The most profound words crammed into a screen with a few hundred others become lifeless and impotent. They frustrate and annoy our audiences. When read from the screen to our listeners they become the fuel for the universally recited, number one complaint: “I hate it when they turn and read the slides to us!”
No wonder PowerPoint is so reviled.
If you ever find yourself saying, “I know you can’t read this but…” that is an indication that you are committing the most grievous of errors: too much text. Stop it. Edit. Divide your slides up. Use only keywords. But, whatever, stop putting so many words on the screen. Because no communication is happening.
We might as well all go home.
