The Most Read Part of Your Presentation? The Page Number.

‍You may not know Lee Clow by name, but you’ve experienced how he helped brands tell stories. As the longtime creative leader at TBWA Worldwide, he was the mastermind behind the iconic Apple campaigns, like the 1984 Super Bowl Macintosh commercial, Think Different, the Energizer Bunny, and ‘Yo quiero Taco Bell.’” People discussed and mimicked these around dinner tables and marketing conference rooms for years.

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But even Lee struggled to get people to embrace his ideas. One of the most notable was an exchange with Steve Jobs that was recounted in Ken Segall’s book, Insanely Simple:

“At one agency meeting with Steve Jobs, we were reviewing the content of a proposed iMac commercial when a debate arose about how much we should say in the commercial. The creative team was arguing that it would work best if the entire spot was devoted to describing the one key feature of this particular iMac. Steve, however, had it in his head that there were four or five really important things to say. It seemed to him that all of those copy points would fit comfortably in a thirty-second spot.

After debating the issue for a few minutes, it didn’t look like Steve was going to budge. That’s when a little voice started to make itself heard inside the head of Lee Clow, leader of the Chiat team. He decided this would be a good time to give Steve a live demonstration.

Lee tore five sheets of paper off of his notepad and crumpled them into five balls.

’Here, Steve, catch,’ said Lee, as he tossed a single ball of paper across the table. Steve caught it, no problem, and tossed it back.

’That’s a good ad,”’ said Lee.

’Now catch this,’ he said, as he threw all five paper balls in Steve’s direction. Steve didn’t catch a single one, and they bounced onto the table and floor.

’That’s a bad ad,’ said Lee.”

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What Eye-Tracking Reveals About Your Audience

‍A few weeks ago, after one of my keynotes, I sat in on a neuroscience presentation. The client had a team studying attention and engagement in meetings and pitches. People wore glasses that tracked eye movement, measuring exactly where they looked and for how long.

The results were fascinating.

When slides were shown, there was one place the audience looked consistently and repeatedly.

The page number.

People kept gauging how much more was left. They silently calculated their endurance and unconsciously weighed whether to keep investing attention or quietly check out. While the presenter was making their most important points, the audience was essentially checking the exit signs.

This isn't a focus problem. It’s a cognitive load problem. I see this all the time, especially in data-heavy environment, where leaders rely on dashboards and dense slides. The issue isn’t the audience. It’s how the information is being delivered.

‍I wrote about quickly we lose attention. This is the next problem: what do you do with attention once you have it? Overloaded presentations don't just lose people. They bury the ideas that most deserved to be found.

This is the work I do with leaders in data-driven organizations, helping them turn complex information into clear, compelling stories that people understand, remember, and act on.

The Calorie Conservation Machine

‍Lee Clow illustrated something fundamental: the brain is selective about what it catches, and catching takes effort. It can effectively track one thing at a time. Give it too many things, and it doesn't catch half of them. It drops everything.

In The Perfect Story, I describe this as one of the brain’s five factory settings: it’s a calorie-conservation machine. When information is clear, simple, and relatable, the brain invests attention. When it’s dense and overwhelming, the brain does the rational thing and starts letting things go.

Simplicity isn't a design preference. It's a biological necessity. Yet most presentations are built from the perspective of everything we want to say, In my work with Fortune 500 leaders, I see this constantly: important ideas buried under layers of information the audience will forget within minutes.

The Editing Problem

Here's what I observe consistently: people add to presentations because they're afraid of what removing feels like. Removing a slide feels risky: what if someone notices what you left out? Cutting a data point feels uncomfortable: what if someone asks about it? Shortening the deck can feel like you're underestimating your audience. We hold onto the idea that more = credibility.

So you keep it all.

You add the appendix, include backup slides, and build three charts when one would do. Dashboards and templates become containers for as much text and as many point as possible, even shrinking the font by .5 to squeeze in a little more.

By trying to look thorough, you create confusion. There is real pressure to include more. But often, it’s pressure we put on ourselves. And what’s the value of a presentation people don’t remember?

The best communicators edit ruthlessly. They embrace the idea that your job isn’t to transfer information. It’s to create understanding. Those are not the same thing.

What Leaders Get Wrong When Assigning Presentations

Leaders, this may be uncomfortable, but you’re part of the problem.

When you assign presentations that specify the format—a dashboard or three-slide template, a ten-slide update—you signal that the container matters more than what's inside it. Templates exist for good reasons: consistency, comparability, efficiency. But when format becomes the default instead of the tool, it starts working against you. People fill the template instead of solving the communication problem. The cost is a decision that doesn’t get made, an idea that doesn’t land, or a strategy that doesn’t move.

A more effective ask is to define the outcome and let your teams determine how to get there.

Instead of:

 "Give me a ten-slide update by Thursday."

Try:

Help me understand where this project stands and what decision we need to make."

The first produces a deck. The second produces a conversation. When leaders shift the asks, teams shift their thinking. The focus on the audience, what to include, what to leave out, and how to make the message land. And the page number stops being the most interesting things on the slide.

The Simple Presentation is the Brave One

It takes longer to build a simple presentation than a comprehensive one. It requires harder choices and the confidence to stop measuring the value of your ideas by their volume. But when a presentation earns attention, the audience stops managing their endurance and starts investing it.

Lee Clow understood this. One piece of paper, sailing cleanly across the room, landing exactly where it was meant to.

That's the presentation worth building.

This is the work I bring to leadership teams, sales conferences, and executive offsites — helping organizations in data-driven industries move from information overload to clarity that drives action. If your team is struggling to make complex information land, let's talk.

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Karen Eber is an author, TED and keynote speaker, and communication strategist who works with frontline leaders, senior executives, and C-suite teams at Fortune 500 companies. She partners with teams across sales, marketing, communications, HR, finance, operations, legal, and IT. She works across industries including healthcare, technology, financial services, manufacturing, energy, consumer goods, retail, professional services, education, and nonprofits — helping leaders turn complex information into clear, compelling stories that drive decisions and action. She is the author of The Perfect Story. Learn more about her keynotes and workshops at kareneber.com/speaking.

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