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Making great PowerPoint presentations - the 10/20/30 rule
blog.guykawasaki.com — An excellent blog from a venture capitalist who details how to create effective slideshows - the right amount of slides, the right length, and the right font size. A must-read for those in the business world.
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- dude3609, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2powerpoint is lame.. lol
I preffer flash over powerpoint.. - Zonkzor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3There should be some sort of certification process before you can legally create and display PowerPoint presentations. People have to use every annoying animation or god forbid SOUND. If you've ever been in a class of 30 students who all have to show a presentation for a school project you know exactly what I mean.
- LewsTherin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1^ Agreed. When I do presentations in class, I'm probably the only person without two animated pieces of clip art on each page. Not to mention the various transition effects.
- mevam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What bothers me is when the slides aren't parallel, meaning you use different fonts, font colours, bullets... etc for different slides. It just looks sloppy.
- rctyco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2hahah, not just students but also professors. i also prefer flash over powerpoint.
- matx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I hate it powerpoints have yellow text and a dark blue back ground. why does every lecturer do it!!!!!
- ashdigg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"40 mins to make windows laptop work with the projector" been there done that
- sandofsky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is also in Guy Kawasaki's book, "The Art of the Start." Great book on making a start-up, and it's full of misc tips like this. I'm using its section on naming your company to help come up with an LLC name for my freelance projects.
- liquidedge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If you're in a room of less than 20 people, never use a PowerPoint. It's the single biggest cause of meetings being ruined and collaboration being impeded.
If you're giving a presentation to a large group, only highlight points. 4 slides tops.
That being said, I would love to see Macromedia make a presentation product that made presentations look better than crappy PowerPoint. - vann, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0For those who haven't seen it: http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm
- FilCab, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Great and PowerPoint presentations on the same sentence?
Anyone wants to compare the beauty of presentations in LaTeX Beamer and PowerPoint? - balazs, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1powerpoint??? pfffff I use Apple's Keynote
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my blog: http://theminiblog.co.uk/ - dmron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Come on now, there is no such thing as a great powerpoint presentation. They all blow ass because the program blows ass. End of story.
- 1ivewire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1With 10 slides at 30 pt. font, we are talking about a certain type of presentation which I'm sure caters to venture capitalists like Guy.
I've seen plenty of good (and bad) presentations with over 20 slides including some with - dude3609, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0zonkzor said "There should be some sort of certification process before you can legally create and display PowerPoint presentations. People have to use every annoying animation or god forbid SOUND. If you've ever been in a class of 30 students who all have to show a presentation for a school project you know exactly what I mean."
Yea.. ive beein in that position. More then once too. lol
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http://poxy.us.to/ - Proxy page(Free, no ads, fast, etc) - 1ivewire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Not sure what happened to the rest of my comment.
(Continued) - revka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"powerpoint is lame.. lol
I preffer flash over powerpoint.."
I for one prefer screwdrivers over hammers - anti_hax0r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Powerpoint is fine, just don't use the presets - make your own background. Animations for presentations are silly. All you "flash is better" fools, try fixing a typo in your flash presentation 10 seconds before you have to present it. There is a time and place for everything, a business presentation is not the place for a flash animation 90% of the time.
- revka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Powerpoint is fine, just don't use the presets..."
thanks for restoring my faith in humanity :D - theuber1337, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Haha I thought that was familiar.. didn't realize Guy wrote it until a few paragraphs in. He gave a presentation to NYLF last time I was in Silicon Valley. He was a real Mac advocate so me and my friends booed and hissed through most of his speech. God that was fun..
- KillerX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The best PowerPoint presentations are the ones created with Apple's Keynote, I've use PowerPoint for years until I tried Keynote which is far superior to PowerPoint, especially if great looking presentations are important and you don't want your s to look like all the other drab PowerPoint presentations.
- matt0baba, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I totally agree...im a mac user for 4 months now and keynote rox ass,
- Rice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This isn't PowerPoint specific. It can really apply to all presentation software.
- smax, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0powerpoint is great if you can use it and in the right situation. Keynote is nice all tough I have not used it enough to compare the two. the problem with using powerpoint is that it it's to easy to make a bad presentation.
- kamizu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0companies should have seminars on making decent... ***** that, schools shouldn't graduate kids until they know how to make a decent presentation, be it powerpoint, flash or keynote.
three things annoy me the most: too many slides, slides packed with text, and inconsistency. for the love of humanity and everything decent, use ONE font, ONE bullet image, ONE background, etc etc.
these are basic tips, but helpful nonetheless. wish more people followed them. - applespice, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0hah! I liked this article more the first time, when it was on reddit a day ago
http://reddit.com/info?id=22693 - Mycroft999, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Great idea. Unfortunately it will be seized on by some management idiot who was "peter-principled" into a position of authority where they will chain every subordinate into a mold that is not meat to be concrete.
"But I only needed eight slides for my presentation."
