Author Archive: ffolliet

At work I'm a Consultant Paediatric Surgeon. That involves Surgical Oncology, Neonatal Surgery and Trauma. There's also a lot of teaching and mentoring. None of this actually makes me particularly clever. I'm pretty heavily into improving presentations and long for the world to lay down the weapon of bulletpoints and embrace creative and engaging presentations. I lead presentation workshops and am currently working up a book on presentations. I did a wee thing at TEDx Stuttgart in 2014 of which I'm quite proud https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFza3W87eDg Outside all of that I struggle to keep fit, cycle a bit and the odd triathlon. I'm a father, singer, laugher, learner, sharer, blogger, thinker, strummer and much more.

The arc of a story

When my eldest was quite little she said one day that she didn’t want to see a movie. “It starts happy, there will be a sad bit, then the exciting bit and then the end. Why does there have to…
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Hypnotised, like a chicken.

When presented with written data, audiences will read. They can’t help themselves. This is due to complex neural issues of having to make sense of images. Whilst a picture can be examined at the same time as listening, this is…
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On why people defend bulletpoints.

I was lucky enough to attend Garr Reynolds PresentationZen workshop in London last November and met some amazing people from all round the world. What struck me was that  powerpoint (type) presentations are ubiquitous, there isn’t even an Asiatic or…
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The maths of a better presentation

In my original post I proposed that a presentation is the product, rather than the sum of its parts. More than simply a construct of mathematics this is a model that allows a deeper understanding of the nature of presentations,…
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Where’s Wally?

The point of a data slide is a quick, easily interpreted, graphic representation of numerical data. The audience should be able to grasp the meaning themselves within seconds, ideally without guidance or explanation from the speaker.Unfortunately it is more often…
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It’s just NOT academic

As the title of the blog attests, the underlying beliefs supporting the nature of presentations reflect those of Presentation Zen. Garr Reynolds, the Sensei, has much to share and teach on presentation, learning and the future of storytelling. The sadness…
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Be prepared!

One of the skills of a presenter is being prepared. I usually carry a copy of my presentation on a usb. I’d have another copy uploaded to Dropbox and often one on my phone. I usually bring the laptop I…
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Images work on their own.

Images work because we can look and see, interrogate and question, pick up nuances and emotions and connect in a way that words simply limit and constrain. Written words seldom add information to images in presentations that isn’t conveyed by…
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Lost in time, like tears in rain.

Pop quiz- what was the last presentation you were at? Try and think back, can you remember the title? What was the take home message? There was plenty of information provided, do you remember it all? Maybe the majority of…
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