Nice story in BusinessWeek on doing great presentations. I like this one on PowerPoint…
2. Stick to One Theme Per Slide
A brilliant designer once told me that effective presentation slides only have one message per slide. One slide, one key point. When Jobs introduced the “three revolutionary products” in the description above, he didn’t show one slide with three devices. When he spoke about each feature (a widescreen iPod, a mobile phone, and an Internet communicator), a slide would appear with an image of each feature.
Jobs also makes the slides highly visual. At no place in his presentation does the audience see slides with bullet points or mind-numbing data. An image is all he needs. The simplicity of the slides keeps the audience’s attention on the speaker, where it should be. Images are memorable, and more important, can complement the speaker. Too much text on a slide distracts from the speaker’s words. Prepare slides that are visually stimulating and focused on one key point.
Just browsing the internet, very interesting blog.
I believe the presentation method Jobs uses comes from Lawrence Lessig who’s Power Point presentations are legendary. If you ever get a chance to see him speak, I highly recommend it. Good blog list btw. Kiwi’s reading Blog Maverick is always a good sign.
Harry Beckwith has also been a long time advocate of using Powerpoint as it was intended, as a “VISUAL” aid. (Actually he prefers not using Powerpoint at all, but gives some tips for those who feel they must.)
It’s amazing that so many speakers fail horribly when it comes to Powerpoint.