A few months ago I recorded an episode for our video channel “The Business Presentation Revolution.” Initially, my content was too long to fit in the 3 to 4 minutes running time that we had planned. Looking at my script, I realized that many sentences could be simplified, some details omitted, and the structure streamlined.
After several dry runs and rewrites, we finally managed to get the video down to 3 minutes. But this once again demonstrated that creating a good short video takes a lot more effort than creating a long one.
This is true for almost every TED, TEDx or Keynote presentation. It’s very unusual to have to lengthen a speech. Most of the time, we have to cut it down to get to the core of the message and to avoid exceeding the maximum time allowed. Rambling is cheap, conciseness precious.
The next time you prepare a presentation, ask yourself: when was the last time your audience wished it was longer? What can I remove? What can I simplify? Instead of adding one more detail, remove what is not indispensable. Instead of trying to cram one more graph in the last blank square centimeter, remove everything that is not needed. This will greatly improve your presentation.
