Many of you have probably heard of a variety of “methods” to creating a PowerPoint presentation.  I’ve often been asked, “What’s the best method?”  Along those same lines I also hear, “How many slides should I have?  How much time should I spend on each slide? 

If you’ve read any of my previous posts , you’ll know that the cornerstone to an effective PowerPoint or Keynote presentation is idea of “Simplicity.” Keeping your slides as simple and image-based as possible will keep your audience visually engaged and will help them recall your message more easily. Filling slides with useless text can be detrimental to your presentation’s health.

In the past few weeks I've been sitting in on a number of presentations.  While we continue to try and improve the quality and effectiveness of presentations worldwide (go big or go home, right?), I still stand by the idea that 99% of presentations suck.  Not so much the content, but the design and delivery. 

There's an inherent relationship between a presenter and his/her audience.  The presenter hopes that the audience shows up (on time), with sincere interest in what the presenter has to say.  That's pretty obvious.  But the audience has expectations of their own. 

Choosing the right amount of slides for your presentation is a difficult thing to do.  You can check out some well known methods of presentation design to help you decide what the right amount of slides are, but those are simply "methods."  Thus, there is no correct method. 

TED has earned a lot of attention over the years for many reasons, including the nature and quality of its short-form conference presentations. All presenters lucky enough to be asked to speak at TED are given 18-minute slots maximum (some are for even less time such as 3- and 6-minute slots). Some who present at TED are not used to speaking on a large stage, or are at least not used to speaking on their topic with strict time restraints.

Exposing ourselves to traditional Japanese aesthetic ideas — notions that may seem quite foreign to most of us — is a good exercise in lateral thinking, a term coined by Edward de Bono in 1967. "Lateral Lateral Thinking is for changing concepts and perception," says de Bono. Beginning to think about design by exploring the tenets of the Zen aesthetic may not be an example of Lateral Thinking

Most people do not really think about design and designers, let alone think of themselves as designers. But what, if anything, can regular people — teachers, students, business people of all types — learn from designers and from thinking like a designer? And what of more specialized professions?

Presenting while people are tweeting is challenging – but also adds a new dimension to the presentation experience for your audience. Gradually tools are being developed to make it easier for you as the presenter to manage the backchannel. I

People often ask if technical or science-related presentations can be as compelling as presentations covering other less technical topics. Now, not every presentation has earth-shattering, Nobel-Prize winning significance, but I assume if you are talking about your research or current issues in your field, etc. that your words have a benefit for someone else.