I am on a Nancy Duarte kick this week. Yesterday, I participated in her webinar on how to create powerful, effective presentations. She has such great perspective, based on her work as expert slide/presentation coach at TED.
Today, she tweeted about this video made by Bianca Woods, a Master’s degree student in Education Media Design and Technology who was impressed by Garr Reynold’s Presentation Zen and Nancy’s slide.ology books.
While the content is really great for presenters who want to create effective slides, what I liked most was the fun and silliness in the delivery of the message. What a great inspiration to use art and humor to get your message out to your audience.
Here it is – Rage Against the Slideument.
For the record, when I become extremely rich, I want Stacy London as my personal stylist and Nancy Duarte as my personal slideologist. A girl can dream!
[…] I am on a Nancy Duarte kick this week. Yesterday, I participated in her webinar on how to create powerful, effective presentations. She has such great perspective, based on her work as expert slide/presentation coach at TED. Today, she tweeted about this video made by Bianca Woods, a Master’s degree student in Education Media Design and […] Original post […]
Pamela,
You’re such a crack up. When I’m extremely rich, I want you to be my personal cheerleader. Enjoy your loooong weekend!
Nancy
[…] Rage Against the Slideument via Escape from Cubicle Nation […]
That video was wonderful. Wish I could have given it to all my teams when I was in corporate. I used to call it “death by PowerPoint.” Thank you so much for posting it!
Excellent job on the video. It covers many points about how to do PowerPoint well, in a very entertaining way.
Torture by Slideument:
I attended a presentation once in a government office that used 11pt text on the slides. Over 50 people had traveled to that city to learn about this new initiative – and none of them could actually read the slides. After the presentation, I asked if I could get a copy of the slides to mail out to attendees, “since they’d been difficult to read from the back” (or front!).
I was told no. The presenter went on to explain that they were required to inform all departments of this initiative, but they didn’t really want anyone to have the details. Since they’d done the presentation, they were legally covered…
That was the first time that I realized that “slideument” creation could actually be strategic. Sigh.
Fun video, thanks for sharing!
It’s an uphill battle, many presenters still give very low priority to the content and style of their presentations, many times the slides are quickly preparted the night before the presentation.
This is fantastic, Pam! I’ve been moving in this direction w/ my presentations for the last few months, but I still have some work to do. Great reminder — thanks for sharing!
In the hands of the unimaginative, PowerPoint is painful! If you find yourself creating a slideument, why not just save everyone some meeting time and email a report? Or save a few electrons, and just post it somewhere (maybe only on your own desktop?)
I have been following (and advocating) Nancy, Garr, Seth and Guy for a few years now- and it just seems like Bad PowerPoint is never going away. Thanks for the post-great blog, btw- I’m going to add it to my blogroll.Have a good day.
I have been (attempting) to preach this message to clients for some time … as an avid adoptee of Seth Godin’s “Really Bad Powerpoint” ebook. Thanks for providing such a fun and catchy way to reinforce what should be obvious to anyone who’s had to endure even one of those 100+ slide eye charts.
The really scary point is that my 5th son had to do a power point history project that gave points for the best “slideument!”
DEATH TO POWERPOINT SLIDES with too much INFO. I say this at every conference, on every evaluation and tell every presenter. In fact, I get trigger angry about it. Garr and Nancy have been gods to me as well. I think its not only their message that is so important but the fact that they force you to think differently about how you use the slides. Thank you for this as well. Good to know that humorous storytelling is a plus.
Great presentations are something we need more of. I can’t remember how many times in my MBA program I was told that bullet points and LOTS o text were a good idea. As an added bonus most companies think having slides that all look the same with their branded logo or information helps to build credibility. For better in my opinion to have a presentation that people actually remember and are influenced by then one that looks the same throughout.
Oh…don’t drink and get advice from Stacy London at the same time. My wife learned that the hard way:-)
Ugh…I have seen sooo many slide decks that break all of these rules. For the record, Pam, I’ve only seen very clean and clear slides from you!
Elise, I definitely worship at the alter of minimalist slides! Garr Reynolds and Nancy have really influenced me that way.
In my corporate days, I cannot TELL you how many staggeringly awful presos I sat through. Gives me the shakes just thinking about it. 🙂