Video Transcript: Its Not About the Slide, Silly (Karen Friedman)

Video Transcript:  Its Not About the Slide, silly (Karen Friedman)

Hi, I'm Karen Friedman. For the next several months each monthly video will feature key tips from different chapters in my new book, which is scheduled for release this year. This month, let's take a look at how to make people focus on you. Instead of your slides. A professor at Yale said, quote, if your words or images are not on point, making them dance and color won't make them relevant. End quote, why is it then that every one of us has been treated to a slideshow masters delivering information? As I say to my clients, if someone can get what they need without you in the room, then why don't you just email them the slides, and then they don't have to come to yet another meeting. The key is learning how to let the slides follow you instead of the other way around. For example, let's say you have a slide like this one on your screen, it describes your company, do you need to read it? Well? Of course not. But many of us do. Can you talk about your company or set up the agenda slide for the day without reading the slide word for word. Of course you can. Instead of dumping data, pretend your slide is a picture frame. And think about sharing the central idea first. Often this means explaining the problem. For example, let's say the problem is something like this, until last month, patients had one option, surgery. After that, you can pick out a few key points that further explain that problem. So what happens is now you can get into the details, the details might go, thanks to specific research that has determined A, B and C, there is now an alternative available to these patients. Just because you've researched the topic for 10 years doesn't mean you have to present 10 years of information. Your job is to provide context and perspective, your job is to make sense of the information on the slide to tell people what's important, where you want them to look, and what graphs or charts mean to them. So try putting yourself in their seats like you, your audience has a limited attention span, and will likely not remember everything on the slide. So less is actually more. If you have a lot on the slide, and you simply can't give anything up. Try a couple of these techniques. 

First, break the information up so you can put it on two slides. 

Second, increase the font size. 

Third, eliminate sentences by removing words such as on, the, ad. 

What I'm asking you to do is thinking phrases and bullets, not sentences. Many people say they need to put everything on the slide so they can remember what they wanted to say. Well, what you should remember is slides are for them, not for you. If you have to have your script up there on the slide. You're asking people to make a choice. Listen to you, or read the slide. Unfortunately, you lose. What are some other easy and important fixes? Well, I can't give it all away. You'll have to wait until the book comes out. Until next time. I'm Karen Friedman.