Comments on: “I loved the way he used PowerPoint”

By: Presentation Skills

Presentation Skills — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:39:13 +0000

Here’s a somewhat “tongue in cheek” look at how (not) to make the most of PowerPoint.

You’ve probably already seen it via Twitter Tamela! Its at:-

http://www.presentation-skills.biz/presentation-delivery/how-not-to-present-with-powerpoint.htm

Hope you like it.

Know of any other “funny” videos using PowerPoint?

By: Tamela Rich

Tamela Rich — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:11:01 +0000

No, he’s stepping through animation. Working for a media lab has it’s privileges, eh?
By the way, this is an important topic and Umair Haque does a great job with it. Thanks for sharing.

By: Abjani

Abjani — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:20:10 +0000

hi Tamela… nice post…
I was watching Umair Haque of Harvard do one of his presentations and it was totally different than the usual ppt that we see everywhere…
i wonder if he was using Mac…

the youtube link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dy1QC-Ie5s

maybe you could tell us what it is that he is using…

thanks,

nuruddin

By: Presentationski

Presentationski — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:28:43 +0000

Great post Tamela. PowerPoint is so often abused by “presenters”.

It’s just a tool.

And like many tools, in the wrong hands (or simply inexperienced hands) it’s often used in a way that’s just plain daft and totally undermine the presenter as opposed to helping them succeed. eg

1. The slides become the text prompts for the presenter rather than using PPTs notes feature (or prompt cards).
2. The slides are used directly to create the handouts rather than a combination of the slides and the notes (or a specifically produced set of handouts).
3. The slides are text heavy rather than visual.

In the right hands PPT can be a great tool and help to enhance the presentation – but for many it has the opposite effect.

By: Nancy Miller

Nancy Miller — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:41:57 +0000

In my view, the best books (and criticism) on PowerPoint are by Edward Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information is excellent. His essay “The Cognitive Power of PowerPoint” is withering and thought-provoking.

Umair Haque tries to be creative with PowerPoint; he turns things on their sides and uses the screen like a great canvas. It’s a little self-conscious for my taste but I like that he’s thinking about using the format differently.

By: Brandon Uttley

Brandon Uttley — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:22:49 +0000

Good article, Tamela. I’m afraid a lot of people are suffering a slow “death by PowerPoint.” Fortunately, there are books like the ones you mentioned, as well as sites like Slideshare.net that have really inspiring examples of spare, powerful presentations. Also, there’s Keynote–which is better than PowerPoint in my opinion. See Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” or any presentation by Steve Jobs to witness the power of Apple’s software in the right hands.