Arrive Magazine - November/December, 2009

“the dominant way people communicate,” says Rashmi Sinha, CEO of SlideShare—an online community that enables presenters to upload and share Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote or OpenOffice presentations. About 12 million people visit the site each month.

“If slide presentations were not effective, not so many people would be using them,” Sinha says. “The problem is not the tool but when people pack too much information into a presentation and it becomes boring.”

Everybody creates presentations that end up sitting on their hard drives, she adds. “SlideShare is about sharing

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those ideas.” The site also functions as a social network, where members may add “friends” and restrict viewing of certain presentations to only their contacts. Some members join groups related to specific presentations or themes, such as real estate or travel.

“People who share an interest in the content can then interact with one another,” Sinha says.

Certainly, slide shows are ideal when presenting to a large audience, agrees Joe Gentry, senior vice president of Software AG. When it comes to meeting with customers for the first time, however, Gentry says he finds that the whiteboard technique is more personal and conversational.

“Our salespeople are still following a script, but the whiteboard provides them with the freedom to walk around and engage the customer,” he stresses. “You’ve only got one shot to get your story across in a way that is compelling.”