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Do you need Powerpoint?
While slide decks can be a useful tool in some presentations, Steve Jobs was famously against them. When having staff present him with their arguments for or against certainly decisions, he famously believed that:
People who know what they’re talking about don’t need Powerpoint
If you need to make an argument about an upcoming direction, then you should make your point and have a discussion about it rather than going through a bunch of slides.
Ultimately, it’s not unlike the idea of only using paper for proposals after a deal has been reached. Have a discussion, figure out the direction, and then just write down the results.
No slides?
Of course, Steve Jobs famously used slides in his major presentations, but I think those are different for two reasons:
- His slides were very simple, more of just emphasis on his words than on presenting content.
- In those situations, a discussion with a room full of hundreds of people wasn’t feasible anyhow.
I see Seth Godin do something similar. He’ll use slides for many of his talks, but they’re very simple slides — the majority are simply an image to go along with whatever story he is telling at the time.
