When it comes to benches, they're all pretty standard, right? 4 (or so) legs with a place for your butt and maybe a place to lean your back. When have you stopped and said, "that's a pretty average bench"? Never, because nobody notices something they've seen a million times. When have you even noticed a bench?
Business presentations today are like benches. They differ a little in color and materials, but overall they're basically the same. Standard corporate template. Titles on the top of the slide, followed by bullet points below. Maybe there's an image to the side (exactly where the PowerPoint template tells you to put it). Tiny logo in the corner that you can't make out and don't care about anyways. Since they're all the same, audiences tune them out.
But what if you really thought about the design of your bench? Not just form and function, but took the time to design your bench in a way totally different from all the other benches. What if you ditched the "ordinary" and created something remarkable...something extraordinary?
What if you saw one of these extraordinary benches? You'd notice it, right?
As Seth Godin says in the Purple Cow, "Either you're remarkable or you're invisible." With some basic presentation design principles and some sweat equity, you can create remarkable presentations (that get noticed!) too.
