Blog Post: Slide Re-Use is Audience Abuse!

Today's subject is all about whether you should re-use other people slides in your PowerPoint deck. 

   

This is a once good practice that has been terribly abused.  It all starts innocently enough, say John gives a great presentation and then Fred finds out about it and then asks to borrow the deck so they can use it in their presentation.  Then a couple of things generally happen.

1. Fred inserts John's complete so slide deck into the middle of their own already 40 slide presentation and proceed to make some monster mega deck.  The resulting bastardized deck no longer has a coherent story framework and is often just way too long.
2. Fred has no idea how to present John's slides because John did not do complete slide notes.  John just handed over the slides to Fred with no supporting information.  When Fred presents the slides he reads directly from every slide because that’s all the information he has to present with.  And so the audience abuse continues.

     

So what can a presenter do?

 

First, don't reuse someone else's slides if you can avoid it.  Period.  But like every good rule there are always exceptions and here is how I like to think about each one.

• LIMIT THE TOTAL NUMBER OF REUSED SLIDES:  Don't copy someone else's slide deck in its entirety and just re-use it.  Usually I will select a few slides that I really need and use them.  I never reuse a whole deck.  There are two exceptions to this rule.
  1.  Teaching - Is someone has constructed a great classroom presentation I will use it in its entirety as long as it comes with good slide notes so I'm not just reading from the screen.  I will usually rework some of the examples and stories in the deck so they are personalized in my voice, using my stories and experience. 
  2.  Pitching - Same with a Pitch deck, especially sales decks.  It is a good practice, but whenever I give someone a pitch deck I will spend an hour with them teaching them the story behind the deck and make sure they personalize it.
• THE SINGLE CANONICAL SLIDE:  One other good practice when re-using slides is to simply pick that one canonical slide from the other person's deck and use it in a framing slide.  One of the most common scenarios that exist is that someone in your organization will have created a single great slide that somehow explains your organizations current strategy.  These are great slides to reuse as when you are framing your own story, such as when you might need to do a nod to your company's larger strategy.  One note though, use it quickly and move on.  Don't dwell on it as it is simply a framing slide for your later argument.
• INCLUDE NOTES:  I never give slides to another presenter without good notes and talking points.  A well designed slide is often just the top level point you are trying to drive home and there is often significant text needed to properly frame and explain that top level point.  Whenever I reuse myself or give someone a slide to reuse, it is a good idea to have these notes and talking points lest you become simply another poor presenter who can only read the text on the slide to your audience.
• IMPROVE THE SLIDE DON’T JUST REUSE IT:  I almost always improve any slide that I'm given.  One of the side benefits of this is that when I rework a slide, I become intimately familiar with the content and the context in which I are going to reuse it.

  

Best Practice:  I never reuse a slide that doesn't fit neatly within my story frame.  Remember that you are trying to tell a cogent story and if you include a slide that detracts from your story you weaken your argument.  This is the penultimate reason for including or not including a slide that you want to reuse.

  

  

One last thought.  I like to think of presenters at the 100, 200, 300, and the 500 level.  

• *100 level are those that are new to presenting and are new to their roles. 
• *200 level are presenters who have done a fair amount of presenting and are comfortable, but not especially technically proficient at putting together a great visual presentation. 
• *300 level are advanced presenters who can put together good story frames, good visuals, and deliver well. 
• *500 level are the experts and generally work in senior communications roles doing very advanced presentations. 

  

100 and 200 level presenters are the biggest abusers of slide reuse.  If this is where you are at, please don't just reuse.  Take into account what I've laid out here today if you are going to reuse someone else's slides.

 

Ping me back on email and let me know how well it works for you.

 

DK

mailto:dkarle@microsoft.com

Melissa George Cameron Richardson Chandra West Kasey Chambers Megan Ewing