Stock analysts love charts. Excel is their tool of choice. When used to accurately predict the future price movements of stocks or the economy, charts are beneficial. The problem occurs when charts meet PowerPoint. The combination can be deadly boring. Recently, Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker kicked off the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco with a discussion of the stock market, the economy, and technology trends. Morgan Stanley posted the slides online; a video of the presentation is available on YouTube.
The presentation itself contained some interesting information about the growth of the tech sector and areas within the sector that Meeker predicts are poised to boom. But the delivery suffered from the all-too-common sin of information overload; too many themes, words, charts, and slides.
Too many themes. Meeker kicked off the presentation by outlining eight themes she would discuss over the next 16 minutes. Eight themes in 16 minutes leave only two minutes per theme. One theme was attention grabbing: The mobile Internet will be bigger than most people think. But it was lost in the cascade of themes.
The human brain can only absorb three or four "chunks" of information at a time, according to research, so skilled presenters should avoid bombarding their audiences with more than three main points. Some of the best speeches and presentations are divided into three parts. Microsoft  CEO Steve Ballmer opened the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January with a presentation that focused on the three areas "where technology had the opportunity to transform people's lives." It was well received. In early September, Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave a keynote presentation that highlighted three products: the iPhone, iPod, and iTunes -- and he had 90 minutes to do it. It also went over well. I can't repeat this enough: Eight themes in 16 minutes is simply too many.
Too many words. Many of the 68 slides in the Morgan Stanley presentation had more than 150 words each. There were so many words that in some cases the letters had to shrink to 9-point type. It's hard enough to read 9-point type from 12 inches away. Now imagine sitting in an audience 20 feet from the slides. Of course it's impossible to read. But that's not the only problem. Scientists have found that the brain interprets every letter as a picture, meaning that when you put too many words on a slide, your brain is literally choking on stimulus. It can't focus. Some experts have suggested that no slide should contain letters smaller than 30-point type. Good advice, because it's easier for your audience to read and it forces you to use fewer words. I recommend going further. Create some slides in 96-point type and use one word. (continued...)
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