...and this blog post title is way, way too long.
Check the below image, spotted over the weekend on Business Insider's piece titled Here's The Entire Debate About The US Economy In One Huge Slide:
The slide presents, (simply I admit), what the financial services company sees as the key assumptions and challenges for the US economy in 2014, offers up some alternative and plausible implications of these assumptions, and then presents what it feels are the most important data visualizations (that are not too hard to look at), that support both the assumptions and the conclusions.
Think about it, they are attempting to distill a subject as large and complex as the economy of the USA down into one slide. Sure there are lots of data points and subject areas that are not and can't be covered in just one slide, and sure, the presentation gurus out there will cringe at the notion that there are way too many words in way too small a font to pass muster, but the overall effect I think is outstanding.
All the important data points, the reasoning, the charts - everything that this presenter needed to lead his/her talk about the state of the economy all laid out on one page.
I know I have gotten into a really bad presenting habit over the years of simply adding more and more slides to just about every presentation that I have done. Slides are free, right? Just add another one with a cool picture and a word or two in 64-pt font.
But I think that approach makes you a little lazy and also can easily result in ponderous presentations that end up going everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
The tightness and the focus required to distill your content into its smallest container possible also forces you to consider what is truly important about the information and arguments you are presenting and to think much more about what you are going to say about that content, rather than spending umpteen hours scouring the stock photo sites for the 'right' images.
This has to be the next HRevolution contest - the 10 minute, one-slide presentation.
Have a great week all!