I think it was Rodd Lucier that told me ‘Slides are free’ after I did a presentation at a conference at Niagara Falls 6 years ago. I came off stage and asked for feedback and that’s what he said.

To give it some context, I had shared a slide with more than one idea on it, like this:

And then I quickly discussed each idea. It’s ok to share a slide like this for context, but then instead of talking about all 3 quickly on the same slide, I could have had three more slides, one for each idea. Here is the first example:

It costs nothing to add that slide, and 2 more like it, to my presentation deck. It’s a way to declutter what the audience is looking at, and let’s them focus on what exactly I’m talking about.

With tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom calls there is a loss of screen size for the presentation being shown, due to the webinar frame around the screen-share window. Words that are too small, or images of items that take up less than a third of the page become unreadable and decorative rather than functional. Too many words? Increase the font size and put the information on 2 or 3 slides. Breaking down a concept? Sure you can share a slide with the 3-4 ideas or images on it, but then add 3-4 more slides with each idea shared individually.

The extra slides are free, and the separated and uncluttered ideas on the slides are freeing for the presenter, and the audience.