This one's going to seem hypocritical. If you've seen any of my slidecasts, you know that every one of those has a title slide – but we'll get to that in a minute. Usually, this slide precedes the mandatory "About Me" slide in a talk, and it tells you what you are going to hear about and who is delivering the message.


(Of course it needs a logo!)

In reality, chances are your audience knows what they are coming to hear, and if they don't know who you are, attaching your name to a slide offers no enlightenment. Like other slides we've talked about, the title is filler. It's expected and predicable, and you want to be typified by neither of those qualities. In public settings, forego the title slide, and just dive into your material from slide one. You'll save time that is better spent on your material, and you will succeed engaging in your audience more immediately.

Explanation

Why then do my presentations have titles? Simple: first, some were made before I began adopting many of the principals I now advocate. Additionally, I find that the title slides make for nice placeholders on my presentations page. They allow you, the reader, to see the topic of the presentation and get a preview of the look and feel of that specific presentation. In this setting, it seems appropriate.

Tags: conventions, avoid