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Creating a professional, polished, productive presentation requires knowing the audience and knowing how to use the tools effectively.

Look over:

PowerPoint: anathema or boon? by Juan Dürsteler, 10 Nov 2003

... my experience is that whenever one interacts with the audience,
asking for or showing them examples close to their experience,
the presentation is more lively and the message reaches them better.
In the end, our answer to the question which we began this article with,
is that PowerPoint is neither anathema nor boon,
it’s just a tool with which it’s easy to give bad presentations,
but when properly used, can help us to get a message across.
Doing it well or badly is something that depends on us.

things hadn't improved by the time of the 9th International Conference on Information Visualisation in 2005. Note especially his comments on the use of PowerPoint.

More than half of the presentations I have attended had slides that abused PowerPoint in its more inefficient and less visual way:
lots of bullet points almost literally read by the presenter.
It's clear that while you read the slides you barely pay attention to what the speaker is saying,
and if you listen to the speaker, reading is out of the question (what is then the need for a slide?).
This is a mortal sin in a conference like this,
where we have seen certainly other excellent presentations
centered on the visual contents of what the speaker was saying.

Two viewpoints

1. PowerPoint Is Evil: Power Corrupts. PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely. By Edward Tufte, September 2003
2. In Defense of PowerPoint, by Don Norman

Glance over these in preparation for the session on presentation delivery.

Look over

1. Big Dog's Leadership Page - Presentation Skills
2. PowerPoint Tips & Tricks
3. PowerPoint and Presentation Tips by Chris Campbell, 15 November 2005
   • look at it to stimulate your thinking
   • you may also find the linked Notebook to be of use - if not for this task, perhaps for other things

Other resources

• PowerPoint.First Presentation
• PowerPoint.Up to Speed
• PowerPoint.Sound Effects

23 April lecture | preps | design thoughts | understanding your tools
designing for delivery | narrating and packaging | thoughts to consider when presenting