Latest Posts

Pies are for eating.

This is a pie chart.   This a terrible way of showing the difference between the voting in Iowa and Utah. Quick clue, it’s the bluey one and the dark green one Seriously, there are MUCH better ways of displaying…
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Open house

If a blog post falls in the forest, does anyone hear? I don’t know. What do YOU think? Do you agree with what’s written here? How would you change presentation skills? Do you love Prezi? Is there a place for…
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Hope springs eternal.

Your audience has high expectations of your presentation and it is good to know that they support you, truly, and want the best for you. Nervous or inexperienced presenters should draw succour from this, the audience really do want you…
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Your (data) slides suck.

I have previously commented, perhaps too obliquely, on the poor nature of data slides. Trying to be reasonable however, the presenter who simply puts all their text directly onto powerpoint is going to do exactly the same with all their…
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My Boss won’t like it…

This isn’t another post persuading you to give up bulletpoints; if you’ve come this far and still cling to them, then you are deluded. This is a post about why it can be difficult to give better presentations. Sadly, not…
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I’m not confident enough to give up bulletpoints

A recent discussion on twitter highlighted a problem. Most people recognise that bulletpoints limit their expression, stilt the conversation of a presentation but ultimately make them feel more comfortable in providing their script.Musing over this I can see no easy…
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This is a blog post

This is the introductory paragraph. It is difficult to understand the origin but a combination of the perfect script and the perfect handout has led to the annotation of absolutely everything in a presentation.This is the second paragraph. Your audience…
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The perfect handout

I was watching a colleague preparing a presentation the other day. (I know, it took all that was within in me but I did just sit and watch. Oh, okay, inwardly I was in turmoil but he seemed happy in…
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So, I was wrong.

I’ve got a confession. I was wrong. I don’t think you lot are up to it.The best way to construct a presentation is to construct a story (p1), storyboard that idea and then consider supporting media for that story. Everyone…
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You’ve got 3 seconds…

Nancy Duarte (amongst others) suggests in her meisterwerk “Resonate” that a slide/image needs to be understood in under 3 seconds or the audience will have to turn its attention from the speaker to concentrate and make sense of what you…
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