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3 Ways Presenters Lose Their Audience With Old Data
It’s a new year — time to update that slide deck!
I was sitting in a class that my company had paid a presenter good money to teach.
They were one of those gurus on project management. They came to a slide with a some statistics on it and I looked at the footnote and saw the statistics were from 2015.
2015… it’s 2024!
When you use charts, graphs, or statistics you need to update them to the most current year — otherwise three things happen within the minds of your audience.
Revolution in the Ranks
If you are using these numbers in a piece of data to prove a point — it may not work since the outcome has shifted in the last 5 years.
Presentations usually have a main point and then several items to back up the initial hypothesis. If your data is wrong then that whole section of the lecture is moot. Your audience will start to dissent and then you will lose their attention.
Anyone can access the internet on their phone, so don’t go into a classroom or lecture hall with out of date supporting data that people can instantly access the latest figures and prove you wrong.
