Hypnotizing your audience with a series of text-heavy slides is not a good way to share information or spark useful discussions. The four alternatives discussed in this ebook can lead to a more dynamic, fruitful presentation.

From the ebook:

It’s become a ritual of sorts. A speaker walks into a meeting room and before exchanging a single pleasantry begins searching for a projector cable (that invariably requires an adapter that can’t be located), furiously messing with their laptop to shouts of “Try Alt-Function-F5! Maybe it’s Ctrl-Backslash-F2!” and silently praying that computer, cabling, projector, and screen all work in harmony to blast a slideshow onto the screen. Fast forward a few minutes, and those who haven’t taken to staring at their phones are daydreaming of a dozen places they’d rather be while the speaker reads eight-point font in monotone from slide number 184.

It might be comical if the above scenario were not so common, with millions of hours wasted each day either creating or presenting slides that do little to convey a few key points, advance an agenda, or compel an audience to action. The dirty secret of slides is that they’re usually to the benefit of the presenter rather than the audience. Creating a slideshow helps the presenter structure their thoughts, and the shows are often used as speaker’s notes—regularly evidenced by the presenter who looks over their shoulder and reads bullet points verbatim from their slides. This status quo is unhelpful to both audience and presenter.

If you’re going to expend the time and energy to call a meeting, here are some suggestions for breaking out of the slideshow slog.