Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, offers his five rules for better PowerPoint. All good advice. We'd also direct him (and you) to our principles of PowerPoint, and many of the .PPT-related posts that have graced this page over...
Posted in CommLog on June 22, 2005 12:10 PM
Over the years I’ve compiled a list of key terms used by production crews for stage events. They use a language all their own, and if you’re not experienced in the theater, most of it sounds like nonsense. Still, it’s...
Posted in CommLog on May 19, 2005 08:06 AM
A couple of things today worth seeing. The first is this Fast Company article on change. I was picking through FC in the concierge lounge of the hotel tonight when I came across this attention-getting intro:Your own life or death....
Posted in CommLog on April 27, 2005 08:18 PM
Here's something useful: PowerPoint's "Presentation View." Your slides on the big screen; your current slide, notes, a timer, and the series of slides before and after the one being displayed on the screen of your laptop. And while you're checking...
Posted in CommLog on February 14, 2005 11:54 PM
When I received my daily quote from Fast Company this morning, I experienced a bit of a negative reaction...for about one millisecond. Here's what it said: "People who are involved in planning off-sites aim too low."—Brenda Williams, Founding Partner, the...
Posted in CommLog on November 9, 2004 06:11 AM
Don't know how we've managed to miss this site: Beyond Bullets, a weblog devoted entirely to the effective use of PowerPoint (with a good dose of new media theory tossed in as well)....
Posted in CommLog on August 29, 2004 11:41 AM
Even Bill Gates is beginning to see the value of weblogs as an internal communication tool. A portion of his remarks at the May 20, 2004 Microsoft CEO Summit:Another new phenomenon that connects into this is one that started outside...
Posted in CommLog on May 27, 2004 08:10 PM
While I’m on the topic, it was at another PR weblog worth reading, Greg Brooks’ Engage, that I found this Richard Mayer article on the cognitive load of PowerPoint. Reading the full article requires a free registration, but here’s the...
Posted in CommLog on April 8, 2004 01:41 AM
The current issue of US Airways' in-flight magazine describes the Babcock Elevator Competition, an annual business-plan contest sponsored by Wake Forest University. The fifth of this yearly event will occur on March 26-27, when 30 teams of nervous MBA students—from...
Posted in CommLog on January 7, 2004 09:45 AM
Word choices have consequences. Here are three sources that will help you choose wisely: * In the current issue of Darwin, Crawford Kilian identifies several dozen terms that are commonly misused in business contexts and highlights the appropriate use of...
Posted in CommLog on December 29, 2003 06:12 PM
It appears we have a new pattern here at CommLog: Jeff makes a substantive and meaty contribution about something interesting, (like he did here and here) after which I ride on his coattails with a short, pithy post that simply...
Posted in CommLog on December 22, 2003 12:11 PM
Take note: This is the first time we’ve seen fit to reference the terms “epistemology,” “Talking Heads,” and “surrogate decision-making process” in a single CommLog post......
Posted in CommLog on December 22, 2003 11:45 AM
In a follow-up to Jeff’s earlier post, here’s a link to Tufte’s website, where you may purchase The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, and his classic, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (which is required reading for all communication professionals). While...
Posted in CommLog on December 14, 2003 02:19 PM
...Argues Clive Thompson in this morning's New York Times Magazine:In August, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board at NASA released Volume 1 of its report on why the space shuttle crashed. As expected, the ship's foam insulation was the main cause...
Posted in CommLog on December 14, 2003 10:50 AM
An impressive tool for eliminating consultant-speak from written communications has arrived, and from an unlikely source, reports the NY Times: The people blamed for incentivizing companies to repurpose, build mindshare and utilize change agents have taken aim at their own...
Posted in CommLog on June 14, 2003 11:41 PM
In October 2002 we posted our primer on PowerPoint (read the post and download the primer here with our complements) as part of our continuing campaign to end the business world's raging “deck addiction.” Not that we have anything against...
Posted in CommLog on May 30, 2003 01:28 PM
When they need to make a particularly memorable or strategic point, we regularly advise clients to abandon typical "PowerPoint-ese" in favor of telling a good story. When used well, stories--called "narratives" by communication scholars--are more persuasive, illustrative, motivating, and are...
Posted in CommLog on January 14, 2003 12:22 PM
That we've seen an explosion in the use of PowerPoint and other presentation tools over the past several years borders on extreme understatement. With the increased use of such tools, however, we increasingly find ourselves in a position of reviewing...
Posted in CommLog on October 30, 2002 06:12 PM