Yesterday I Twittered the following:
Communication advice from Ecclesiastes 6:11 "The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?"
This morning I took that advice to heart and cut 30% of the slides out of the presentation I'm giving today at the Cornerstone Conference in Charlotte, NC. It's my belief that if I give them less detail, the pastors who will hear this message will walk away remembering the main thing...and that's the main thing. What I cut was a lot of the detail that would be great to come back to if I were able to give a second talk to the same group tomorrow. But for today, I'm giving the main message more room to breathe. More time for people to ponder. Percolate. And more time for discussion.
What are you working on right now that could use a little snip-snip in the detail department? It's tough to cut, because we're often vested in our material...but in many cases its all so new to our audience that giving them less may allow them to remember more. Crazy huh?
Matt - good to hear it worked for you. You've gone even more "Edward Scissorhand" than I did. Brave man!
Janice - go, go, go. Snip away.
Meg - you march down the hall at NPR and start cutting away.
Posted by: Evan McBroom | October 27, 2009 at 06:51 AM
Good advice, Evan. I tried a similar approach in my last talk, putting no more than two words on each slide, and often just a graphic. That gave me more flexibility to adjust to questions that came during the talk, and it had the extra benefit of better eye contact and participation from the audience. I'll certainly do it again.
Blessings on your presentation at the Cornerstone Conference!
Posted by: Matthew Schantz | October 27, 2009 at 06:13 AM
Ow! You're making me think about a talk I'm giving on Friday. Where can I snip-snip?
Posted by: Janice Crago | October 27, 2009 at 06:03 AM
Simple, yet profound concept. I like.
Posted by: Meg | October 27, 2009 at 04:48 AM