If I was a betting man, I’d bet PowerPoint is going to turn mankind into zombies. Why are we so addicted to using PowerPoint (or anything showing slide after slide of bulleted information) when our initial gut reactions to viewing one is dread? Maybe it’s because PowerPoint is our only real experience with information presentation—introduced first in school and then reinforced at work. If you’ve become a bullet point abuser or just want to spice up your presentations, check out these great tips on creating non-zombifying presentations.
Presentation Zen - Presentation Zen contains a wealth of information on creating professional presentations. Two of their articles which recently caught my eye are Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic and Living large: “Takahashi Method” uses king-sized text as a visual. I would highly recommend subscribing to this blog.
Powerful Pointers for Presenters - A great list of articles and sites related to improving presentations.
Beyond Bullets - People Communicating with People - Beyond Bullets talks a lot on how we can use PowerPoint to be more than bland bullet point presentations.
Really Bad Powerpoint - This pdf by Seth Godin talks about Powerpoint mistakes and how to fix them.
Garr Reynolds - Garr Reynolds, the man behind Presentation Zen also has a personal website Including tips on organization, presentation, and slide creation. There are also some great sample presentations you might want to check out.
The “Change Up†in Lectures - Don’t worry, you’re not the only person dying of boredom in those long lectures. This article is a little dated but does a great job of explaining why our attention span is so short and how lecturers can liven up a presentation.
Edward Tufte’s essay is a good, fun, and useful read. Well worth $7: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint
That is an excellent list of links, especially Presentation Zen. I never put much thought into creating a presentation, but this certainly opened my eyes to the possibilities.
That’s Garr Reynolds not Garrey Nolds …..
An excellent article about how bad PowerPoint is: Power Point remix
I recently made a presentation to my company about Web 2.0. I was essentially guiding them through a “walking tour” of the web. I had wrestled with using Powerpoint or Keynote, and finally I just decided to build a delicious page for my talk.
I realize it’s not appropriate for many presentations, but it was perfect for my purpose. I had this nice pages of links to point people to that weren’t able to attend, and the presentation itself exemplified what I was describing.
I also set up an internal Wiki page to continue the discussion after the presentation. People have been using it and the discussion has continued as I had hoped. For many, it’s their first experience with a Wiki and with this democratized web concept.
Why is the author sniffing his fingers in his picture? Where have they just been?
Thanks for the list of links, loads of good tutorials there. And you were definitely right about Presentation Zen, that is a must read.
Isn’t it Seth Godin?
Everyone needs a hug.
A relly great list of sites. Especially i rellay liked the presentation Zen. A lot of thinks were mentioned there i was told the complete opposite at school. I will try this technique the next time and hope to entertain my audience more than the last few times. :)
Excellent roundup. Truly inspired by Presentation Zen I made a post trying to explain how to avoid making bad presentations.
For another look at the uses - and especially misuses - or PowerPoint, take a look at the following article “Wake Me When It’s Over Alternatives to Mind-Numbing PowerPoint® Meetings” at http://riverways.com/articles/tao-12.htm.
Anne for Carla Kimball, RiverWays Enterprises
very well done. i think i might pass my BCIS class now.
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