Oct 24, 2022
Stop boring your audience with wordy presentation decks — start using these 15 alternatives today
What if you could model a presentation after your favorite childhood game?
How many presentations have you attended over the past two and a half years? 50? 100? More than 100?
How many of them stood out? How many did you enjoy attending?
Standard templates often lead to standard presentations. In business, sometimes you have to use the company template and branding, and that’s okay! It doesn’t mean the format of your presentations has to be the same as everyone else’s.
These 15 creative ideas will help you spice up your approach while still following the rules. You might even decide to combine more than one!
Business-focused — #1 Case study, #2 Lessons learned, #3 Hypothesis
Technical — #4 Live demo, #5 Mini hackathon
Multimedia & games — #6 Video, #7 Favorite childhood game, #8 Trivia game, #9 Live debate
Data-driven — #10 Industry data comparison, #11 Data visualization, #12 Interactive dashboard
Learning-focused — #13 Hands-on workshop, #14 One-on-one interview, #15 Multi-guest panel
Business-focused
#1— Celebrate with a case study
Format: Showcase an in-depth examination of a successful solution in a real-world context.
Tips:
- Highlight the supporting data and return on investment (ROI) for your solution.
- Create a one-page summary of your success story to share with colleagues or customers.
- Dig deeper by combining this with a Q&A session with the project team.
Benefits: Everyone loves a success story. Show your audience why they should partner with you to achieve their biggest goals.
#2 — Share lessons learned
Format: Share lessons learned at the end of a project so others can consider their own future actions.
Tips:
- Keep the focus on “do this, not that” lessons rather than a deep dive into the whole project.
- Distill your lessons into concrete sentences or memorable themes.
- Link any useful resources or templates your audience can leverage.
Benefits: Sharing successes and misses pays dividends over time. Expand your impact by helping others succeed based on your tried-and-true experiences.
#3 — Propose a hypothesis
Format: Share a future-focused approach to gain buy-in from stakeholders.
Tips:
- Reference data sources that contributed to your approach to create clarity and transparency.
- State which problems you will and will not be addressing, especially if it’s a long-term effort.
- Include what you hope the outcome will be, as well as which variables could prevent that outcome.
Benefits: Identify blind spots and pitfalls before embarking on a strategic project. Provide stakeholders with a focused opportunity to raise concerns and communicate priorities.
Technical
#4 — Perform a live demo
Format: Perform a live walk-through of the typical workflow of a product, feature, or service.
Tips:
- Open each step in the workflow in a separate tab to transition seamlessly and avoid internet lag.
- Have a pre-recorded or slide version of the demo in case the technology fails on presentation day.
- Experiment with opportunities for your audience to follow along and recreate the experience on their own.
Benefits: Help your audience imagine using your service as part of their workflow. Identify end-user priorities and address obstacles firsthand.
#5— Host a mini hackathon
Format: Pose a challenging problem. Encourage your audience to suggest innovative solutions in a pre-defined time.
Tips:
- This does not have to be long! You can come up with a lot of starter ideas in one hour with a thoughtful prompt.
- Create a shared collaboration space so participants can discuss ideas in real time.
- Invite many teams across varying levels to support well-rounded approaches.
Benefits: Crowdsource solutions to solve complex challenges. Incorporate diverse experiences and use cases that may otherwise go unaddressed.
Multimedia & games
#6— Film a video or documentary
Format: Create an original video, documentary, or photo reel. Or, recreate a snippet of your favorite TV show, a movie scene, or a social media trend.
Tips:
- If your video will play live alongside other content, keep it to three minutes or less. Think of it as a trailer for the full content.
- Provide reflection or discussion questions to spark conversation amongst your audience.
- Plan early for help needed with scripting, editing, and branding. Don’t wait until the last minute!
Benefits: Trade slides for rich multimedia content to bring your story to life. Pop culture’s easy shareability often keeps us coming back for more!
#7 — Model it after your favorite childhood game
Format: Use the mechanics of your favorite game to present your topic. If you enjoy crafts, make it a physical prototype. If you know how to code, create a digital version for your audience to play online.
Tips:
- Solo games are great for offline exploration. Team-based ones are great for larger online or in-person events.
- You are not limited to board games — think big!
