Presentation Styles
Cameron Moll posted a great list of 20 tips for better conference speaking. Although most of us are not public speaking professionals I imagine many people are required to give presentations at work. I like Cameron’s 8th tip the best:
There is absolutely no reason in the world you should use anything other than Keynote. Period. I don’t care if you’re on a PC–if you’re serious about speaking, buy a MacBook just for presenting. There is an astounding difference (not an exaggeration) between the tools, canvas placement, typographic control, and overall aesthetics in Keynote compared to PowerPoint. Once you become familiar with Keynote, which isn’t an arduous process, the productivity and just plain enjoyment you’ll experience using it over PowerPoint is completely worth any switching costs.
Garr Reynolds writes an interesting article contrasting the presentation styles of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. As the two photos illustrate, Steve’s presentation style is more minimal while Bill’s is more like the day to day presentations many of us see at work. Garr makes the argument that minimal presentations are more effective and I would have to agree with him.
Tags: Keynote, PowerPoint, Presentations