It is the first time I will be giving a talk publicly in the 3rd iBlog conference on April 14. I would like to make my presentation as clear as possible and I want the bloggers attending the conference to get as much value as possible out of the 20 minutes presentation. I decided to review Cliff Atkinson’s Beyond Bullet Points principles and apply them in my presentations.

“Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire (Bpg-Other)” (Cliff Atkinson)

Cliff gave a free webinar recently last Feb. 20, 2007 entitled “The First Five Slides;” (check out web seminar archives) and here are the Five (5) key points in the seminar:

1. Powerpoint is a visual story telling tool that aims to provide meaningful learning to its audience so that they can understand and apply the concepts in the presentation.

2. There are three types of memory: Sensory/ Short Term, Long Term Memory and Working Memory. Our memory is constrained by the working memory who only remembers 3-4 info at any one time.

3. Usually we overload people with lots of information in the presentation to either show we have a lot of information to share or to serve as our que cards when presenting. Here are five ways to reduce Power Point Overload by Cliff Atkinson and Richard E. Mayer:

– Write a clear headline that explains the main idea of every slide
– Break up your story into digestible bites in the Slide Sorter View.
– Reduce visual load by moving text off-screen and narrating the content.
– Use visuals with your words instead of words alone.
– Rigorously remove every element that does not support the main idea

4. The First Five Slides Should Be arranged as:

– Setting: Define the context of the presentation for the audience
– Role: Define what is the audience role to put them in the center of the presentation
– Point A: Define the current problem they face
– Point B: What do they want to achieve in the future
– Solution: Propose a process to get there.

Here is a link to the Story Template.

5. Less is More. Focus on the Story. Use Simple Graphic. 1 minute/ slide.

This is similar to Seth Godlin’s recommendations in his ebook Really Bad Power Point and How to Avoid it:

- No more than six words on a slide. EVER.
- No cheesy images. Use professional images from corbis.com instead.
- No dissolves, spins or other transitions. None.
- Sound effects can be used a few times per presentation, but never (ever) use the sound effects that are built in to the program. Instead, rip sounds and music from CDs and leverage the Proustian effect this can have.
- Don’t hand out print-outs of your slides. They’re emotional, and they won’t work without you there. If someone wants your slides to show “the boss,” tell them that the slides go if you go.