I was just trolling through slideshare recent crop of social media themed slideshows, and I was amazed at how well the themes of good presentation have permeated people’s minds. Pictures, one point per slide, simplicity: here is an example
But you know what? These slides are completely useless to me unless I want examples of good design. An old, ugly, 20 bullet points a slide would be more valuable. I think two things are going to have to happen if PPT has any hope of even slightly standing alone
- Presenters have to use the notes field to write their narrative
- Slideshare has to have a place to present the notes so we can see them as we flip through. OR
- people need to record and sync their presentations.
Mics for ipods are very very cheap, it seems to me this second path is the right one. even if the place you are presenting at doesn’t have their sh*t together enough to podcast, you can at least place a miced ipod on the podium and capture your own voice.
Anyhow, I’ll be interested in where this trend goes; I suspect a solution is critical at least to slideshare’s life. Pictures are nice, but they aren’t that useful without the story that accompanies them.
Example of the wrong kind of slides for a presentation, yet so very right (and so very viewed) on slideshare.