PowerPoint is an excellent tool to turn great ideas into confusing presentations.
Sure, it can be used to turn a great story into a great presentation. But mostly it does the opposite.
We’ve all seen it happen a little too often.
In PowerPoint, it’s easy to prioritize fluff over substance,
and cram slides with detail just because the space is there.
It’s easy to focus on aesthetics – fonts, colors, images, animations – while neglecting the foundational work of crafting a compelling, relevant story.
PowerPoint as a tool doesn’t particularly care for clarity or relevance, nor does it encourage that.
Essentially, PowerPoint is about filling slides, not telling stories.
It helps to keep that in mind when using the tool. The more we allow it to pull our attention away from the story we want to tell and direct it to filling slides, the more we risk wasting time on creating flashy but empty presentations.
Audiences don’t care nearly as much about fancy slides as you might think; they crave clear and engaging stories. If that’s with a beautifully designed slide … great, we’ll take it.
But if it’s fancy slides with a lame story, we’ll pass. (Let alone ugly slides!)
Don’t let PowerPoint lead your process. Start with clarity, understand your audience, and build your story first. Then, use PowerPoint to amplify your message in ways that words alone can’t.
That’s how you transform a well-thought-out narrative into a powerful presentation.
Resist the urge to start with slides.
Start with the story.
