Some thoughts on slides and presenting

PowerPoint

Like the Force. Can be used for good or evil

Why are you presenting?

To persuade

To inform

You are telling a story!

A rogue’s gallery of common slide issues

Flickr: PopCultureGeek.com

An all too typical slide• Wolverines are giant weasels, and there aren’t any in Michigan

– Anderson 2000; Smith and Buttmunch 1998; Axelrod and Strawman 2005; Santa and Bunny 2008• How many levels should I go down?!

– As many as it takes to make the font unreadable, duh!

• This bullet should have been on the next slide– But I want it on this slide because it’s HARD to hit the new slide button!

• ZOMG, how many bullets can I fit on one page?• This format is probably good for handouts, not for presentation• When you have lots of text, the audience is reading the slide, not

listening to you!

Holy crap! I love fonts!

• Comic sans will likely get you mocked in the backchannel (though I don’t hate it)

• Serif fonts can make it hard to read if the projector is crappy!

• Changing fonts all over the place is distracting!

• CAREFUL WITH COLOR TOO!

Flickr: Samael Kreutz

How to bore your audience to death!

Don’t know your audience.

Read your slides to your audience

Be overly timid and shy.

Flickr: kslavin

Some ideas for presentation success!

Flickr: Mavis

Use the energy of your audience!

Flickr: a2gemma

Don’t bury your main points

Flickr: brentdanley

Images trigger the brain

Transmit your excitement!

Flickr: Andreas-photography

Summarize points

For the win• Use the energy of the

audience• Make the point clear!• Use images when you can• Sign-post points

For the loss• Texty slides• C&P from paper• Too much animation• Speak to slides• Misjudge audience• Be Mousey

Last slide can accomplish a lot

• Maybe include major contribution

• Contact info• Cliff Lampe• cacl@umich.edu• Twitter: @clifflampe• Slideshare: clifflampe