Good presentations are hard to create
It is very difficult to create a good slide show (in PowerPoint or any other program). And it is even more difficult to present the slide show in a way that communicates your points as good as possible, is interesting and is engaging. In this post I want to share some of the sources that have inspired me to create better presentations and present them more convincing and engaging.
Death by PowerPoint
Quite a few of the people reading this blog might have already seen the presentation "Death by PowerPoint" (embedded below) which outlines a few "guidelines" which help you to create great presentations. The hints given span from the trivial and obvious ("don't use clip art") to the more surprising and sometimes questionable ("don't follow those standard rules about how many points there should be on a slide"). Mainly the author makes a point by showing in an exemplary way how it should and shouldn't be done.
Some of the points made in the presentation:
- Be significant, find the meaning behind your presentation, significance creates passion which attracts attention which leads to action
- Have a convincing, memorable and scalable structure.
- Scalability helps you to adapt to unforeseen situations, you can talk 5, 15 or 45 minutes about your topic.
- Simplicity: "Everything should be made as simple as possible but no simpler"
- Only use three to four strong arguments to make each point. Save the rest for the handout / the discussion
- Not everything needs to be on a slide, the handout can be in a different format and have extended content
- Use one simple point per slide, don't limit the slide count, limit the number of points you make
- Use only few matching colors, few fonts and high quality pictures.
- Rehearse! Get feedback, improve your presentation and your presenting
All in all it can be said that the authors point is: "Great presentations are hard work!" Beyond making these points I also find the presentation very beautiful and an example how it should be done, have a look at it.
from Alexei Kapterev.
The TED commandments
Another resource that I have found just recently (via Tim Longhurst) are the TED commandments. TED is an annual conference that defines its mission as "ideas worth spreading. And a lot of the presentations held there are just plain amazing. Why? One of the reasons might be the aforementioned TED commandments:
- Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick
- Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before
- Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion
- Thou Shalt Tell a Story
- Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Skae of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy
- Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
- Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desparate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
- Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
- Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
- Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee
Those commandments are delivered to future speakers printed on a rock... And I'm convinced they leave a lasting impression. Amy Tan described the arrival in her talk as “something that creates a near-death experience; but near-death is good for creativity…”. Of course I don't want to withhold a picture of the commandments (via Rives):
Some of the best talks / presentations I have seen so far have been held at a TED conference and as far as I know, almost all of the talks held at a TED conference are put online. But I don't want to tell you just about an inspiring video site but about some talks and presentations that have inspired me personally . Of course worth mentioning here are keynotes held by Steve Jobs (e.g. presenting the iPhone) and Al Gores "An inconvienient Truth" (Trailer; Al Gore: From "showing slides" to winning an Oscar by Presentation Zen;Lessons from "An Inconvenient Truth" by Dava Paradi). But most of you will know these, so here two other samples I have selected:
Hans Rosling is a master at presenting and has held more than one talk that would be worth mentioning here. I just wanted to show you this one where he makes statistics interesting.
Another presentation that inspired me was Randy Pauschs Last Lecture ("Really achieving your Childhood dreams"). Very simple slides, but not simplistic by any measure. The presentation is convincing, meaningful and most definitely significant.
