How to give great presentations and design better slides
Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Eight simple ways to wow your audience
From employee trainings and monthly sales goal meetings to large-scale formal proposals to upper management, presentations are an integral component of many professionals’ lives. Whatever your role, you want to give effective presentations that engage, instruct, persuade, and inspire your audience—not lackluster presentations that no one remembers.
In this in-depth, 3-hour live course, Curtis Newbold helps you develop and deliver engaging, organized, and memorable presentations by:
- Walking you through the eight-part P.O.W.E.R.F.U.L. Presentation Method—plan, open, weave, engage , relate, frame, unify, and leave—a valuable framework for delivering high-impact presentations;
- Providing practical tips for reducing nerves and improving delivery techniques that enhance attention, engagement, and retention; and
- Sharing easy-to-implement guidelines for designing slides that enhance readability, memorability, and long-term impact.
What you’ll learn and how you can apply it
- Best practices for giving professional, high-impact, and memorable presentations
- How to implement the POWERFUL presentation method
- How to design high-impact slide decks that improve attention, engagement, and recall.
And you’ll be able to:
- Organize presentations to create a powerful impact
- Tell better stories
- Design better slides
- Employ stronger delivery techniques
This live event is for you because...
- Your job requires you to present in front of teams, groups, or large gatherings.
- You're looking for new ways to energize, motivate, and engage the people you speak to regularly in professional settings.
- You struggle with public speaking and giving presentations.
Prerequisites
- You've sat through or given at least one poorly delivered presentation.
Materials or downloads needed in advance:
- Download and review the “Presentation Evaluation: Assessment Rubric and Comments” worksheet
- Identify areas that you struggle with or that you have witnessed and perceive to be common challenge for many presenters.
Recommended preparation:
- Read "Audience" section 1 in HBR Guide to Giving Persuasive Presentations (book)
- Read "Presentation Structure" chapter 4 in The Introverted Presenter: Ten Steps for Preparing and Delivering Successful Presentations (book)
Schedule
The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.
Introductions and roadmap (5 minutes)
- Lecture: Course overview and learning objectives
- Lecture and discussion: The value and purpose of strong presentations, regardless of topic
How presentations work (10 minutes)
- Lecture and discussion: What makes presentations successful (and what makes them lousy); how fears prevent great presentations (and how to overcome them); what the research suggests about making presentations impactful, memorable, and effective; applying Aristotle to be more creative; the general structure of a presentation; why visuals matter
- Professional presentation best practices
- Q&A
The POWERFUL method, Part 1 : Prepare (20 minutes)
- Lecture: the POWERFUL Method: an approach, not a process
- Lecture: Preparation:
- Knowing your purpose and narrowing your topic
- Understanding your audience’s needs
- Overcoming nerves
- Adapting to the environment
The POWERFUL Method, Parts 2 and 3: Open and Weave (25 minutes)
- Lecture: Open with Impact
- Introduce
- Grab Attention
- Orient
- Lecture: Weave in Stories
- Value and types of stories
- Story components—character, setting, plot, conflict, and resolution;
- Story integration
- Hands-on exercise: Dissect the components of an example story
Break (5 minutes)
The POWERFUL method, parts 4 and 5: Engaging and Relating (25 minutes)
- Lecture: Engage with Slides
- How slides impact presentations;
- Applying the picture superiority effect;
- Using data visualization best practices
- Lecture: Relating with delivery
- Promoting and setting the stage
- Communicating with non-verbals
- Being intentional about pace, breathing, and movement
- Discussion: What techniques have you found in your job and industry to improve engagement?
The POWERFUL method, parts 6, 7, and 8: Frame, Unify, and Leave (25 minutes)
- Lecture: Framing the Content
- Having a clear beginning, middle, and end
- Integrating visual and verbal signposts
- Transition statements
Break (5 minutes)
Designing Slides: Overview (5 minutes)
- Lecture: Values, challenges, and misconceptions about slide design
Slide Design Mentality (15 minutes)
- Lecture: Understanding how people think, pay attention, and recall information
- Lecture: Design thinking for slides
- Lecture: Becoming an artist-communicator
- Discussion Question: What makes the best slides?
Organizing Slides (10 minutes)
- Lecture: Slide types—Title, Section, Body, Callout, Closing
- Lecture: Footers, visual signposting, and slide numbering
Designing Slides (15 minutes)
- Lecture: Branding—Fonts, colors, logos, icons, and photography
- Lecture: C.R.A.P. Principles: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity
- Lecture: Turning bullets into icons
Enhancement & Tools (10 minutes)
- Screen Share & Demo: Timing and animations
- Screen Share & Demo: Layouts and Bleeds
- Screen Share & Demo: Creative Commons Images
- Screen Share & Demo: AI tools and image generation in PowerPoint
Review, Wrap-up, and Q&A (5 minutes)
Your Instructor
Curtis Newbold
Curtis Newbold is a passionate educator, speaker, and award-winning corporate consultant with a love for all things communication. He has designed and delivered courses, workshops, webinars, and presentations on scores of topics such as information design, data visualization, leadership communication, brand strategy, presentation delivery, business writing, and public relations management. Curtis has led graduate student marketing and communication projects in Peru, South Africa, Cambodia, Hungary, Morocco, and Iceland and he has taught at multiple universities in the United States and China. Curtis is the owner and chief content architect for the popular communications blog, TheVisualCommunicationGuy.com and is co-author of a textbook-in-progress, Business and Professional Communication, with Sage Publications. He currently serves as Clinical Associate Professor of Strategic Communication at the University of Utah and he holds a PhD in Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design from Clemson University.