Death By PowerPoint: Practical Advice For Improving Presentations

Posted by Scott Abel on March 19, 2008 at 8:45am in About The Content Wrangler Community

PowerPoint sucks. More accurately, most presentations suck, regardless of what software tool was used to create them. They suck because those who design them (often the same people who deliver them) are not skilled presentation developers nor great presenters. But Alexei Kapterev aims to help presenters worldwide improve their presentations by following his examples. Take a few minutes to view his presentation on presentations, “Death By PowerPoint” (see below). The slide deck makes the case for improving presentations by providing practical, no-nonsense advice and real-world examples.

Thanks to Maxwell Hoffmann for pointing us to this excellent resource (on our favorite presentation website, SlideShare.net).

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Tags: powerpoint, presentation, slide deck, slide show

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Shauna on March 19, 2008 at 9:14am: I totally dig this presentation. Great topic. Thanks for sharing it with us!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Shauna on March 19, 2008 at 9:17am: Thanks for sharing this. It's hilariously true... in an "Office Space" sort of way.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ryan Pollack on March 19, 2008 at 9:28pm: Our marketing guys talk about the 10/20/30 rule:

-Keep all presentations less than 10 slides

-Keep all presentations 20 minutes or less

-Keep all font sizes at 30 points or more

Everything else can go in the "Notes" so people can get your slides and review them later.

More here: http://www.presentationhelper.co.uk/10-20-30-rule-powerpoint.htm; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tom Johnson on March 20, 2008 at 11:24am: I wrote a post on 10 Ways to Bomb a Presentation that's related to this.

There's also a funny analysis on presentationzen.com about how JFK and Obama's speeches would have come across if they were set to a bulleted powerpoint. See http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2008/03/when-slides-...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tony Hartsfield on March 24, 2008 at 2:33pm: Here are Seth Godin's post Really Bad PowerPoint, and Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 Rule; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Denise on April 4, 2008 at 12:33pm: Nicely done. Great info. Thanks for sharing.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mal Reason on April 12, 2008 at 10:58pm: Excellent presentation, thanks for sharing it. There's another video along similar lines that I have used quite a bit as an effective summary of bad PowerPoint. Here's a link if you're interested: http://www.youtube.com/v/cagxPlVqrtM; ▶ Reply to This

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