I suffer from something called Lack of Audience Engagement Disorder (LAED) but don’t worry, you cannot get it from reading my blog. The symptoms include loss of attention, low boredom threshold and the ability to multi-task (write a to do list or sort pout the shopping for the way home) during dull presentations.
There are many medical theories about its cause: too much salt, caffeine, or alcohol in one’s diet, too much stress, and allergies. But by far the biggest contributor is Boring, inappropriate presentation delivered by presenters too keen on them being the centre of attention, not the audience. And now there is a cure, so I’m told.
To prevent an epidemic of LAED in audiences, I am promoting something called the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint.
It’s quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points. While I’m in the audience I want to be informed not bored and entertained as well as informed. Following these simple rules will help us get to this wonderful state of achievement.
Ten slides. Ten is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting—and I believe I’m quite normal. By using more than ten slides to explain your idea, proposition, business, you are squarely in LAED territory The ten topics that a venture capitalist cares about are:
- Opening
- Present your Problem as a Solution
- Define your Model
- Underlying magic/technology
- Marketing and sales
- Competition
- Team
- Projections and milestones (if you must)
- Status and timeline
- Summary and call to action
Hey, you don’t have to use 10 slides if you can get away with less great, do it.
Twenty minutes. You should give your ten slides in twenty minutes. You may have an hour time slot, but technology often takes thirty to forty minutes to overcome. Even if setup goes perfectly, people will arrive late and have to leave early. In a perfect world, you give your pitch in twenty minutes, and you have forty minutes left for discussion. When designing your presentation design in questions. This does two things A) it involves your audience and B) you can tease out any limiting beliefs your audience may have.
Thirty-point font: The majority of the presentations that I see have text in a unbelievably small font. They cram as much text as possible into the slide, then the presenter reads it, just like a bed time story. Believe me. I can read faster then you can read it to me……... The result is that you and the audience are out of synch.
Using 30 point or larger ensures everyone in your audience can read your slide. Cause it’s odds on the one you need to impress is at the back and they’ve forgotten their glasses. If you think 30 point or larger is strange try this simple equation for defining the font you should use. Find out the age of the oldest person in your audience and divide it by two. That’s your optimal font size.
With presentations if may help if you think that PowerPoint is there to be a visual aid. That is there to support your presentation not be the presentation. So please observe the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. If nothing else, the next time someone in your audience complains of LAED, you’ll know what caused the problem.
Catch up with you again soon!
Paul Johnstone is the founder of
The Paradigm Shakers
Providers of Thought Provoking Training
Delivered by Subject Matter Experts
©Paul Johnstone
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