Sacred Cow #3: My Slides Need To Function As Handouts
I’ve discussed this particular sacred cow before, but it bears repeating. All too often, meeting organizers distribute copies of the slides ahead of time. Many even consider slides an official record of what was discussed. The former competes with your presentation and the latter is just ludicrous. In either case, this is a sacred cow in need of slaying.
By handing out your slides to your audience ahead of time, you’re letting them get ahead of you. During your talk, they’ll know where you’re going, what points your going to hit, and because they’ve seen and read your slides, they’ll be waiting on you to catch up throughout your presentation. It can even discourage them from paying attention to you because, well, they’ve already read your material. If they do that, they miss out on the content that’s not on the slides at all.
If your slides could stand on their own as your presentation (they can’t), then there’s no need for you to get up and speak to them. Since your slides aren’t your presentation, providing your slides as handouts, even after your presentation, does not truly benefit the audience. You can’t possibly fit all of your content on slides. However, you can all too easily put too much on them. With that said, they do need something to take away with them, right? Maybe. If they do need handouts, providing them with a document after your presentation formatted specifically for reading. You can put the necessary amount of content on this document and if you hand them out after your presentation, you can avoid competing for attention with your handouts.
Image credit: libraryman, used under a Creative Commons license.
