Guy Kawasaki on Presentations

Do you know who Guy Kawasaki is?

He is a man of many facets. Born in Honolulu, HI...he matriculated at Stanford and got a degree in Psychology because (he says) it was the easiest major. After earning an MBA at UCLA, he was one of the original Apple Computer employees responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984. He is also the author of eight books, including, "The Art of the Start." He is currently the CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, a venture capital firm based in the heart of Silicon Valley, in Palo Alto, CA.

As a venture capitalist, Guy sees many presentations...many hundreds of presentations, in fact. As such, he has been able to formulate some strong opinions on what works, and what doesn't...presentation-wise. He is trying to evangelize his views in, what he calls, "the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint" Since I completely agree with him, I will do my part to evangelize along with him.

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint is this:

1. A PowerPoint presentation should have 10 slides, maximum.
2. The presentation should last 20 minutes, maximum.
3. The font of the presentation should be 30 points, minimum.

Guy says that most presentations that he sees are "crap."  One of the main reasons for their fecal consistency is that they are much too loooooooong. From his perspective, if you can't tell your story in 10 slides, and 20 minutes...you don't have a story.

Guy says that "a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting." Actually, here's where I differ with Guy. He is being much too generous regarding what most people retain from a presentation. Within 24 hours of a presentation, I believe that most people remember only 1-2 points of what was said.

Think of the last presentation that you sat through. What do you remember about it? Is it more than 1-2 points? If it is, you are an exception.

While Guy is in the venture capital business, and his observations pertain to the pitches that he sees...his 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint really applies to any presentation to reach agreement: raising capital, making a group presentation, making a one-on-one sale, forming a partnership, etc.

In the words of Albert Einstein, "Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler." ( I know that I used this quote the other day when referring to a different topic...but it's equally relevant here.)

Comments

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