- Consider making it tournament-style or having a leaderboard to extend its visibility.
Benefits: Tapping into childhood memories can make work feel like play. Help your audience have fun while taking in new information. The marketing will take care of itself once people hear about it!
#8 — Create a customized trivia game
Format: Play a competition game with various question types for the topics at hand. Audience members can play alone or in teams, for fun or for prizes.
Tips:
- Vary your question types to keep things interesting.
- Avoid trick questions — nothing ruins a game like feeling foolish.
- This can be low tech or high tech — paper and pen is just as fun as an online quiz tool!
Benefits: Sometimes, guessing wrong is more memorable than getting the answer right. Audience members can show off their knowledge or learn a lot about a topic they don’t know about in a new way.
#9 — Have a debate
Format: A time-boxed discussion where participants express their opposing views on a topic.
Tips:
- Choose debaters with different enough views to spark a conversation.
- Establish rules to guide respectful behavior from both the debaters and your audience.
- Decide if you will be choosing a winner or acknowledging both positions as plausible.
Benefits: Explore important topics in a high-energy way. Develop debaters’ speaking and persuasion skills. Think critically about different perspectives and allow others to form their own conclusions.
Data-driven
#10 — Provide an industry data comparison
Format: Use industry research to compare your business to trends and competitors.
Tips:
- Don’t exaggerate your results! Always report your sources accurately.
- Use a large enough dataset to tell the whole story of the industry.
- Follow any guidance from your company on naming exact competitors and categories.
Benefits: Competition is often a driver for innovation. Inspire your audience with opportunities to improve based on real industry benchmarks.
#11 — Show a static data visualization
Format: Present a visual representation of data showing the output of a project.
Tips:
- Transform typical bullet conclusions into branded charts and graphs.
- Use the data to tell a story, pointing out insights along the way.
- Use limited slide text to support your main points.
Benefits: You don’t need specialized tools. Blocks of text become visual data representing the level of impact. Audience members will be less overwhelmed and more attentive to the speaker.
#12 —Build an interactive data dashboard
Format: An interactive dashboard enables you to manipulate data in real time to show outcomes and demonstrates how variables impact the business in a visual way.
Tips:
- If you don’t have specialized tools, build it in a spreadsheet or as slide animations.
- You can ask for audience input to test hypotheses or use pre-determined scenarios.
- Remember to lock baseline editing privileges to avoid deleting data.
Benefits: Visible outputs create a sense of urgency to take a particular action. Speakers receive recognition for clear positive impacts on the business.
Learning-focused
#13 — Teach a hands-on learning workshop
Format: These can be live, in-person, hybrid, or virtual sessions with small or large groups. Build a cohort-based asynchronous experience with collaborative communication or learning tools.
Tips:
- For technical topics, provide practice environments for programming.
- Consider what kind of interactions you want based on your audience distribution. Should it be synchronous or asynchronous?
- This can still work without a formal learning team! People can play several roles depending on the makeup of the team offering the training.
Benefits: Subject matter experts gain recognition and grow their brands. Audience members internalize the outcomes and apply them to their work. The company preserves institutional knowledge.
#14 — Moderate a one-on-one interview
Format: Use prepared questions or an ask-me-anything format featuring questions from the audience.
Tips:
- If your video conferencing tool of choice has a Spotlight feature, use it!
- You could model this after a popular talk show format to inspire the tone and flow of the event.
- Good-quality recordings can become podcast episodes.
Benefits: Opportunities for audience interaction mean more engagement. With only one guest, you can go deep with questions to create a sense of relatability.
#15 — Assemble a multi-guest panel
Format: Live, moderated discussion questions on a meaningful topic. Panelists receive only light guidance on answer length.
Tips:
- Stick to two to four panelists to ensure everyone can respond to questions.
- Balance authenticity and production quality with a run-through rehearsal to mitigate day-of issues.
- Encourage panelists to interact with each other when relevant.
Benefits: Your audience will learn from several people in the same amount of time as a typical one-person talk.
The next time you create a presentation, pause before you open your tool of choice. Identify what you want your audience to think, feel, and do after they leave to help you choose your approach. While it will take longer to use one of these formats, the benefits outweigh the cost. Give your audience an experience they’ll remember long after the next 100 events they attend.
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