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In December, I told you that PowerPoint guru Cliff Atkinson had signed an agreement with Microsoft Press to write a book on creative techniques for utilizing this popular presentation program to communicate more persuasively with your audiences. Beyond Bullet Points will officially be available on March 2nd, and is now available for pre-order from Amazon.com. Cliff just sent me a press copy of his new book, and I can't wait to dive into it.
Even if you have come up with the greatest idea in the world, you still have to sell it to someone -- your boss, a board of directors, a venture capitalist. And PowerPoint is the predominant presentation tool used by entrepreneurs to sell their ideas. The problem is that most people use it in the same mind-numbing way: They do a mental core dump onto a bunch of slides, heavily laden with bullet points and text -- a cure for insomnia, perhaps, but not the best way to persuade your target audience.
One of the tenets of Beyond Bullet Points is that we can learn much from Hollywood, and its mastery of telling engaging stories:
"Hollywood has always known that a story is a powerful, effective and efficient communication technique. No one needs special training or technology to understand a story, because it's the way humans have been communicating with one another throughout history. The structures of stories follow natural patterns that underlie the way we think and understand. Stories frame the context for communication and focus attention by making information specific and relevant to an audience. When you apply what Hollywood knows about stories to your PowerPoint presentations, you will quickly and dramatically transform your communications well beyond bullet points."
Beyond techniques like storyboarding, Cliff's new book contains some great suggestions on how to organize your information and ideas, so that they communicate more clearly and with greater impact to your target audience. I can't wait to dig deeper into this book. If your job involves communicating ideas to others using PowerPoint, then you should definitely take a look at Beyond Bullet Points. |
