{"id":318,"date":"2009-05-13T21:34:24","date_gmt":"2009-05-13T20:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elementally.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/?p=318"},"modified":"2009-05-13T21:34:24","modified_gmt":"2009-05-13T20:34:24","slug":"slide-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/slide-evolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Slide evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve spent a long time being self-indulgent recently, so I thought it might be useful to run through how one of my favorite slides evolved by way of redressing the balance :) ; it’s still not fixed in stone and may well change as\/when\/if I get the urge….<\/p>\n

First things first – figure out what you want to say. In this instance I wanted the slide to capture the very basic things you need to make a decent presentation. I worked this out in the way I tend to do a lot… by using a simple spidergram to get all my ideas down onto the page in any old way. It’s more important tot get everything down than it is to get it right in the first instance – you can always impose formality later but trying to be too formal too soon inhibits the creative\/cathartic process. I used a white-board in my office to do it but a large sheet of paper would do nicely – just remember to start somewhere near the centre of the page and don’t use too big a pen. (Otherwise there’s no point in using a bigger sheet of paper! ;) )<\/p>\n

I’d go so far as to say you shouldn’t ever turst a mind-map that looks too neat! That means someone, somewhere, has cleaned it up!<\/p>\n

\n\"Taken
\nThis one, on Olivia Mitchell’s excellent “Speaking About Presenting<\/a>” website looks ‘real’. I can’t show you mine because I didn’t think to photograph the whiteboard when I’d finished….<\/p>\n

Okay, so once I’d got everything down I walked away. In fact I went off for a cup of tea (hey, I’m British, don’t you know! It’s what we do!) to forget about it for a while. When I came back it was with fresh eyes. The next step is easy – just change the colour of your pen and link things together that ‘go together’. The idea is to find three (or four at a push) of the big ideas\/concepts that lie behind everything in front of you.<\/p>\n

In an ideal world, you’d spot three concepts and you’d be able to categorise every word before you to one of those three ideas. For example, on our public training days I run through this exercise with people, using the subject of ‘Making a perfect cup of tea’. Often groups come up with the concepts of<\/p>\n