Microspeak: Drain the slide, back-up slides

This article discusses the term 'drain the slide' in the context of presentations at Microsoft, explaining its implications and the reasons behind its usage. It highlights the tension between using slides as visual aids and as reference materials.

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Recall that Microspeak is not merely for jargon exclusive to Microsoft, but it’s jargon that you need to know to survive at Microsoft. Even if you don’t use it yourself, you need to know what it means when others say it.

To drain the slide is, as Mark Myers explains it , reading the contents of a slide to the audience when giving a presentation. At least at Microsoft, the term is frequently used by a speaker in the negative, such as “I don’t want to drain the slide here…”

My theory is that the phenomenon of draining the slide has multiple sources.

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