being a mensch? Doing things the same old way certainly doesn’t get you there. Nor does just reading books or blogs. It takes something beyond blinding moments of insight.

I’m on this riff after reading Seth Godin’s post today on Really Bad Powerpoint.

Four years ago, Seth wrote an e-book on this subject, hoping it would help people make a better connection with their audience, rather then kill them with bullet-point slides. And there are probably people who read that and did make some important changes to their approach.

But he obviously hit such a point of — I don’t know, “dismay”? — that he felt compelled to post a short form of that e-book today.

And I see the same thing almost every day. Either people aren’t “getting it”; or they get it, but they aren’t applying it; or they just don’t think they need it.

Even people who do have a flash of insight about how to be more effective in their presentations are often challenged about how to actually apply that insight. For some, it may seem so daunting a task that they don’t know where to begin. Or they don’t have time. Or <fill in the blank>.

You’ll find some specific recommendations in Seth’s post. And you’ll find a lot of practical ideas in The YouBlog. But let’s make it really easy . . .

Do one thing — just one thing — to make your presentations better: change your title slide to a “goal” slide.

That one revision will set the course for an entirely different conversation with your audience, and will lead to a much greater likelihood of reaching the result you’re hoping for. You can get more detail on this in Trash the Title Slide.

And that’s how you can get better — take a first step. Once you’ve got that down, take another one. And then another. And your pace will pick up, and your results will increase, and life will be beautiful! :-)

For now, just take that first step.

 

<note>
For a related post, read #2: The Big Picture. This will help you make that goal slide even more compelling.