Slideument. Bad things · presentations tags: A slideument is a cross between a slide deck and a document.
The idea is that you can use a single slide deck both for slides during your presentation and as a handout for people to read afterwards. The trouble is that those two needs lead to very different requirements on your slides, so you can't satisfy them both. The result is that slideuments usually fail at both. The main reason they fail is due to the amount of words and detail you need in the deck.
If people want a stand-alone document, then you can provide them with one - but it should be a different document, one that's designed for reading and not speaking. The most sensible argument I've heard in favor of slideuments is that audience expects them, even if they are useless and never read later. People do expect slides, even when they don't really make any sense, and often it's easiest just to run off a pdf.
Slideuments shouldn't be confused with Infodecks. "Slideuments" and the catch-22 for conference speakers. Slides are slides.
Documents are documents. They aren't the same thing. Attempts to merge them result in what I call the "slideument" (slide + document = slideument). Much death-by-Powerpoint suffering could be eliminated if presenters clearly separated the two in their own minds before they even started planning their talks. Projected slides should be as visual as possible and support our point quickly, efficiently (good signal-to-noise ratio), and powerfully. Above left: a slide from a presentation on gender and equality issues in Japan. If possible, make two sets of slidesWe can't fight city hall and we can't change the conference presentation guidelines quickly. Example from the 05 WOMMA conferenceHere is an example (pdf download) of simple slides (used for the live talk) that are saved with notes to a PDF.
For heaven's sake, avoid Slideuments! Here's how... If you've worked for half as long as me I'm sure you would have already noticed the incredible importance Powerpoint seems to assume in our corporate lives.
I'm also sure that you've received dozens of .PPT reports, agendas, project charters and documents in your working life. So much so, that it doesn't even seem wrong anymore! Let's take a step back -- what kind of a tool is Powerpoint again? A presentation tool. And why are we using a presentation tool to create awful documents? Why Slideumentation is just wrong! A couple of days back I chanced upon this video. "Slideuments are documents we create in a presentation tool. I'm not going to define slideuments further -- I'm sure you get the idea. We have slides that we need to present and also share with people who may miss the actual presentationWe wan't to quickly create a 'visually interesting' document using an easy to use interface.Don't worry, very very smart people create slideuments. 3 Parts to a Presentation.