Don’t make things any more complicated than necessary

As shown above, when you make a presentation into a circus, you risk losing your audience. (Facing them also will help).




If instead you can simplify your main point to where it can be presented by drawing three concentric circles on a flip chart, like Simon Sinek did in his 2009 Start With Why TEDx talk, then that’s what you should do.

You really don’t need to overdo it with a three-stage PowerPoint animation sequence. Conversely if you are training radiologists or pathologists how to recognize subtle features on images, you may need a rather long and sophisticated PowerPoint presentation.

At this year’s Grammy awards two nominees for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year were Sam Smith’s Stay With Me and Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off. Stay With Me, with it’s drum heartbeat and church choir chorus won both. That chorus simply is:

“Oh, won't you stay with me?
'Cause you're all I need
This ain't love, it's clear to see
But darling, stay with me.” 

The more complicated chorus for Shake It Off is:

“Cause the players gonna play, play, play
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate
Baby I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake
Shake it off
Heartbreakers gonna break, break, break
And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake
Baby I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake
Shake it off, Shake it off.”

The circus image came from the Library of Congress.