Since reading Anders' review of this book last month, I was sufficiently interested to actually purchase it myself. I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve my presentations, talks and lectures, and the information available on Amazon reinforced the massive kudos Anders laid down. Like Anders said, this ain't a "how-to" book about making presentations, but rather a holistic approach to delivering the message as efficiently as possible without any visual clutter. In short, it's all about avoiding "death by PowerPoint".
Truth be told, I almost gave up on the book early on, due to a side-bar by some Moby-looking wannabe-guru by the name of Seth Godin. While the beginning of the book outlines how presentation zen does not provide any strict guidelines for how to present material, this no doubt Mac-using loser laid down the law with absolutes like "No more than six words per slide - ever." I also have to admit that I was kind of turned off by the fact that Reynolds kept giving written blowjobs to Steve Jobs and Apple in general all throughout the book. Sure - it's his book and all, but he could've kept this particular bromance on the DL as it does nothing to promote the content of the book. In my opinion, that is.
I also share Anders' opinion that this minimalist approach is probably easier to implement in marketing/business or for speaking to crowds that are not specialists. The example cited about using this approach to teach aromatic chemistry appears somewhat suspect to me. In my experience of teaching hard science as well as communicating scientific data to peers, it is absolutely necessary to use a bilingual approach - math and English. Consequently, while much of the material in English can be presented orally, the symbols and relationships need to be defined - and need to be easily accessible throughout the presentation. If you use some 15 different symbols and relations - some of which are universal and some of which are unique for this study - you are quite the optimist if you expect the audience to remember a definition from 12 slides back.
One thing I really took to heart from this book was the assertion that PowerPoint slides should not be used as handouts, because they're not meant as stand-alone documents, and consequently any middle-of-the-road approach to add written content for meaningful post-presentation retrieval is doomed to fail. Rather, Reynolds says, one should provide more detailed documents as handouts, which also adds degrees of feedom to what's on the slides. This hit quite close to home for me, because at the institution where I teach, the students expect that the slides are available on the course web page. Consequently, I try to add enough information on the slides to make them useful (hopefully) without my narrative. After reading this book, I'm even more unsure than before as to whether I'm doing the students a favor or a disservice by perpetuating this behavior. Reynolds' logic cannot be disputed; if the slides are meaningful without my narrative, then I'm superfluous. And if I only design the slides to complement my narrative, then they would be quite useless as handouts. Moreover, the written documentation for the material presented in the slides already exists - the textbook(s). So does my making slides available mean that some students won't read the curriculum? 'Cause my slides are not meant to be a substitute for reading the textbook - they're merely a supplement. I'd be fiercely interested in any input on this - especially as I'm about to revamp my slides for this semester's teaching as well as make new ones for the Spring semester.
Another topic that I found interesting and potentially liberating is the - also quite compelling - argument Reynolds makes in favor of deep-sixing templates where the logo of the company - or in my case lab - is featured on every page. Rather, Reynolds says, the logo should be present on the first and last page of the presentation, which helps to free up some much-needed real-estate on the slides. This makes sense to me, as even though I've tried to minimalize the logo in the template, it still poses some restrictions on the slides - both geometric and with respect to colors I can use. So maybe I'll try to deep-six the logo - save for the first and last slides - and see how it turns out.
..so imagine my surprise when Reynolds some pages later pretty much reintroduced the need for logos via the principle of repetition, wherein a red thread throughout the presentation is established via a common theme on the slides. Which pretty much is a strong advocacy for using small, rather unintrucive company logos, no?
Overall, I really liked the book. It provides some good approaches to the creative process, as well as some general principles and useful examples.
Buy the book, dammit.
Truth be told, I almost gave up on the book early on, due to a side-bar by some Moby-looking wannabe-guru by the name of Seth Godin. While the beginning of the book outlines how presentation zen does not provide any strict guidelines for how to present material, this no doubt Mac-using loser laid down the law with absolutes like "No more than six words per slide - ever." I also have to admit that I was kind of turned off by the fact that Reynolds kept giving written blowjobs to Steve Jobs and Apple in general all throughout the book. Sure - it's his book and all, but he could've kept this particular bromance on the DL as it does nothing to promote the content of the book. In my opinion, that is.
I also share Anders' opinion that this minimalist approach is probably easier to implement in marketing/business or for speaking to crowds that are not specialists. The example cited about using this approach to teach aromatic chemistry appears somewhat suspect to me. In my experience of teaching hard science as well as communicating scientific data to peers, it is absolutely necessary to use a bilingual approach - math and English. Consequently, while much of the material in English can be presented orally, the symbols and relationships need to be defined - and need to be easily accessible throughout the presentation. If you use some 15 different symbols and relations - some of which are universal and some of which are unique for this study - you are quite the optimist if you expect the audience to remember a definition from 12 slides back.
