Killer Presentations: Power the imagination to visualize your Point - with PowerPoint
by Nicholas B. Oulton
When you think of a PowerPoint presentations, what comes to mind? Most of us conjure multiple, boring screens with lots of bulleted text and an occasional graphic or chart thrown in. Because text can be read much more quickly than it can be spoken, it's likely that by the third or fourth slide, the audience's minds are elsewhere and the presenter has lost the opportunity to convey their message. Oulton, the author, believes that PowerPoint slides should be used to enhance the presentation, not be the presentation and in this book,
Killer Presentations, he shows you how!
The first section of this book is about PowerPoint the application. While the author shares a couple of his favorite features of PowerPoint, this isn't a "how to" book in the typical sense of the phrase, when used in regards to software books. Instead, this book instructs how to create and deliver PowerPoint presentations that engage the audience. Surprisingly, one way to accomplish this, is to present less information on the slides as opposed to more. This creates a visual cognitive dissonance - the audience wants resolution and is compelled to pay attention. By building your slide, rather than putting all the info on the slide at once, you compel the audience to stay focused and involved in your message.
Expanding on the key aspect of
Killer Presentations, that the presentation should be audience focused, not presenter cued, the second section covers messaging. The most important thing is how to get and keep your audience's attention. By clearly setting objectives there is a much better chance of capturing and holding the audience's attention. The author has some basic strategies for how to nail down your objective and he then discusses two types of presentational intentions - persuading and educating - and the very different ways to develop your presentation based on your goals. These strategies can help to extend the audience's attention span.
The next two sections are the guts of the book. Visualization is the focus of section three. Providing lots of sample slides, the author shows us how to make slides that engage the audience, slides that convey less, but compel more, slides that enhance the presentation, but are not the presentation. We learn how to take the information we want to convey, break it down into small pieces, and then create slides that build on each other, thus keeping the audience engaged.
Section four is about design and there is lots of great advice on design techniques, how to display data, how to create a corporate ID, what font sizes and types to use, and basic layout rules. There's a cool little section on how to create your own toolbar and some other how-to's for the actual PowerPoint application. The section ends with an excellent, to-the-point segment on animation, why to use it, and how to apply it without it being annoying.
The final section of the book is about delivery. Although this book is specifically focused on giving a PowerPoint presentation, with clicks, pauses, and ways to direct attention to the screen, there is a lot of great info here for all types of presenting situations: one-on-one, face-to-face, in large meetings, presentations with handouts. It's all about getting your audience to remember your presentation and to that end, the book closes with a segment on memory, how people store things to memory and different ways to structure your information to make your presentation more memorable.
I was a little lukewarm to
Killer Presentations when I first picked it up, however, before completing the intro, I was enthusiastic about this book and eager to read it! Even though it is specific to PowerPoint and that type of presentation, much of the advice offered in these pages could be applied to just about any type of presentation or to any situation where you speak in front of people. I recently joined Toastmasters and have discovered that I can transfer many of the ideas in this book to my oral presentations.
Pros
1. There are lots of graphic samples of slides in the book, including a section of complete presentations, in color.
2. Even better, if you visit the book's website, www.killerpresentations.com. and click on Samples, you can view the author presenting the topics in the book, along with the slides used in the book! Also, the first chapter of the book is available on the Home page.
Cons
1. The only con is that I didn't have this book when I was an admin! My apologies for my part in foisting a number of boring, bulleted presentations onto the world!
Laserdog gives this book three high-spirited wags of the tail, the highest possible rating!
The second edition of this book was published in 2007 and has 191 pages. The price of the book is $18.98. Click here to buy the book.
Do you have any thoughts, queries, or feedback on Killer Presentations? Share your comments or questions by replying directly to this thread!
BOOK REVIEW - Killer Presentations
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