Advice from the Inventor of PowerPoint

Here’s a quick, easy read from Robert Gaskins, the inventor of PowerPoint.

Have a great day!

Lee

Want to Improve Your Presentations? Start here.

Hi Everyone,

I had a long post going for almost a week now in response to a discussion with colleagues of the quality of presentations at a recent conference. In the end, I deleted it since it was familiar to many (conference with  lots of bad presentations) and I had no stirring calls-to-arms or universal solutions to offer.

Here’s my simple suggestion: spend a little time deliberately thinking about your presentations – what do you do well and what do you need improvement on?  Then, do a little research and see how easy it is to find tips and strategies for improving your presentations.

You can start here with this post from Joyce Valenza entitled: “PowerPoint Reform: A First Chapter.” Seriously, this is a great post – it describes efforts by high school teachers to improve their students’ presentations. It’ll be like a mental “kick in the head” for you – super simple ideas you can easily implement yourself.

Peace,

Lee

Upcoming Events

I’ll be traveling a bit this summer:

• May 6, 2009, 1:00 – 2:00pm,  Amigos Members Conference, Dallas, TX. Topic: “Three Simple Rules to Great Presentations!”
• June 14th, 2009, 2:00 – 5:00pm – American Society for Engineering Education – Engineering Libraries’ Division Annual Conference, Austin, TX: Topic:  “Three Rules for Great Presentations” NOTE: This is a three-hour, pre-conference workshop and requires pre-registration.

Peace,

Lee

Thank You!

Happy March, Everyone!

I just wanted to thank everyone who has purchased the book so far! In 2008, it has already sold over 500 copies! According to Worldcat, it’s now available in 126 OCLC libraries around the world! Farthest away is the University of Western Australia in Crawley, 10,600 miles away from Houston (how cool is that?!?!).

Also, I just found some recent reviews of the book:

Calvert, Phillip. 2008. The Electronic Library (0264-0473), 26(4): 607-608.

“I recommend this book to all information managers, wherever they might be.” (Wow! Thanks!!!)

Dunford, Helen. 2009. “Dodging Death.” Australian Library Journal, 58(1):98-99.

“Any professional required to construct and use presentations will find that the methods and recommendations in this book, and on the website, will improve their skills in providing sessions from which the audience will not only learn, but also enthusiastically enjoy the learning experience.” (Allllright!!!)

Many thanks!

Lee

3-25-09 Update:

Here’s one more I found:

Gray, Karen. 2008. Legal Information Management (ISSN:1472-6696), 8(4):303-304.

“This book is a useful practical guide to how to create and present an effective presentation…” (Super!!! Thanks!)

Interesting article on working memory

Greetings!

Here’s an interesting post from one of the New York Times’ blogs dealing with working (a.k.a. “short-term”) memory.

http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/guest-column-can-we-increase-our-intelligence/

If you remember from Chapter 1 of the book or from previous posts, presenters need to be aware of the limitations of working memory, as they impact the effectiveness of a presentation.

I’ll be back soon with more posts, including a few brief reviews of some great research/how-to articles I’ve been reading.

Best,

Lee