Powerpoint Karaoke???

Escrevi este post durante esta semana em http://www.pedrocaramez.com/ e está no seguimento do post do Nuno Faria sobre o uso do powerpoint nas apresentações.


TJ Walker posted this week an interesting analysis on powerpoint slides. In fact, as a teacher in the University, i hear a lot of presentations from students. Along with this, i also watch seminars and congresses in many different topics. One element that is involved in all presentations, is the powerpoint show. But, in many cases, i am very impressive to watch a horrible show. The speaker has the powerpoint slides as a great guide to deliver the speech but it will come out a BIG guide. Somebody on the blogosphere calls it the “Powerpoint Karaoke“.
DON’T EVER READ EVERY WORD FROM THE SLIDES
The less text you put, the higher attention you will grab from the audience. Images, photos or quotes can drive the audience to the purpose of the speech. Bullet points are important to identify key elements in your speech. But never too much, please (see here a nice video about the topic). The audience likes to see good slides that can complement your message. The videos are interesting to put in a presentation but be aware of the length, quality and purpose of it.
If you don’t follow some basic rules, somebody from the audience will be as victim of the “death by powerpoint” - then you will understand what “killed” them.
Guy Kawasaki presents the 10/20/30 rule on powerpoint. A PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points. Follow this idea, it will improve the quality of your delivery.
Lisa also reinforces the bad perception of the audience when they hear the speaker spelling every word of the slide. he stated that a It’s quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.
Despite the great qualities of powerpoint or other presentation software, don’t overuse in animation or other distractions. This will make your presentation looking bad.
Other links of interest:
International Association for Science and Tecnhology. - nice tips for presentations
Edward Tufte on Wired - Powerpoint is evil!
Garr Reynolds on presentation zen - what is a good powerpoint?
Life Hacker - Take your powerpoint beyond bullet points
John Sweller - Research points the finger at PowerPoint. see abstract for his research
Atkinson’s book - Beyond Bullet Points
See also other presentation softwares (source: wikipedia).
Adobe Persuasion
AppleWorks
Astound by Gold Disk Inc.
Authorstream
Beamer (LaTeX)
Google Docs which now includes presentations
Harvard Graphics
HyperCard
IBM Lotus Freelance Graphics
Apple Keynote
KPresenter
Macromedia Action!
MagicPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint
OpenOffice.org Impress
PicturesToExe
Scala Multimedia
Screencast
SongPro
Umibozu (wiki)
VCN ExecuVision
Worship presentation program
Zoho