I’m often asked about my favorite all-time speeches or presentations. There are the obvious speakers who make the top lists: Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Steve Jobs, for example. There are others whose TED talks have been viewed by millions: Hans Rosling, Benjamin Zander, and Sir Ken Robinson.

Have you ever thought what would happen if any of these legendary speakers used standard, terrible slides? Slides with lots of bullets, poor images, dense tables? What if, for example, Steve Jobs used this slide to announce the Macbook Air in his 2008 Macworld address? Jobs never would have stood for it, but it wouldn’t be out of place in an academic seminar room.

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Now that my book, Better Presentations: A Guide for Scholars, Researchers, and Wonks, has hit bookshelves, I want to have some fun with presentations. And I want to give you a chance to win a free copy.

So let’s do this.

The challenge I’m putting out is to create the worst slide for a famous speech or speaker. Send me your images on Twitter using the hashtag #worstslide or via the comments section below. I’ll leave the submission window open until the end of the year–midnight (EST) on December 31st. I’ll then pick my favorite entry and send that person a free, signed copy of my book. 

 

Need some inspiration? Check out Peter Norvig’s hilarious version of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

And download all you can from the book including worksheets, checklists, PPT files, icons, and more, by visiting the Better Presentations section of the site.