So, Oracle and a company called Autonomy are having a dust-up, a legal imbroglio if you will. And to make a point, some point I’m not interested in taking the time to understand, Oracle released a slide deck that they had at one point sent to the people at Autonomy.
Here is one of the Oracle slides:
I mean, really. Let’s ignore the egregious use of “addressable” as an adjective and focus on the curious, yet common, practice, of cramming way too much ‘information” into one slide. Why would you do that? This one slide is addressing at least four points. There is no shortage of blank PowerPoint slides.
Here’s a rule of thumb. Use one slide for each point you are trying to make, or for each chunk of information you are trying to share. The only exception is when you have two ideas (or data) that have a causal (or other type of) relationship that must be seen in tandem to be understood.
Let me sum up, in Oracle-speak: under-utilization of additional slides and insistence on robotic jargon create a large and meaningful addressable opportunity to communicate more like actual human beings trying to create mutual understanding.
Also, this is my favorite slide in the deck:
