Introduction: Doing a presentation at the next CAIR Conference? Or at the AIR Forum? Or for your campus president? Thinking of using PowerPoint? Do you want to create an interesting presentation and make a good impression? Then use the presentation resources listed below to help you create an inspiring and well received presentation. When developing your presentation, think about these questions: "Why is this important?"  "What question does this answer?"  "What can others do with this information?" Focus on presenting information (or a tool) that participants in your audience can take home and use at their campus. Best wishes, Robert Daly Web Sites: • Beyond Bullet Points at beyondbulletpoints.com • Effective Reporting at AIRWeb.org • Presentation Tips at GarrReynolds.com • Presentation Zen at presentationzen.com • Think Outside the Slide at thinkoutsidetheslide.com Book/Articles: "Best Visual Presentation - Observations from the Award Committee" by Trudy Bers with Broyles, Carroll, Daly, Cheskis-Gold, Dey, Quirk, Serban, Seybert, and Volkwein An IR Application from the Association for Institutional Reseach.  A very useful article containing presentation tips, and do's and don't's.  This is a beginner's guide but  has some useful information for everyone (the stuff I wrote). Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft Powerpoint to Create Presentations that Inform, Motovate, and Inspire, by Cliff Atkinson Uses the model of a Hollywood storyboard to create presentations.  This is a must read.  The book's technique focuses on "sales pitches," but its lessons are applicable for presentations of research. The author also provides storyboard and PowerPoint templates to help you create your presentation. The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint by Edward R. Tufte In this essay, Professor Tufte discusses why PowerPoint is "a competent slide manager and projector for low-resolution materials.  And that's about it." Do read this booklet and enjoy the "Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation." Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug Although this book's prmary topic is Web usability, it contains many useful lessons for developing presentations.  The last few chapters discuss usability test, and the lesson here of presentations is to practice presenting your presentation multiple times with a multiple number of people well before your actual presentation.    Guidelines for Preparing Briefings by the Communications Consulting Group and Publications Department at RAND An excellent guide to help you prepare and structure your presentation.   Discusses eight guidelines that you can use to help your audience understand and remember more of your presentation. Really Bad PowerPoint (and how to avoid it) by Seth Godin If you read nothing else in this list of books and articles, read this 10 page article.  Excellent tips on what to avoid, and on how to do it right. For example, Godin gives you 5 rules to create amazing Powerpoint presentations. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward R. Tufte It's a classic book on displaying data.  Though not directly related to presentations, everyone should have a copy of this book on his/her reference shelf. The book contains many incredible examples and includes "the best statistical graphic ever drawn."  That is the fate of Napoleon's army in Russia, on page 41. Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck: And how you can make them better, by Rick Altman Excellent Book on how to do it "right."   Comprehensive lessons on choosing backgrounds, using animation, the appropriate use of bullets,  and selecting and using images.  Every IR professional should have a copy of Rick's book. Sample Presentations: Australian HE Quality Assurance by Martin Carroll (published with permission of the author) Study slides 13 through 31 for an excellent example of using a graphical analogy to explain the goals of auditing. With slides 52, 53, and 54, see how a simple and crowd-pleasing animation was created. <free culture> by Lawrence Lessing If you are giving a presentation or making a speech, and what to use PowerPoint to emphasize your points, watch and learn for Lawrence Lessing. To watch more Lessing presentation videos, go to <http://www.lessig.org/content/audio/>. "Inbox Zero" by Merlin Mann A good example of using the Beyond Bullet Points approach.  Also good advice about managing your e-mail accounts. OSCON 2005 Keynote - Identity 2.0 by Dick Hardt, Founder & CEO, Sxip Identity Watch the entire presentation.  Nothing fancy.  Just simple and amazing. Uses the style of Lawrence Lessing. Slide Makeover Video Podcasts by Dave Paradi These slide makeover videos show presenters who use PowerPoint or Keynote how  to transform overloaded text slides into persuasive visuals that effectively convey ideas, and recomendations  to decision-makers.  The videos apply the five-step KWICK method from the book The Visual Slide Revolution to create slides that encourage the presenter to have a conversation instead of reading bullet paragraphs to the audience.  Winning in the Tough Districts by the Hillary Clinton 2008 Presidential Campaign Shows how the Hillary Clinton's campaign committed "death by PowerPoint."   This  is  an excellent example of before-and-after slides, as Rick Altman shows the Clinton campaign slides (the before) and  his remake (the after).  Download the "before and after" PowerPoint file here or in Rick's blog.  And be sure to read Rick's comments in his blog. Presentation Discussion List: CAIRPresents Need some help with your presentation?  Then send a message to CAIR's Presentation Resources discussion list.  (Be sure to subscribe first.) Send a message to CAIRPresents Subscribe to CAIRPresents Unsubscribe

Updated: July 11, 2008