Are Your Presentations Now A Third Off?

I note a new instruction. TED Talks. Remember them? Once owning the web.

They were famed for being twenty minutes of wonder.

The distillation of a meaningful marvel for our curiosity. Often with the point of making us think differently about ourselves and our surrounds. As from the initials used, 'they aimed to spread 'ideas worth spreading' and explore the convergence of technology, entertainment, and design (TED) and how these fields were changing the world'.

I can imagine 'thinkers' at the time of its online launch moaning about the 'dumbification' of learning. Given these new cyber mini-lectures were a whacking two-thirds shorter than an actual one in a Uni hall.

What would they say today?

For that once coveted viral-ensuring slot of 19 minutes, gets sliced down to 13.

Yes, the time to inspire action on your life-changing big idea now reduced by a third.

One presenter when enquiring on the change was apparently informed, 'well, the world’s average attention span has shrunk'.

Our overall 'attrition of attention' attributed as you might guess, to any or all of smartphones, social gamification, multi-screening (I loath CPA), x1.5 speed playback and short clip dopamine hits.

I read academic and writer on this topic, Jonathan Bate, refer to "thinning". The tendency to gravitate towards the ever shorter. Applicable across whatever program, information or dare I say any 'commitment'.

The renowned novelist of TED reveal above, Elif Shafak, considers this a dead-end for humanity. She observes we cannot absorb these volumes of 'hyper-information'. Making us 'tired, numb and demoralised'. With ultimate warning; 'we stop caring, we stop responding, we stop processing'. [sub'n req'd].

Do you even still run a slideshow?

The past five years, I've moved towards workshopping alone. Hotly focused on the issue of concern ripe for my uniquely unleash-able resolution.

I recall the 'site seller' flip-pad to carousel projection corporate overview of the past. We've seen our own Sales evolution from those.

"The 3 Things You Need To Know About Us"-type treatments.

Then there's movements like PechaKucha with their 6-minute 40-seconds too.

And bringing out the singular 'solution framework' slide alone.

I wonder if someone really wants to hear you deliver a narrative, then perhaps we should also now limit this to thirteen minutes tops. Citing TED's trimming as our rationale. Probably.

Does it mean many a meaningful phone or video call ought now be rather scheduled as a 13-minuter? Possibly.

Yet consider the TED format. It's a one-big-idea event. With no Q&A. So if we wish to similarly frame a sole point, then maybe we too need to cut the allotted time down.

I was once involved in a day-long conference a long while back where each slot was indeed twenty minutes. You could leave time for questions at the end if desired. I saw no-one did. I was purposely different. Coincidentally, the split was around 13 minutes for the deck. It worked then, can it work now?

And let's not forget the counter. Engagement sessions are one thing. Yet longform async work is entirely another. And can also be a most useful qualification tool.

Value super-info over its misleading hyper sort.