Need some great tips on presentations, organizational communications, and the proper use of PowerPoint?
The use of PowerPoint in presentations is not a natural or easy thing. It seems to me that you get 40% of presentations show to little, 40% show too much and end up reading the slides to you, and about 10% really do a great job of balancing the highlights and keeping the audiences attention and making the subject memorable. I have seen and done my share of abuse of PowerPoint. There is nothing like an animated arrow bullet with sound effect in a PowerPoint presentation to get the crowd running for the door. Then again, my son created a whole cartoon in PowerPoint and it was amazing.
More food for thought.
Know your subject and know it well. Understand who the intended audience is, and adjust accordingly.
I am definitely no master of the delicate balance or at presentations and usually fall in the over kill on slides. I keep working on my skills, and have a "PowerPoint Master" for a boss.
Check out the blog by Cliff Atkinson: "Beyond Bullets"
http://sociablemedia.typepad.com/beyond_bullets/
A few articles of interest:
The author also has a web site full of articles http://www.sociablemedia.com/articles_list.htm
I love a quote from one of Cliff's articles on Bullet Points:
"Guns don't kill communication.
Bullet points kill communication.
And when you use bullet points in a PowerPoint, you're shooting yourself in the foot."
Cheers,
-Shaan
