Earlier today we put on a program connecting executives from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta with health IT startups from the Atlanta Tech Village. Seven startups had 15 minutes each — five minutes to present and 10 minutes of Q&A — followed by lunch at the end. Most of the presenters used slides with limited product demos. While the event was a success and everyone received value, five out of seven startups used slides on the big screens that were designed as handouts, not for presentations.

Here are a few thoughts on slides for presentations, as different from slides for handouts:

• Slides should have minimal text (I like to have no more than 10 words)
• Font sizes shouldn’t be smaller than half the oldest age in the audience (e.g. if someone in the audience is 60, the font size shouldn’t be smaller than 30)
• Tell a compelling story while still getting to the value proposition quickly
• Make the…