Radio 1 is currently on in our house (teenage daughters, don’t ask!) and Scot Mills is running a bit of a feature about describing David Beckham. The core of the idea is to guess how many people could do that in only three words…
…and spectacularly few could!
Why? Because almost everyone used three phrases, conflating them in their head so that what were technically phrases were thought of as words by the speaker – presumably because they are being used in a mentally-hyphenated-sort-of-way as they describe one concept.
For example:
- good looking
- filty rich
That’s four words even before the third idea started! :)
It’s not that people are stupid – far from it – but that concepts are the important thing to people, not details. Think about that as you design your presentation!
I agree: Concepts are the important thing to people, not details. Think about that as you design your presentation!
I can’t tell you how manytimes I’ve left a presentation without having the slightest idea of what the presenter was talking about. They overwhelmed me with details — bullet points, graphs, charts, statsitics, etc. — and underwhelmed me with ideas.