Fear of Looking Too Good?
August 17th, 2007I spoke to a client today that said his boss and management team was very conservative in thier “look”. They did not like anything to fancy or polished. He said they refrain from too much creativity because they are afraid of looking too good and people thinking they spent too much money to look good. This was an executive in a Fortune 500 company.
This is nuts. These people don’t get the difference between a “pretty” slide vs an effective slide. The idea is to develop a visual that effectively communicates your message. That means the audience gets it quickly, or easy to comprehend and remember.
Maybe these companies that use this excuse for boring, ugly, distracting slides (but look like they did them themselves – cheap) would not be in such cost cutting modes if they had a culture that made the most of thier critical meeting time with effective visuals.
I have often wondered if I could create an investment fund based on the quality of the companies visuals – I would bet it could be a good indicator of a companies health and future.