THE DANGER OF CIRCULATING SPARSE PRESENTATIONS Beautiful, minimalistic, cinematic slides don’t have enough information in them to stand on their own as a document when distributed. In fact, when slides travel around with only an image and a handful of words, the readers have to fill in far too many blanks to understand their meaning. As you embrace simplifying slides, this is an unexpected negative side effect. Slides are a backdrop for the spoken word, not rich in content themselves. Their vagueness leaves room for a recipient to make up what was said, develop inaccurate conclusions, and misconstrue the meaning. As presentations are passed along without the presenter, If the graphic above was used important information is lost. Data is dropped that helps make alone on a slide, how would your case. you know what was said about it? For example, are The same is true when distributing slides on platforms like these people contributing to or SlideShare. The slides need to be self-explanatory and clear, pulling from this “system”? because metaphorical concepts are open to interpretation. The Vague metaphors can be following case study shows how to create a slidedoc in notes misunderstood if they are view of your cinematic slides so readers know what you said to shared without explanation. your slides. © Duarte, Inc. 2014 147