There is really no ostensible reason for me to evaluate the storytelling quality in SlideShare’s World’s Best Presentation contest winners. Storytelling was not a criterion for winning the contest, and the winners are not professed to be good examples of presentation storytelling.
But I have two reasons to give my two cents about the storytelling quality of the winning presentations:
- I have done so for all past contests.
- I have a new rubric by which to evaluate them, Nancy Duarte’s new techniques as presented in her recent book Resonate, as summarized in my post based on a presentation she did not long ago.
Duarte presents a continuum in which reports are on one end, stories are on the opposite end, and presentations are in the middle. Unfortunately, all the winning (facts-and-statistics-laden) presentations in the SlideShare contest are much more on the report end than the story end. In my opinion, in most cases, there’s no reason for them to even be presentations; they might as well be documents.
And none of the winning presentations come anywhere close to achieving the structure Duarte has developed (below) for presentations that resonate:
It seems to me that while the production values in the contest entries continue to improve, the content declines because of the lack of storytelling. None of the contest entrants seems to understand the value of story as a persuasive form of communication compared with facts and figures. The winners:
First-prize winner, SMOKE — The Convenient Truth has great production values but is entirely facts and stats, not remotely storied. Even as someone who is adamantly anti-tobacco, I was completely disengaged and could barely sit through its 79 slides. Ho-hum.
YOU SUCK AT POWERPOINT!, the second-prize winner, is a didactic how-to showing five mistakes to avoid in presentations. It’s clever and has effective PowerPoint tips, but it’s not storied. I was slightly more engaged in this one than in the first-prize winner, but I think this one is what Duarte would characterize as a document, not a presentation.
Third-prize winner Social Media for Business is also a didactic how-to with no discernible reason to be a presentation rather than a document (maybe I’d feel differently if I saw the presentation delivered live). It does get credit for a few minor story elements, mini case studies of businesses who do social media well. Despite excellent production values, I lost interest toward the end of the 82 slides.
The SlideShare contest also offered category prizes:
In the Nonprofit Organization/Government category, we get more snooze-worthy facts and stats in Stopping The Bite, about malaria prevention, although a section about how mosquitos infect people with malaria was a bit of a story. Mercifully, this presentation was only 39 slides.
The contest’s About Me Category probably lends itself best to storytelling — you’d think the category would yield the stories of individuals. The winner here, Hi, I am Bo!, starts out promisingly and intriguingly. But it turns out that “Bo” is actually a dead language, and the 38-slide presentation devolves into facts and stats.
By the time I got to the Technology Category’s Qwerty Monsters, I was mighty bored with facts and stats, and this one, about teens and texting, offered no relief. Curiously, this 42-slide document, unlike all the other winners, did not even offer a call to action, so the viewer is left thinking: So what? What would you like me to do about the fact that teens are obsessed with texting?
Seriously? The excruciatingly dull Tips on How to Pitch won in the Business Category? This 43-slide, text-heavy didactic how-to was a complete bore.
The winner in the Education Category is also the first-prize-winning SMOKE — The Convenient Truth.
Finally, in the Creative/Offbeat Category, the winner, The Best Question in the World, isn’t storied in itself, but the question it refers to, “What would happen if…?” leads to stories, or as presentation creator Betsy Streeter says, to all kinds of art. Though this one could also be considered text-heavy, it’s cute, clever, and short (34 slides). It was the only one that wasn’t difficult to sit through, and hence, my favorite.
In a future post, I’ll look at the contest SlideShare held simultaneously with the World’s Best contest and in conjunction with 3M, a Presentation Horror Story contest. Let’s see if the winners really do depict stories.
Kathy,
(For those who don’t know, I’m the author of the 3rd place presentation, “Social Media for Business”)
To be completely honest, I think you’re pretty spot-on in your critiques. Though I’ll only speak to my presentation.
Creating a presentation for SlideShare is a unique animal. It’s really the only place where a visual presentation has to be designed in a way where it’s visually intriguing and supportive of the information, while including just enough text to convey the information and ultimately live on its own.
A presentation designed for the real world wouldn’t have as much text as mine did, since the presenter would be providing the real information. On the flipside, if the presentation was intended to be consumed individually (sans presenter), it would be easier to create an eBook type document.
However, this contest focused heavily on aesthetic design and I truly believe the content was secondary. In order to win, the visual appeal had to be there, and most of my time was spent on that.
The presentation itself was actually created for a client and adapted for this contest. For the original version, the client was giving a seminar on Social Media for Business. The case studies went in to far more depth, in storytelling form, to show what could be accomplished by businesses embracing this space. However, the story was told by the presenter while staying on that one slide, thus the story wouldn’t translate to the SlideShare format unless I added many more slides, which I didn’t feel was prudent. The presentation was already quite long, and I knew if I approached 100 slides I’d scare off a few people right off the bat (even though the presentation moves very quickly).
Stories are most effective when told either in person or read in long form. From a presentation design perspective, a PowerPoint slide should only serve as a backdrop for a presenter to tell their stories, not the sole medium for the message. However, these were the contest parameters and I had to work within them.
I’m not saying that a presentation with a great story can’t be created for SlideShare. If you’re looking for a good example of a SlideShare presentation that tells a story, check out this winner from a few years back: http://www.slideshare.net/ethos3/meet-henry-94111
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jon, for this well-balanced rebuttal. You are a very good sport! I appreciate this insider insight into the SlideShare contests.
It seems as though the entire premise of the contest is flawed (“It’s really the only place where a visual presentation has to be designed in a way where it’s visually intriguing and supportive of the information, while including just enough text to convey the information and ultimately live on its own.”) How can presentations be judged in a way in which they would never exist in “real life?”
Based on aesthetic design, your slideshow absolutely is a winner. Beautifully done. I’m glad to have my suspicions confirmed that when narrated by a live presenter, the case studies were far more storied.
If I critique future contests, I need to remember “Stories are most effective when told either in person or read in long form.” Are speaker’s notes permitted in the contest? This slideshow — http://www.slideshare.net/ParkHowell/storyteller-or-marketer? — tells a phenomenal story, but can do so only through the speaker notes.
Totally agree with “a PowerPoint slide should only serve as a backdrop for a presenter to tell their stories, not the sole medium for the message.”
Yes! I know “Meet Henry”! I’d love to see more winners like that. The contest seems to be moving away from that kind of storytelling.
Thanks again for your generous willingness to comment on my negative assessment of your winning presentation.