Take your PowerPoint slides Beyond Bullet Points

Popular keynote speaker Clif Atkinson says that bullet points kill PowerPoint presentations. On a friend's recommendation, I picked up Atkinson's book, Beyond Bullet Points, in preparation for an hour-long presentation I had to give this past weekend. His bullet-free story technique made a huge difference in my slides. Why no bullet points? Atkinson says:

Bullet points on a screen make information harder to understand, not easier.

The core purpose of communication is to cohere: to coalesce fragments of information back together into a single understanding. That's the most difficult task of communicating. And it's actually the origin of the word communication: to "make common", or to bring together.

Bullet points can do many things, but they do not cohere information. In fact, they do the opposite—they fragment understanding into little pieces. Break any topic into a title, sub-headings and bullet points, and you're de-communicating, because you're not helping to bring a single idea together.

Instead, Atkinson says you should craft a story to tell in your presentation - much like a Hollywood director scripts a film. As someone who never uses PowerPoint and had much anxiety over delivering this presentation, I can't recommend Atkinson's book enough. He explains the story formula clearly and provides downloadable templates at his site for scripting your message. When you use his method, your presentation has structure and flow a bunch of slides with bullets just won't have. This one's required reading for anyone who presents with PowerPoint (or Keynote, for that matter.) Atkinson also has a blog with several articles that can give you a taste of the book's message. Thanks, Matt!