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.

Where are your slides?

A great presentation is the product of three parts, the presentation (p1), the presentation (p2) and the presentation (p3). Or is it? Can one deliver a great presentation without a p2? Probably. @ffolliet or just ditch #powerpoint all together and…
Read more

er…thank you?

A sentence without the final word is. A journey without reaching the destination is just tiring. Sadly many presentations simply reach a point where the presenter says, “thank you” and it is assumed that the suffering is over. Every presentation…
Read more

Cinderella got married

Every great presentation has a message, one single message. The common failing in many presentations is they are simply a pile of data, a ramble or lists, not a message. When constructing any presentation one needs to determine early on…
Read more

Covering The Reichstag

covering the reichstag

There is little guaranteed to strike more emotion in an employee than the words, “mandatory training”. Imagine being the person delivering it? Simply take all 249 facts in the guideline and read it out, in slightly more time than is…
Read more

Change the world by your next presentation

Your next presentation should change the world. If you don’t agree, then don’t bother presenting. The purpose of you, speaking, is to change the  the world into which you have been offered the opportunity to speak. Your opinion, your message,…
Read more

The Greatest Presentation in the World (tribute)

As titles of talks go, that is something to live up to. I was privileged to speak recently at a big conference and THAT was the title of the talk they asked me to give; no pressure eh? The reality…
Read more

Pictures don’t need titles

Imagine a beautiful picture, perhaps a sunset or a portrait, destroyed by patronising words on top of it. If a picture requires words to render it comprehensible the image is poorly chosen. If the intent of the image is clear,…
Read more

Miles ahead

  Miles Davis, improvisational jazz wonder developed a new form of jazz outwith the accepted boundaries of music. He eschewed accepted understanding of chords and scales and gave the world amazing music. He did this, not by adding notes but…
Read more

It’s not about you

The value of a presentation is NOT what you thought it was. Too often a speaker leaves the stage disappointed in their work, upset that a section hadn’t gone as well as planned, that a previous rehearsal had been better,…
Read more

One at a time please? One at a time

If you are going to use images in a presentation use them only one at a time. Multiple images in a slide are impossible to look at comfortably. The eye is constantly looking from one to the other and the…
Read more