"Then find something to put on two more slides. Ten slides are needed, I read that on a web page once." - Rajio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Boo.
Read some Tufte - LogicalMind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0powerpoint should be outlawed...
- fr1j0l3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0no mere VC, Guy has a long past in the Valley, through vaiours startups and being a "Mac Evangelist" for Apple back in the day.
It doesn't change the advice at all, just makes it that much stronger.. - aforonda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Mindjet makes an awesome product i use called mindmanager, great for meetings, collaborating, and more and no i don't work from them.
http://www.mindjet.com - ke4roh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Here's a good example of what Powerpoint can do to your presentations if you're not careful:
http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/ - MrC539, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0More people need to read this. I've seen someone put black text on a dark blue background rendering the presentation useless.
- bjohnsonwsu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Of course, if you want a portable / fast presentation that doesn't suck, you'd use CSS.
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/
http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/operashow/ - TurgidBoil, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0PowerPoint? The hell with proprietary software!
- bhanson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Keynote is years ahead of powerpoint.
- Ductapemaster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@ashdigg
"40 mins to make windows laptop work with the projector" been there done that
I'm totally with you. I'm a student technician at my high school and I get crappy presentations a lot...the time it takes to lug a projector, laptop, speakers, and everything else out the a room is definitely not worth it. I have seen more presentations like that Gettysburg one than you can imagine. Why can't people use their imagination (or someone else's!) these days.... - bluntsage, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hell, I don't care if it's PowerPoint, Keynote, or Magic Markers on the wall. Whatever you're doing, don't stand there and read the friggin' slide to me. I can read the goddamned thing myself. Just tell me what it means.
- Perc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Don't forget people that give lectures in editor mode instead of full screen, with spell check enabled in the wrong language, causing everything to be underlined in red.
- dthmnky05, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I had the opportunity to hear a speech by Guy Kawasaki about 6 months ago.
His guidelines have been a huge help for me and have shown much success.
I don't think this topic is about Front Page being better than something or not, it is just for simply the viewing pleasure of the audience. - cakefart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If there's anyone who knows exactly what they're talking about, it's Guy.
Excellent article, and worth applying to almost any other business presentation. - mynameisnick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I like the part about font size-- no smaller than 30pt.
I've got a teacher who's a real dumb ass. He goes on the Internet and copies and pastes PAGES of info into a few slides using 10pt font. What's more, it's always the default black Times New Roman on a white slide.
We need more guys like Kawasaki. (Just noticed the pun, sorry.) - digitol, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Great PowerPoint = APPLE KEYNOTE. END of story PERIOD.
- codehippo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+030 points!?!? That's 5/12 of an inch high! I sure hope you're not planning on presenting that on a 12 foot screen.
- wakazashi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1no digg, this isn't a good rule.
Font size of 24 - 32 for headings and 18 - 20 for the content. I brief and teach others how to brief as part of my job. It's true that you want to keep to about 20-30 minutes, but the number of slides is dependent on the content.
For his job, 10/20/30 may be just fine, it keeps out all of the terms and fluff venture capitalists hate. Plus most of the content will be printed for them and spoken to them. So I'd only apply this rule if briefing a VC... - imajilon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's even worse when you have to use the same company ppt template for *every* preso. Same color scheme, same font, same hero shots. Anymore, I start nodding off before I even get my passcode into ReadyConference.
- hayden.evans, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@ balazs
agreed - DarkSideofMoon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Since nobody wants to give a link to it, here goes...
http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/
With presentations, you need both substance and style. Obviously, the creator has to provide the substance. Not the program used. Many teachers and principals I've seen in my school think that flashy, springy *.gifs make the substance of the presentation. Nope. The programs job is style. Unfortunately, the only way to get good style out of PowerPoint is to make your own themes, and the average guy can't do that... not gonna lie.
Don't wanna sound like an Apple whore here, but Keynote is the simplest, most stylish presentation software I've seen. It's not cluttered with stupid animations and silly transitions: like Apple hardware, it's stylish. Sophisticated. But you can certainly butcher a Keynote presentation if you wanted to, and that's ultimately why the blame needs to be put on the presenter.
(Tip: if you ever want some inspiration for great presentations, watch a keynote address from Steve Jobs! Again, not trying to be an Apple whore!) - Tryforceful, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I saw Mr. Kawasaki as part of a nat'l tech form in San Jose this past summer, and he shared this rule with us then too. I'm glad it's linked to his blog; I never got a chance to sign up for his e-letter before. The way he presented it really did fit together, however. digg+
- ionix18, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0digitol: Not only you are out of the topic, you are full of *****. If you would have at least 50 of IQ, you would have gasped the concept of the author. He doesn't bitch PowerPoint but the METHOD USED. Not tell me exactly how your super apple keynote can ease the 10/20/30 rule? It doesn't! I am sick of those Mac fan boys out there who are posting off topic mac ***** all the time. This is totally unreleated and doesn't have its place on digg.
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