The 10, 20, 30 Rule of PowerPoint
Financial Guru Guy Kawasaki is tired of being forced to watch and listen to bad PowerPoint presentations.
"As a venture capitalist," he says, "I have to listen to hundreds of entrepreneurs pitch their companies. Most of these pitches are crap: sixty slides about a 'patent pending,' 'first mover advantage,' 'all we have to do is get one per cent of the people in China to buy our product' startup. These pitches are so lousy that I'm losing my hearing, there's a constant ringing in my ear and every once in a while the world starts spinning."
Kawasaki goes on to extol his 10, 20, 30 rule of PowerPoint presentations.
- 10 slides maximum
- 20 minutes for the whole presentation
- 30 point is the smallest typeface in the presentation
I can only agree and suggest a further step. Don't use PowerPoint at all if you don't absolutely have to. It is over used and abused as a communication medium, particularly when presenting to small groups. It's always easy to break the rule 'just this once' when preparing a presentation. When you do, you sacrifice the power of the communication medium on the altar of convenience. The PowerPoint is not there to be a prop for you, but as a useful tool for your audience understanding your message.
A nice blog to learn more about great presentations is Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds.
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