A long time ago I read a book called Presentation Zen, it made a huge impact on me. It made me think about all of the presentations I had given and been in the audience for. Some of them was decent, others were just outright terrible. Not just in the presentations themselves, but how the presenter gave the presentations. Then I saw Steve Job introducing new products and Ignite Talks and I realized what’s possible.
Although not directly related to giving good presentations, I previously found a list of visualizations showing various ways to display data. I reference that post every so often.
Recently I got access to another book, Slideology. I had heard about the book but never picked it up. Once I did I found a few nuggets. One being a large list of sample diagrams demonstrating ways to show relationships between things. Next time I’m stuck showing relationships between items in my presentations, I’m hoping to reference these diagrams again.
Additionally there was a chapter about slide layouts, and the publisher has downloadable slide templates.
Finally I read a page about Reducing Text on a Slide. It reminds me about a page toward the beginning of the book which explains the difference between the amount of content on a document, a teleprompter and a Slide. The document has dense content, the teleprompter has text which acts as a crutch for a presenter and slide is a visual aid to reinforce the presenter’s message. It goes on further to say that an audience can either read the words on a slide and listen to a presenter, they can’t do both. As a presenter you must choose which you want for each slide.