With J. Douglas Jefferys
"How to stop killing your clients with PowerPoint Poisoning and deliver presentations that provoke and persuade"
Wouldn¡¯t it be great if when you presented, people actually listened?
Microsoft claims there are over 30 million PowerPoint presentations given every business day. What they don't say is that most of those presentations never accomplish what their presenters set out to do - that is, achieve true knowledge transfer. In fact, rather than engage audience members in the point at hand, most presentations send listeners off on "journeys of self-discovery" as they desperately try to figure out for themselves what all those convoluted images up on the screen are supposed to mean.
As the audience drifts off, the speaker invariably reads this disconnect as a failure of his delivery skills, and anxiety builds. Credibility falters, and the message is lost.
It doesn't have to be this way.
Conquering Death by PowerPoint is the definitive video on modern presentation design, written and performed by one person who has been developing computer-based on-screen presentations since the beginning of the personal computer era, and long before Windows or PowerPoint.
J. Douglas Jefferys¡¯ volume encompasses both presentation design and delivery, based on his 25 years experience as a corporate trainer, professional speaker, and presentation developer. Mr. Jefferys leaves no doubt that there is an inextricable relationship between design and delivery, and that you can¡¯t do either well without a good understanding of the other.
Audiences will be delighted to know that this is a take-it-home-and-use-it-in-business-tomorrow class of book. Everything that Mr. Jefferys brings forth in this often entertaining discourse applies to the presentation you¡¯re working on right now. The video is structured around ¡°The Seven Basic Rules¡± of presentation design, and before Jefferys tells you what to do, he tells you why.
In the penultimate chapter, Jefferys takes square aim at the illustrious Dr. Edward Tufte, considered in many circles to be the pre-eminent guru on visualizing information, and who has spent much of this century writing and lecturing on the ¡°dangers¡± of using PowerPoint in scholastic, scientific or other ¡°serious¡± environments.
Yet by offering an amazingly clear and easily understood alternative design to the infamous ¡°Boeing¡± slide, considered by Tufte to be proof that PowerPoint killed the seven Columbia astronauts, the author irrefutably demonstrates that properly constructed slides actually can deliver exactly the intended message, and that the only danger is the lack of training most people receive before being taxed to design and give consequential presentations.
This beautifully produced 1-hour video, guaranteed to keep you visually stimulated with its 12 magnificently crafted virtual sets, will not only change forever the way you view presentation design and delivery, it delivers the tools you need to make those changes now. Follow these rules, and you will save your next audience from ¡°Death by PowerPoint¡±.
Review
~ "I've been giving financial presentations for my firm for over 10 years and thought I knew it all. Boy, did this video open my eyes!'
Starting with a whole new take on what really constitutes proper eye-contact, Jefferys then takes you step-by-step through a set of fairly easy to follow rules about what you can and can't put into your slides. I redid my main presentation according to the Rules, delivered it with his techniques on audience contact, and first time out got the greatest reception of my public speaking career.
I can't imagine anyone in business who couldn't severely benefit from the lessons here." - James Gallagher, Financial Consultant from Amazon.com
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