Here's a use of blogging I'd never heard of before.

Bijan Sabet, general partner at Spark Capital, wrote a post on BijanBlog about a business presentation he'd received ... in the form of a blog.

That's right. Read on:

Since we started Spark, I've received business plans & presentations in a variety of formats - online demos, powerpoint, word docs, webex, online videos, games and even a cd-rom. I'm not a big fan of these types of presentations especially if it's early stage idea/company. I'd rather just talk in person and use the product (if available.)

But today I received my first business presentation in a wordpress blog.

Those of us in investor relations are already gearing up for Q4 earnings, and the longest document many of us will work on is the conference call script. 

The earnings conference call represents a valuable opportunity to directly reach out to analysts and shareholders.  Practically everyone who cares about the company's performance will either listen to the call or catch the replay.  There's a lot of pressure to perform, and the quality of management's prepared comments sets the tone.  So the script must make all your key points -- and make them clearly.

This is easier said than done.

I've seen it again and again.  Someone is giving a PowerPoint presentation and hits a dense slide that literally slows the talk to a crawl.  Eyes glaze over and Blackberrys come out.

The secret is this -- the slide must work for you, not the other way around!  There's no need to cover every point on a slide, particularly a complex one, as you can safely assume your listeners have looked at them all the first few seconds the slide went up.  Find the point or points on the slide that directly relate to the story you're trying to tell overall and simply ignore the rest.  You must do this, otherwise this one slide can threaten your whole presentation.

Yes, sometimes it does seem there's no one single point that relates to the slide that came before and the one that is to follow.  In this case, the problem is not you.  It's the slide.  Either it is misplaced or misconceived.  It has to go.