Last week, I was reading a blog that implied that Jeff Bezos of Amazon has dispensed with powerpoint presentations in his company. The reason is that clever images fail to describe on-going stories nor do they bring home the “wow factors”. Apparently, slides have been replaced by old-fashioned 4-6 page typed out working papers.

I recalled this as I was sitting in the Google Campus in Tel Aviv on Wednesday. Eight hopefuls from the world of Cleantech were pitching. The prize was a trip for the winners to Scotland, prize money, and the opportunity to network with international investors. (And yes, one of the hopefuls was a long-time mentoring client of mine).

I should add that the lucky eight had already passed one round of selections. So I expected a high standard. And how I was disappointed. Apart from one team and my acquaintance, none of the participants brought home the presentations to those sitting in the audience.

Was that so bad? That is not just an opportunity gone begging. Think how much time (and money?) had been invested by each company on their ten ten slides. There was a range of classic mistakes: –

• Presenters wasted time by reading long texts, from boring slides.
• Slides did not support the verbal message.
• Slides had so much information, the audience could not understand the message.
• Presenters were so devoted to their slides that they barely looked at their audience.
• Presenters had not rehearsed! (This point really flummoxed me.)

I could go on. However, there was one humongous mistake, common to all. While, I understand that the slides had to keep to a certain flow or path, none of them had a takeaway. Let me explain.

You invest vast amounts of time, money and effort into creating the slides. Most people even practice what they are to deliver. The listener quickly gets it that you are involved in something fascinating. Good for you, but……so what? What is in it for them; the investor, the buyer, the decision maker?

For whatever reason, all eight spokespersons spoke about themselves, their company and their innovation. They did not address the potential needs of their audience!

Which prompts me to raise the question, invoked by Bezos: Why did the contestants need such sophisticated powerpoint presentations in the first place?