Review: Why Most Powerpoint Presentation SUCK (and how you can make them better)
Author: Rick Altman
Publisher: Harvest Books
The best way to start this review is to make it clear what this book is:
70%: PowerPoint tips, tricks & techniques
20%: Speaking tips
10%: Multimedia advice
0% : Focus on scientific presenting
So, with the caveat that this book is what it is, it does it very well.
Let us start with the author. Rick Altman hosts the annual PowerPoint Live conference, dedicated to helping presenters become better presenters. As such, he is both exceptionally knowledgeable about PowerPoint, and is very engaging in his style. The writing style is very conversational and easy to read, making this an easy book to pick up and enjoy.
The book contains 21 chapters, with each chapter broken into easily digestible chunks. The book is peppered with pictures – from slide formats to actual PowerPoint menus to help the reader understand what he is doing. One of my few complaints about the book is that these pictures are all in B&W, not color.
The other complaint is almost unfair, but it stems from the authors expertise with PowerPoint. In short, by about the halfway mark through the book I started getting tired of all the neat tricks he showed on how to use obscure (and, admittedly, some not-so-obscure) PowerPoint features.
My complaint stems, I think, from my belief that you don’t make a PowerPoint presentation suck less by making it more glitzy (something that the author recognizes, and states himself repeatedly), but by dealing with basic presentation techniques. As such, I think that the book is somewhat mis-named. Something like “Making PowerPoint Dance” would have been a more accurate title in my mind.
That said, if you accept the book for what it is, and not for what you might want it to be, then it is a very good book, and I would recommend it for someone who wants to see what PowerPoint can do in the hands of an expert. And if you just want to make your presentations better, well, pick it up anyhow, but don’t feel that you have to read the last half of the book.
That said, I’m downloading his PowerPoint samples, and I’m sure some of the tricks will find their ways into my next slide package.
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The Speaking Scientist 
[Commentary] Review – Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck
Review: Why Most Powerpoint Presentation SUCK (and how you can make them better)
Author: Rick Altman
Publisher: Harvest Books
The best way to start this review is to make it clear what this book is:
70%: PowerPoint tips, tricks & techniques
20%: Speaking tips
10%: Multimedia advice
0% : Focus on scientific presenting
So, with the caveat that this book is what it is, it does it very well.
Let us start with the author. Rick Altman hosts the annual PowerPoint Live conference, dedicated to helping presenters become better presenters. As such, he is both exceptionally knowledgeable about PowerPoint, and is very engaging in his style. The writing style is very conversational and easy to read, making this an easy book to pick up and enjoy.
The book contains 21 chapters, with each chapter broken into easily digestible chunks. The book is peppered with pictures – from slide formats to actual PowerPoint menus to help the reader understand what he is doing. One of my few complaints about the book is that these pictures are all in B&W, not color.
The other complaint is almost unfair, but it stems from the authors expertise with PowerPoint. In short, by about the halfway mark through the book I started getting tired of all the neat tricks he showed on how to use obscure (and, admittedly, some not-so-obscure) PowerPoint features.
My complaint stems, I think, from my belief that you don’t make a PowerPoint presentation suck less by making it more glitzy (something that the author recognizes, and states himself repeatedly), but by dealing with basic presentation techniques. As such, I think that the book is somewhat mis-named. Something like “Making PowerPoint Dance” would have been a more accurate title in my mind.
That said, if you accept the book for what it is, and not for what you might want it to be, then it is a very good book, and I would recommend it for someone who wants to see what PowerPoint can do in the hands of an expert. And if you just want to make your presentations better, well, pick it up anyhow, but don’t feel that you have to read the last half of the book.
That said, I’m downloading his PowerPoint samples, and I’m sure some of the tricks will find their ways into my next slide package.
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Posted in Commentary
Tagged PowerPoint, Review