[disclaimer: this is a DRAFT post, anyone who read my last blaugust post will recognise this, they less edited and less coherent than the others, and in this case not even a full blog post, just the first part] If you have been at any conferences you have most likely encountered it. The talk, which is interesting but the speaker is a bit slow talking, and after 10 minutes it is really hard to not look down at the phone. And oops, now you missed something important. And this is a topic you’re interested in?! Why? Main reason is probably that most people aren’t that good at doing presentations. (Let’s ignore those who are naturally gifted at storytelling and focus on the rest of us). First public speaking is scary, second doing presentations is hard. But I was wondering, if it’s so scary and hard, why is the most common format (at least for tech conferences) a 45 minute monologue with a slideshow? Is there really no better format? And if there is, why aren’t people using them? Is it because people who went to higher education got most of their teachings this way. So they concluded because schools do it, it must be the best way? Or is it just the easiest way? Someone who does a lot of speaking said that shorter presentations are harder. I think that is true for most cases. If you have a lot of time you have time to include all the parts, bio, intro, content. Lots of content. And slideshows? They are great for distracting the audience so they don’t look at you. Especially if you fill them with small text, they have to focus real hard on it and not look at you, or hear what you’re talking about. So the 45 minute slideshow fest is good for the speaker, but not always good for the audience. There must be a better way? Yes. TED talk figure it out. 18 minutes max. But shorter is harder. There must be a better and easier way? Probably, I have some ideas. I think audience participation is the easiest way to make a presentation more engaging. Now when we have stated the problem, I’ll expand on it in another blog post.