Beyond Bullet Points- Using Microsoft® PowerPoint® to Create Presentations that Inform, Motivate, and Inspire

Can you really deliver a PowerPoint presentation without having any bullet points in the deck? This book does a good job of convincing that this is possible. However, I believe that the book's greater contribution is pointing out that most people structure presentations as a dump of data rather than taking into account their audience and the goal of their presentation -- why are people there? What do you want them to do or believe after you're done presenting? Even if you disagree with Cliff's convincing points on removing bullets from your decks, you should take to heart his framework for developing concepts and decks.

The running example is of a presentation for a proposal to approve some drug or another for the executive board of a company. While I'm sure there are lots of presentations done for boards, at the company I work most presentations are to groups of peer first-level managers and individual contributors about technical areas, product overviews, or change initiatives. The second most common are those to upper management on the status of a project or requests for resources. None of those are easily transformed into the marketing presentation, as they contain lots of data to present, sequences of actions that need to be taken, lists of stakeholders to be affected, etc. I could see how you can remove bullet points from certain types of presentations, but he didn't do a great job of convincing me that was true of all presentations.

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These days, not many people head into meetings without the requisite set of PowerPoint slides. But critics are taking aim at PowerPoint and question whether it helps communication or shuts down thinking.

Cliff Atkinson believes he's built a better mouse trap. He wants us to dump boring, bullet-riddled slides, and he has a creative solution: he taps Hollywood-style storytelling to transform PowerPoint presentations from endless lists of bullet points into compelling communications.

Beyond Bullet Points is a guided methodology for using the power of storytelling to make PowerPoint presentations effective communication tools, not just speaker notes.

Atkinson relies on examples, templates, and downloadable information from his site to demonstrate his concepts and wean the reader off the use of mind-numbing bullets.

Atkinson will have you working on your story long before you touch the PowerPoint software, which is not common practice for many presenters. His book is full of other tips to help pull together a compelling and persuasive presentaton.

If you're a user of PowerPoint, add this book to your library.

Michael McLaughlin, coauthor with Jay Conrad Levinson of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants.