Give amazing presentations even with Powerpoint.
Previously, I pointed you to what Steve Jobs does in making awesome presentations. As I’ve read more on presentations using visual aids, I’ve come across a couple blogs on how to get the most out of Powerpoint for your talks. I point you to a couple example posts on each blog.
“Takahashi method” – on Presentation Zen
“What’s wrong with templates?” – Presentation Advisors (impressively, only one guy)
There are countless ways to incorporate PPT in a presentation, and the optimal way will vary with the nature of the presentation. These blogs have so many ideas, I will definitely have fun trying to work different elements into my talks, which will be a challenge since science talks are usually so data/visual-heavy.
Saad,
I truly appreciate the link (and comment) about my blog.
Science, math, and the like are often riddled with statistics, data, and charts. Not that they aren’t appropriate or necessary, but they don’t have that great of a relationship with slide design. My best advice is to make sure you only include the most necessary data, and separate the information into as many slides as you need. Restraint is one of the greatest skills of a presentation designer.
Cheers,
Jon
Jon Thomas
February 11, 2010 at 10:27 pm
And there’s always the (often forgotten) option with Powerpoint:
leave it at home and talk to the people.
You’d be amazed how effective that is!
Adam
Adam Lawrence
February 12, 2010 at 11:06 am
Adam,
You have a great point. What I enjoy about giving speeches in toastmasters is that you don’t get visual aids except for one or two speeches. You become acutely aware that you are the one carrying the show. That practice has helped me think about how to break down the data so it doesn’t overwhelm the audience (similar to what Jon mentioned above).
When it comes to science articles, a lot of people will tell you that they read the conclusion and then flip through to look at the pictures, presenter/writer be damned
saad
ps- i enjoyed your post http://workplayexperience.blogspot.com/2009/10/top-10-reasons-why-powerpoint-is-like.html
pps- how did you find my site?
saad a. hasan
February 12, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Thanks Saad!
I found your site after Jon tweeted about it…
Best,
Adam
Adam Lawrence
February 12, 2010 at 4:04 pm