Jul 112014
 
An introduction to making professional PowerPoint slides. It is well known that humans can only process around 5 to 7 pieces of information at a time. More than that and we start getting confused. (See, for example, Cowan, The magical number 4 in short-term memory) Let me make one thing clear. When it comes to presentations, we never ever want to make people confused. Look at a typical business ...
May 192014
 
The message of a presentation is like water
The biggest presentation problem The biggest problem with most presentations isn’t that the slides are lackluster. It’s not that the message is missing (though, that’s a close second,) or that the presenter lacks confidence. No, the biggest problem with presentations is that, too often, they lack a clear structure.  You know the kind: someone walks in, starts talking, shows a bunch of slides, ...
Apr 292014
 
Why are some presentations great and others horribly boring? There are two presentation skills that separate great presenters from the rest of us: They always have a goal. They make certain that every presentation has a point. The goal could be a company goal, like more sales, generating investment, or making the working environment better. It could be personal, like being seen as ...
Mar 282014
 
The Function of Powerpoint Slides When I give workshops on using slides in presentations, I bring two famous children’s books as examples of two kinds of illustration: literal and explanatory. First, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. As you might imagine, it’s a book about food. The beautiful pictures are all very direct: when the text mentions cheese, there’s a picture of cheese, ...