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.

What makes a great presentation?

I recently saw a tweet from someone at a conference with a picture of a frankly horrible slide accompanied by the tagline, “X just gave a great presentation.” Have you ever wondered what makes a “great” presentation? There are presentations…
Read more

The best title slide blogpost, ever (i)

The title of your presentation must stimulate interest even before you start speaking. If the title slide is full of words and useless information it is likely you will have lost the audience at that point. A great presentation has…
Read more

This is the title of the blogpost.

It is always interesting to have questions from twitter. Thanks to Cian O’Brien for this one. @ffolliet any tips for title slide of a presentation? — Cian O’Brien (@CianSOBrien) January 17, 2016 The title of many presentations simply represents a…
Read more

New Year’s Resolution

The new year is upon us and by now most of the resolutions will have slipped by like the flood water. It’s not too late though to make that decision to change your life, to give up a ridiculous and…
Read more

Avoid cliches like the plague

The best presentations have supportive media (p2) that adds to the overall value of the piece (p cubed). There is more to this than simply adding pictures. A few banana skins have already been covered: clip art, multiple images; poor…
Read more

Just add pictures

The same image cropped in different ways can convey a completely different meaning. Illustration in a presentation is not simply about “adding a picture“. There are simple tricks that can significantly add to the impact of an image. Consider the…
Read more

Be creative with text

Text has value in presentations. That value can be added to by fontography choices as well as altering the size and position of text within an image. Think of this as making an image including words rather than annotation.In a…
Read more

p cubed value of a presentation

Your presentation is the product of three component parts; the story (p1), the supportive media (p2) and the delivery (p3). The product of these three parts gives us the value of your presentation (p cubed). Relating this concept was the…
Read more

What is the optimum number of slides in a presentation?

Whats the optimum number of minutes per slide and words per slide for a presentation? @ffolliet I’ve always used 1 min/slide and 4-6 x 4-6. — David Warriner (@doctordiscodave) December 11, 2015 None. No slides. So no words.There is no…
Read more

A good presentation doesn’t need slides, does it?

An interesting question and a good topic for debate when presentation geeks get together and have a few beers. (We do get together and have a few beers!) @stemlyns @_NMay @gracie_leo @OliFlower @ffolliet @srrezaie @EM_Educator does anyone think good Med…
Read more