One thing I really took to heart from this book was the assertion that PowerPoint slides should not be used as handouts, because they're not meant as stand-alone documents, and consequently any middle-of-the-road approach to add written content for meaningful post-presentation retrieval is doomed to fail. Rather, Reynolds says, one should provide more detailed documents as handouts, which also adds degrees of feedom to what's on the slides. This hit quite close to home for me, because at the institution where I teach, the students expect that the slides are available on the course web page. Consequently, I try to add enough information on the slides to make them useful (hopefully) without my narrative. After reading this book, I'm even more unsure than before as to whether I'm doing the students a favor or a disservice by perpetuating this behavior. Reynolds' logic cannot be disputed; if the slides are meaningful without my narrative, then I'm superfluous. And if I only design the slides to complement my narrative, then they would be quite useless as handouts. Moreover, the written documentation for the material presented in the slides already exists - the textbook(s). So does my making slides available mean that some students won't read the curriculum? 'Cause my slides are not meant to be a substitute for reading the textbook - they're merely a supplement. I'd be fiercely interested in any input on this - especially as I'm about to revamp my slides for this semester's teaching as well as make new ones for the Spring semester.
Another topic that I found interesting and potentially liberating is the - also quite compelling - argument Reynolds makes in favor of deep-sixing templates where the logo of the company - or in my case lab - is featured on every page. Rather, Reynolds says, the logo should be present on the first and last page of the presentation, which helps to free up some much-needed real-estate on the slides. This makes sense to me, as even though I've tried to minimalize the logo in the template, it still poses some restrictions on the slides - both geometric and with respect to colors I can use. So maybe I'll try to deep-six the logo - save for the first and last slides - and see how it turns out.
..so imagine my surprise when Reynolds some pages later pretty much reintroduced the need for logos via the principle of repetition, wherein a red thread throughout the presentation is established via a common theme on the slides. Which pretty much is a strong advocacy for using small, rather unintrucive company logos, no?
Overall, I really liked the book. It provides some good approaches to the creative process, as well as some general principles and useful examples.
Buy the book, dammit.
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4 comments:
Great review, broski. Of course I have some comments.
some Moby-looking wannabe-guru by the name of Seth Godin.
Yep, no fan here either. I'm sure he's great a sales pitch, but I've seen some of his presentations, and while their fun and entertaining, I do feel they lack in content. Maybe I just don't "get it", so I haven't completely given up on the dude. Yet.
...this particular bromance on the DL...
DL?
And "LOL" to the paragraph. :-D
The example cited about using this approach to teach aromatic chemistry appears somewhat suspect to me
Dodgy indeed. Been trying to find the presentation online, but no luck. Would be interesting to see.
Regarding slides as hand-outs:
Printed slides are really, really low on information density. And I totally agree with Reynolds on this one. So does a certain Edward Tufte, which I've become a fan of lately (I know, I know, turn down the bromance).
Though I do not have your experience in teach as you do, I've used my lectures to experiment a bit (poor students). On of the classes is just a single two (academic) hours of lecture, where I basically could decide the curriculum myself. And it isn't possible to go very deep. Hence, I tried the powerpoint + handout thingy. Due to univerity policy, the student must have the PP printout up front, but the hand-out I gave out after the lecture. That worked quite well.
The same for my 45 minute introduction to HPLC prensentation to laboraty personell. There I made a hand-out which included the complete PP print-out as an appendix, and handed it out at the start of the lecture.
My other class I teach, there is a book and I have approx. 16 (academic) hours of lecture. I tried the written handout thing, but concluded it was a waste of time. As you say, they do have the book. Why on earth would I make a handout to compete with the book? As you, I do see the curriculum as the "hand-out" as I don't add anything that's not in the book.
Regarding the use of logo:
I follow the advice, only name and logo on first and last slide. I don't think Reynolds favour logo as means of repetition, rather that it is possible (check the example of the Swiss(?) photographer. He has his initial on every slide, but it's nearly not visible. The repetition is mostly provided by the red banner with a paperclip on). A common theme is better established by placement, use of whitespace, font, colors, etc, then a logo.
DL = Down-Low.
Due to univerity policy, the student must have the PP printout up front
Pretty much same deal for me, which effectively kills off the possibility of posing questions on one slide and having the answer on the next.
I tried the written handout thing, but concluded it was a waste of time. As you say, they do have the book. Why on earth would I make a handout to compete with the book? As you, I do see the curriculum as the "hand-out" as I don't add anything that's not in the book.
Seems we're in agreement on this. I wonder if any readers of this blog have other viewpoints on the topic?
I follow the advice, only name and logo on first and last slide.
This made very much sense to me, and I'm going to try it out. I've got a couple of invited talks this Fall where I can test the waters and see how much I'll get heckled if I try this out.
I wonder if any readers of this blog have other viewpoints on the topic?
Why, weren't my viewpoint good enough for you?
:-D
..of course they were.. :-)
I just thought that it would be interesting to hear any argumentation in favor of giving out slides. 'Cause at this point I'm seriously contemplating deep-sixing the handouts.
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