Say More With Less

When I participated in the NASSCOM contest, I was given 15 mins to present my solution. 5 years of work compressed in 15 mins? Are you kidding me? Well, I had no choice, and I think I managed to do a good job. And then, for the NLF summit in Mumbai a few weeks later, I was given 5 min for the same job! The presentations I used are available... see for yourself!

What's the point I am making? Well, if you get down to it, you can say a lot with a very few words! You don't need flowery words, you don't need dozens of slides with tonnes of bullet points!

I was reading Presentation Zen (www.presentationzen.com) by Garr Reynolds, a highly recommended book for anyone wanting to be better speakers and presenters, and came across this wonderfully illustrative story I am reproducing below...

When Vijay opened his store, he put up a sign outside that said "We sell fresh fish here". When his dad saw it, he said, "we" puts the focus on us rather than the customer. So Vijay dropped the "We", and the sign now read "Fresh Fish Sold Here". His sister saw it and said, hey, the "Here" is really superfluous. So the board changed to "Fresh Fish Sold". Hey, said someone else, obviously you are selling fish, so why have the "Sold"? The board now became "Fresh Fish". When his uncle came, he said, you know what, everyone should know this is always fresh fish. We've never going to sell stale fish are we? So finally, the board just read "Fish". Next day, as Vijay walked towards his shop, he realised his customers would smell the fish from far, long before they could actually see the word "Fish". There was no need for the board.

Keep it simple, keep it concise. Your audience has come to hear you - they don't want to read a presentation. If you want them to read something, why not just send across a document? Presentations are meant to supplement your talk, it's not your replacement!