If a presenter is bad, no tool can rescue him (PowerPoint or Keynote or Prezi or etc etc). The problem is that most people were never taught (or took the time to learn) how to present to an audience. There are really simple rules of effective presentation and the tool (PowerPoint vs Keynote etc) is insignificant .
What the organisers could do to help speakers is to present presentation guidelines for speakers
a) No more than X slides per 15 minutes
b) Minimum font size (I personally don't go below 25 for bullets and 18 for text on a diagram)
c) Good visuals (as most of the talks might be about networking ... the organisers could commission a designer to provide standard elements to be used in presentations ... router, switch, server etc. But then you can get all of that from free from openclipart.org)
d) A ration of text : graphic slides. (I personally try to have every other slide be graphic/illustration .... but I'd say 1 graphic slide to every 4 is ok)
e) Maximum number of bullets points per slide ( 5 - 7 max)
For those who might be interested. Nancy Duarte (a presentations expert) released an online copy of her book "Resonate" for free. Find it at
And yes .... slides are not the only way to present and not every presentation must be in the format of slides.
On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 5:44 AM, Tony Hansen <tony@xxxxxxx> wrote:
I ran into this article and felt it worth sharing:
Physicists, Generals And CEOs Agree: Ditch The PowerPoint
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/03/16/288796805/physicists-generals-and-ceos-agree-ditch-the-powerpoint
Actually, the article is not all one sided -- it does also discuss some times when they feel that PowerPoint *is* useful.
Tony Hansen
Mukom Akong T.
http://about.me/perfexcellence | twitter: @perfexcellent
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“When you work, you are the FLUTE through whose lungs the whispering of the hours turns to MUSIC" - Kahlil Gibran
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