The 10 Minute Rule of Presentation

A presentation must change pace and shake things up at least every 10 minutes to maintain an audience’s focus and attention. 

The above rule of thumb is usually attributed these days to John Medina’s excellent book, Brain Rules, and is also discussed by Garr Reynolds, Nancy Duarte and others.

Certainly, it’s hard to disagree that our attention spans are shortening. (I probably don’t need to go into the Twitterfication of communication and media overload to make this argument.)

But how does this work in practice, and what can a presenter do to maintain his or her audience’s engagement?

A few weeks ago at Edelman, we held our annual NY office all staff meeting—essentially a 2 1/2 hour presentation for 600+ people. The greatest compliment we received afterward was one overheard in the elevator from one of our (very) young interns: “I thought I was going to be bored at such a long meeting,” she said, “but there were so many speakers with different styles of presenting and so many surprises that the time just flew by. I was totally engaged.”* 

So, how did we keep that Millennial from falling asleep? Here’s a condensed breakdown of our meeting...

• President’s introduction (no slides, pin spot lighting, 5 minutes)
• 16 short “case studies” presented in the audience by employees (no slides, 5 min.)
• New speakers (duo)/award announcements (1 slide, 3 min.)
• Video (2 min.)
• Video (2 min.)
• New speaker (4 slides; 5 min.)
• President (3 slides; 6 minutes)
• New speaker (12 slides, 4 min.)
• New speaker (12 slides, 4 min.)
• New speaker (12 slides, 4 min.)
• President (4 slides, 8 min.)
• New speaker (6 slides, 5 min.)
• New speaker (1 slide, audience poll/participation, 6 min.)
• New speaker (10 slides, 6 min.)
• Moderated panel (18 min.)
• New speaker (award announcement, 2 min.)
• Video (2 min.)
• New speakers (trio) including video (6 slides, 7 min.)
• New speaker (no slides, 5 min.)
• New speaker (1 slide, 1 prop, 7 min.)

Techniques for Implementing the 10 Minute Rule

Here’s a list of things you can do to break your presentation up and maintain engagement. I’ve bolded every technique we used at our offsite meeting... 

• Black slide
• Video
• Change of speaker/guest speaker
• Audience question/poll
• Q&A
• Workbook exercise
• Change of lighting/set
• Prop/visual aid
• Write on whiteboard/easel
• Hand out a prize
• Physical audience participation (i.e. standing or moving)
• Move to a new location in room
• Play a song or other audio 

And here’s my list when I present... 

• Black slide
• Video
• Change of speaker/guest speaker
• Audience question/poll
• Q&A
• Workbook exercise
• Change of lighting/set
• Prop/visual aid
• Write on whiteboard/easel
• Hand out a prize
• Physical audience participation (i.e. standing or moving)
• Move to a new location in room
• Play a song or other audio 

So, if you still think that you can get up with 100 slides and do nothing but talk for 2 hours, then you better be this guy...

*Actually, to be honest, there was one point where our intern did admit that her mind started to wander. Can you guess where...?