Resumo de Beyond Bullet Points

Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson. Beyond Bullet Points (BBP), is a book that teaches how to use Powerpoint (tm) for presentation of ideas but without using bullet points. But there's more to it. Essentially, the book is for anyone who uses not only powerpoint (tm), but I think, conceptually appropriate for anyone who has to convey ideas to audience of any size. Presenting your ideas to your audience and convince them with your arguments is the moot point of any presentation, and that's not easy. Most people with powerpoint presentations write their notes on the slides using bullet points, and then show the slides, or read from them. Cliff argues in his book that such a style of presentation does not go well with many audiences. In addition, citing research by Richard Mayer, Cliff states that too much text on the slides can lead to information overload that hampers the communicability. Instead, what is his offer? In BBP, Cliff makes the point using Hollywood as a metaphor. Arguably, the world's most prolific presenter of ideas and information, the Hollywood film industry, has for hundreds of years presented information without bullet points to convey their ideas to audiences of all sizes and varieties. He suggests using Hollywood techniques of storytelling, anyone can create captivating presentations that can win audiences hands down. This book is about its implementation.In six chapters, Cliff outlines the steps using graphics. The book is organized around three chunks: first, the theory behind his ideas and supporting evidence (Chapter one and appendix one), two, a cookbook where using screenshots, he walks you through the processes of developing your story outline (Chapters two through chapter six), and three, teaching how to deliver the presentation (Chapter seven, which he calls producing your script).Basically, the idea is to create a story template in three acts. Act I includes the following: set up the story by outlining the setting, the protagonist of the play or presentation (audience), the imbalance (the problem statement), the balance (a desirable outcome), and the solution itself. Act II is in developing the action by thinking through your presentation as chunks of three gross workable units (at most four, for all you want to say) and work through those chunks. Between Act II and Act III is a turning point that restates the balance of act I in the form a question (but now people should have clearer answer, argues Cliff). Finally, in Act III, you summarize the resolution (or solve the problem) by restating the crisis (the problem statement), the solution that you offered (how to solve it), and two statements that mark your solution clearly (he calls them climax and the resolution). You hang the resolution statement (a catchy one liner ideally) as the final slide and prepare for taking questions.Next, convert the story template into a set of powerpoint slides. Here, he provides how these story template headlines can be enhanced with not bullet points, but with relevant pictures, graphics, flow diagrams, diagrams, animations, and other media. Finally, you learn the art of delivering the presentation and taking questions.Following these techniques you should be able to build up a catchy presentation, where your audiences will remember your ideas, and be influenced by what you have to say.In a world, where we get to see bullet point ridden presentations that often effectively put people to sleep, I have often heard people complain about delivering presentations in post lunch sessions or late in the day. Well, here is a nice solution I thought, one that takes away the drudgery of boring bullets through presentations. The book is about 220 pages, very tightly writtten, but readable. No fluff. I thought inclusion of a CD would be helpful, but Cliff provides a website where you can download story templates and can learn a lot about the approach (even if you do not buy the book, browsing Cliff's weblogs and discussection should get you up and going). Here is the site to check out:http://www.beyondbullets.comMy bottomlines would be to visit the website first, download the templates and the documents, work with them, and browse the discussion forums for a while. Then, buy the book and enjoy. Overall, it's a book well written, reasoonably priced and certainly worth buying and keeping for personal reference.

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