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.

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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