More Power to the Point

Let me tell you a story...

That's how most of my presentations begin these days.  I learned some techniques for creating PowerPoint presentations that engage and intrigue my audience, and I found them in a book!  The book was Cliff Atkinson's "Beyond Bullet Points," which I reviewed a while ago on Genuine Curiosity. The book's been updated for PowerPoint 2007, and there is a great companion web site, as well.

Why'd I reach for a book? Well, it was mostly due to a recommendation from someone I saw presenting one day. 

When he began his slide show, he didn't show a bunch of bullet points.  Instead, he put some attention-grabbing images up on the screen (full screen images, no less) and he began to tell stories. 

To this day, I remember some of the stories he told, and I can even remember the pictures he used to anchor them in my mind.

After the presentation, I hurried up to ask him how he'd developed this storytelling technique, and he told me that he got most of it from Beyond Bullet Points.  He recommended I start there, and encouraged me by telling me that anyone could learn those techniques.

The next day, I picked up a copy of the book and my presentations have never been the same since. 

• I learned how to keep my audiences from falling into the doldrums of reading slides as I paraphrase them. 
• I learned how to get really clear about my key points and takeaways. 
• And I learned to think of my presentations as a long story, made up of several chapters designed to illustrate key points.

Never underestimate your power to captivate your audience by engaging their imagination with a well-crafted story.  You can do it!  This book will show you how.

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About the author: Dwayne Melancon is the author of Genuine Curiosity, where he is always on the lookout for new things to learn.

Comments

[David Zinger]

Dwayne:
Good post about moving from points to stories. I think the real PowerPoint is the point of connection between audience and speaker and many of the best presentation are when the machine breaks down and the person becomes a person!
David

[Rosa Say]

Dwayne I would love to be sitting in one of your audiences! I know I could learn so much from you.

You know, with all of us who speak, we could have one heck of a convention...

[dave]

...and I could be the audience Rosa :-)

I love this connection to images Dwayne! It could probably help us in our online writing as well.

[Rosa Say]

You could speak too Dave, we all know you can, now you have to know you can...

Besides, we'll all take turns doing both.

However Dwayne, I'm afraid you might have to help us (me for sure) with the gadgetry... I read "You’ll flip..." at your Genuine Curiosity earlier, and think I'll pass on that one. You're quite the techie!

[Ariane Benefit]

Dwayne that is soooo cool! I saw a presentation like that last year by a guy who had Tourettes AND ADD. It was amazing! Your making wonder if I could give up my addiction to bullet points!!! : )