Here’s a quick way to make over a bullet-point slide
August 13, 2009
It’s called the Assertion-Evidence Format and it was developed by Professor Michael Alley (I’ve mentioned it previously but somehow never devoted a whole post to it).
BTW, if you’ve downloaded and read my Presentation Planning Guide, you’ll see that this slide format dovetails nicely with the planning system I describe in the Guide.
First let’s look at the Assertion part of the format. [Read more]
3 reasons to use less stock photos in your presentations
January 9, 2009
Here’s what I would like to see in PowerPoint slide design in 2009 – less stock photos of people.
I’m guilty too. Last year I loved istockphoto. It saved me so much time. I loved recommending it to our course participants and showing them how quickly they could find the photo they wanted.
My New Year’s resolution is to use istockphoto less.
Why use less stock photos of people in your presentations?
5 steps to effective Powerpoint Presentations
November 25, 2008
Stepcase Lifehack just published a blogpost on tips for more effective PowerPoint presentations. I was surprised to see some outdated and unhelpful advice. Here are my five steps to create an effective PowerPoint presentation. I’ve written about many of these steps before, so I’ve provided links to more detailed posts if you’d like more information.
1. Plan your presentation on paper first.
Keep away from the computer. Garr Reynolds from PresentationZen calls this going analog.
Make your pictures concrete too
May 18, 2008
The more concrete and specific you make your words, the more persuasive you will be to your audience. The same applies to the pictures you show. Recent research backs this up. Students were given short fictional news stories to read:
One story claimed that watching TV was linked to maths ability, based on the fact that both TV viewing and maths activate the temporal love [of the brain]. Crucially students rated these stories to be more scientifically sound when they were accompanied by a brain image, compared with when the equivalent data were presented in a bar chart, or when there was no graphical illustration at all.
