Bullet points in the age of video calls
Most video calls at the moment are between small audiences that know each other, discussing internal issues of a company (i.e., not the global launch of the next iPhone).
Maybe a bullet point slide can work in these situations (yes, you hear this from someone who considers himself a presentation expert).
They are quick to put together, especially now that your brilliant PowerPoint guru is not sitting next to you
They make it easy to refer to an element in the chart when you cannot point at it. (Try doing this in a sophisticated management consulting framework)
They fit in the current sober culture, where showing this really flashy presentation might leave people wondering whether all that effort and time could have been spent better elsewhere
But in a video call with insiders you can adjust your presentation style:
Give everyone a few seconds to read through the text for themselves. (I.e. don’t read them out, the audience can read much faster than you can speak)
Then verbally highlight what’s important (“As you see in point 2, we postponed the launch to September, and in point 5, I added Harry to the team”), then open up for discussion.
Pay attention how you write the bullet points: long verbose points full of fluff wont’ work, super short summaries are too vague
Make those bullet points look decent: spread out over the page, readable font size, equally spaced out
Note the audience setting here, you won’t win that $10m RFP with a bunch of quickly slapped together bullet points. The audience does not know you, does not know the story, and here, showing that you made a lot of effort in itself will give you points, even on a video call.
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