Kill Presentations.

When is a narrative format is better?

I love presenting.

But I love ideas more.

And agencies love a good presentation. In fact, I see "must be a stellar presenter" written in job descriptions all the time.

But there's a problem with that. The way you tell (sell) your story can make all the difference.

A good presenter will always win, even if the idea is bad.

(I would encourage any advertising leader to read this book. Much of what I learned at Amazon is covered here.)

The death of PowerPoint

Amazon's decision to kill PowerPoint [persoanlly was a bit harsh from my creative pov] has allowed them to keep up with the rapid growth and complexity of their business.

Buy the book.

What's Wrong with Using PowerPoint? [Or Keynote.]

It began at S-Team level [Jeff’s direct reports] when they started using six-page narratives instead. [Long form copy, in 10.5pt, I have examples if you want to see them.]

Leadership meetings (especially ad agency) of any type typically begin with a PowerPoint and Excel doc presentation that describes a proposal, situation or business analysis. All presentations share the constraints imposed by the PowerPoint format.

No matter the complexity of the underlying issue, all business problems are presented as a series of small blocks of text, short bullet-pointed lists, or images.

The widely accepted rules of PowerPoint include a minimum of 20pt type and a maximum of 6 bullet points per slide.

"The format forces presenters to condense their ideas. And thus important information is left out."

The speaking skills of the presenter have a highly variable effect on how well their ideas are understood.

Ad Agencies and Clients

The marketing and advertising world has become much more scaled, complex, and multivariate than, say, ten years ago. And as the consequences are now greater, leaders need more information to explore. Unfortunately, such analysis is not well served by a systematic progression of sparsely worded slides.

Amazon narratives sometimes include graphs and bulleted lists, where essential to brevity and clarity,

Ideas. Not Presenters. [Ideas First.]

Don't get me wrong; there is still a place for visually stunning presentations. But not always. And a switch to a narrative format for business, team, organization and opportunities places the team's ideas first, instead of speaking and design skills, might make sense at the right time.

For more on how to act Amazonian, and grow like Amazon, look here.