CONTENT is the single biggest source of ‘Death by PowerPoint’ and can be hell for audiences.
Cluttered content.
Irrelevant content.
Vanity-led content.
I’ve seen all kinds of content, and as one of Eyeful’s storytelling team, an essential part of my role is to spot spurious content and, ever so gently, prise it out of the hands of the presenter we’re supporting. One of the best ways of filtering content and keeping the good stuff whilst ditching the unnecessary is using the Key Message Headline (KMH) model.
KMH was developed by Eyeful’s founder, Simon Morton, as a story structure for dealing with complex, fact-heavy and technical presentations. It leans on concepts commonly used in journalism, education, and business and, with some know-how, can transform a waffly meandering presentation into a tight 7-slide structure.
DOWNLOAD OUR KEY MESSAGE HEADLINE STRUCTURE BREAKDOWN HERE.
So, how does it help clean up ‘content clutter’? Key Message Headline helps focus your content into three different groups. Think of it as sticking your existing content into three piles:
The ‘What’ Content
This is the factual stuff. It provides a robust introduction to your presentation topic and defines the ‘new state’ you want to communicate to your audience, whether it’s a change, idea, or vision.
The ‘How’ Content
This is the content that shows how your ‘new state’ will become a reality, including the measures that need to be in place and how you’re going to achieve it. Think along the lines of processes, ‘secret sauce’ IP & new ways of working.
The ‘Why’ Content
This is the reason for doing what you’re doing! Why push for this ‘new state’? What are the benefits associated with your message? If you’re struggling to define the pieces of content that sit in this pile, consider the problems your audience is facing and use this to show how your idea, product, or service is the solution.
The KMH What-How-Why model has helped me out of many a content clutter corner! This simple grouping-and-sorting process provides the clarity that is so often missing at the early stages of presentation development.
Following the KMH presentation, your content will be right where you need it to achieve your goals. This means you can look at maximising the impact even further with different presentation structures…but that’s another set of stories
Further Reading
Storytelling, The Eyeful Way: https://eyeful-archive.eyefulpresentations.com/presentation-solutions/presentation-storytelling/
Learn from the Expert Practitioners: https://eyeful-archive.eyefulpresentations.com/presentation-training-courses/
Explore the Eyeful Vault: https://eyeful-archive.eyefulpresentations.com/resources/welcome-to-the-eyeful-vault/
