I love technology and spend most of my day immersed in it. It’s hard to keep in mind that technology is a tool, not the cure-all for everything. I am reminded of this as I’m taking on online Powerpoint 2007 course. Yes you can create professional presentations with Powerpoint and you don’t need to be a super-techie to do so.
That being said, do we really need hundreds of themes? Do we really need hundreds of animations? Of slide transitions? It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of making a presentation with interesting side effects. But, what about the meat of the presentation?
Like any other communication venue, basic common sense applies.
What are you trying to convery?
Who is your audience?
And, most importantly, use brief bullet points, don’t recreate your entire talk on the Powerpoint slides.
Nancy Loderick's Blog 
Joe
January 24, 2011
I completely agree don’t create your entire talk on powerpoint slides.
While at EMC ,we as corporate system engineers were haunted with presenting to large intimidating crowds. Part of our training was from a guy name Gilbert who was flown out from the west coast for a week training not in powerpoint, the tool but in presentation skills. He preferred very few powerpoint slides be used and to rely on personal presentation skills. His book
Power Speaking/How Ordinary People Can Make Extraordinary Presentations by Frederick Gilbert, PhD makes good reading and supports this blog entry.
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Nancy Loderick
January 24, 2011
Hi Joe – thanks for your comment. There’s nothing like a real-life example such as you described at EMC to illustrate this point. Thanks, too for suggesting the book on Power Speaking, I’ll have to check it out (and add it to my ever-expanding “must read” list.
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