Most of the time, when I start a blog post with a question it’s because I think I know the answer. But not this time. Today I asked myself that question again, after seeing some people share their presentations online.
Sharing is nice, of course. But when you share your presentation online, there’s one big problem. Your slide deck, how beautifully crafted it might be, makes absolutely no sense on its own.
Imagine a slide with a pretty picture, and two bullet points.
- 78% prefer buying from known vendor
- 23% choose cheapest deal
That could’ve been a great slide, but outside of your presentation, that could mean anything.
Out of the context of your presentation, they’re just slides with some keywords, and pretty images. People who look at your slides will learn nothing new – unless you’re doing Powerpoint wrong and write entire novels in one slide. They miss the context of the slides, they won’t know what you were trying to say.
To quote my friend Hillary Cheyne:
https://twitter.com/hilscheyne/status/479206441098940416
Maybe there’s a good reason to share those presentations. For the people that saw it, perhaps? I know I’d still have a hard time putting them in context, but that’s just me.
So, why is it that you share your presentation online? Feel free to let me know.
I totally agree steven.
The other case is where you share a slide deck that’s dedicated to sharing instead of the one you used in the talk.
This dedicated version would be more similar to an article and less to a slide deck for a presentation (more text, explicit steps written there, etc)