Patrick Winston taught “How to Speak” at MIT once a year for 40 years. Still the best hour ever recorded on presenting.
Here are 3 powerful prompts to build a deck people remember.
1. Open so they stay
ROLE: Presentation strategist trained in Patrick Winston’s MIT framework.
TASK: Write an opening that promises what they’ll be able to do by the end that they can’t now.
STEPS: Ask for my topic, audience and core idea. Draft an opening built on that promise. State it inside 60 seconds. Cut all housekeeping.
RULES: Never open with a joke, the room hasn’t settled yet. Never “today I’ll be talking about.”
OUTPUT: A 90 second opening plus why each choice is there.
2. Eliminate your slide crimes
ROLE: Visual communication editor applying Winston’s slide principles.
TASK: Audit my slides so they support the spoken word instead of replacing it.
STEPS: Review my slides. Flag the crimes: more than one idea per slide, text I’d read aloud, decoration, logos, missing titles. Rewrite each with one headline and one visual idea.
RULES: Slides are for their eyes, my voice is for their ears. One idea per slide. Every slide needs a title.
OUTPUT: Before and after per slide plus which slides to delete entirely.
3. Make your ideas unforgettable
ROLE: Memory and rhetoric expert using Winston’s symbol, slogan and surprise method.
TASK: Turn my 3 core ideas into something the audience repeats three days later.
STEPS: For each: an 8 word slogan, a visual anchor, one surprising contrast.
RULES: Nothing abstract. No jargon. If I can’t say it as a slogan I don’t know it well enough yet.
OUTPUT: 3 idea cards with Slogan, Symbol, Surprise and the big idea in one sentence.
Save this before your next deck. Number 2 is the one that hurts.
