What are the most common mistakes that PowerPoint presenters and presentation designers do, and how can this book help them?
Rick: If I had to boil it all down to just one thing, I would cite the popular sentiment that the PowerPoint file is the presentation. I have colleagues who even refer to the resultant effort as “a PowerPoint.” This is way off. A collection of images projected behind you is not the presentation; you are the presenter and what you have to say is the presentation. Once you approach from that point of view, then tactics around use of the software can begin to make some sense. If the PowerPoint file is not the presentation, then for heaven’s sake, don’t dump your entire speech there. And if it is to remain subordinate to you, then don’t fill it with a bunch of attention-getting devices that undermine you. Projected slides should not work so hard and they shouldn’t make the audience work so hard. If that dramatic photo takes too much attention away from you or the text on your slides, then it performs a disservice, no matter how beautiful it is. My hope is that through all 278 pages, this b
