It's time to stop following the rules regarding presentations! Here are some guidelines to help you create slides that truly support your message.

1. Breaking a presentation rule
Jeanne Trojan
@jmtcz

2. Have you heard of the 10/20/30
rule for slides?

3. Guy Kawasaki said that presentations should never:

4. have more than slides

5. be longer than 20 minutes

6. contain fonts smaller than

7. I understand that he’s trying to
avoid something like this…

8. ANNUAL REPORT
• ABC had an active year making up almost 50% of the regions total acres burned with
50% of those acres coming from Kansas.
• There was 1 type 1, 1 type 2 and 4 type 3 incidents in our zone. We recorded Wildland
fires in every month of the year showing that there is no such thing as an established
season as we burned all year long due to our geographic area we cover from plains to
the mountains.
• We started out fairly normal with moisture and temperatures throughout the zone and
experienced our normal lightning and human activity. There were fewer wind events
during the spring and summer but more during the fall and winter. We normally see a
slow down in September and this year we went into a fall season actively burning into
October.
• We staffed 24 hours to support going incidents 34 days which was less then normal.
We had an expanded organization in place for 21 days during our highest fire activity
period and used expanded overall for 39 days.
• One of the biggest highlights of the year came when a SEAT Base was established in
Elkhart, Ks. The first of its kind since ABC had been established. Along with mobilizing
60 Type 1 and 2 engines for structure protection on the Mason incident, PIDC was able
to fill 54 of the engines from within zone which assisted in no structures being lost
during the incident.
• We ended the year going from very mild weather to very cold weather back to above
normal temperatures with records for Christmas day of 73 degrees, which has led to
less rain and snow for our area for the last 2 months of the year.
• ABC is still seeing an increase of incidents ranging from 2% to 7% each of the last 3
years while the budget continues to decrease.
• The second notable point was the successful incorporation of the San Luis Valley fire
program into ABC, where we provided dispatching service for the Rio Grande N.F., San
Luis Valley public Lands Center-BLM and the National Park Service.

9. But, I think you can follow this rule
(and many others) and STILL
create bad slides.
How?

10. A problem with this rule is that you might end up
trying to limit the number of slides you use so that
you don’t exceed the magic number ten.
This naturally makes people who are inclined to put a
lot of text on their slides put even MORE text on each
slide so that they can get all of the information that
they think is necessary on their slides.
The font size of the text on this slide is 32…
This is NOT what Guy intended, I think.

11. Let’s try some guidelines, not rules,
for slides.
(the difference is that you use your
own judgment with a guideline)

12. A simple goal of all presentations is that you
want your audience to listen to, remember and
act on your message.

13. Slides can help you reach that
goal, but…

14. … don’t let your slides be your presentation!

15. The role of a slide is to…

16. attract your audience’s attention

17. make them curious

18. and then focus their attention
back on you.

19. Seth Godin is a great example of
how this works.

20. He uses dozens of slides in his presentations…

21. … and he does it so well that we
never notice how many there
are.
See a great example:
http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead.html

22. If your audience is reading your slide,
they aren’t listening to you.

23. Your audience should spend
a few SECONDS looking at your slide
before focusing on you again.

24. If you have detailed information to share…

25. give them handouts afterwards.

26. Forget the rules

27. Be outstanding!
@jmtcz
www.jmtcz.cz