Aside from just having a couple of key words on each slide, other things that I liked include the use of very simple images as visual cues to replace text and reinforce the point. I think that this was particularly effective because many of them were repeated so often. Also, I liked the subtle way that the background changed colour to reinforce the open or closed nature of the topic being talked about.

Related to this is a good blog entry called The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Powerpoint that has pointers to other examples and resources that talk about how to present in an effective way. Again, worth reading if you regularly put presentations together.

I find this stuff fascinating and I'm trying to put some of it into practice while I'm writing my Blog it! talk. An introduction to blogging covers a whole load of disparate topics and to ensure that the session flows, I've come up with a story that will take the audience naturally and progressively through each of the topics I want to cover. Here's my current thinking about those topics and their basic flow, although it doesn't show the story that takes you from one topic to the next.

I'm also trying not to use long lists of bullets, instead using simple images to highlight the point. I might give you a sneak peak of some individual slides over the coming week as I finish writing the presentation. Anyway, I'm really interested to see how using some of these techniques pans out. If you are too, please feel free to come along. :-)

Add a comment

Posted by Simon Brown on 06 October 2005 15:55:52 BST #