Jan

SlideShare Zeitgeist 2010 – Tips for Powerful Presentations

Thanks to SlideShare for its summary of the best presentations of 2010 in “SlideShare Zeitgeist 2010″ and its presentation tips for making slide shows more powerful. Included are SlideShare’s “Best” lists, and stats about usage (note: Zeitgeist is a German word meaning general outlook). But what I found most helpful to avoid “death by PowerPoint” are the last three slides:

Popular presentations have an average of 63 slides. Yikes! I have to believe that’s because they are being read online and not presented in a live format. Otherwise at about slide 49 I’d be out the door.

Popular presentations use few words. The average is 24 words per slide. I guess this accounts for length of the most popular presentations. So you should ask yourself — if you’re presenting to a live audience — could I just say this instead of using a slide?

Popular presenters do their own thing when it comes to fonts. Presenters use a variety of fonts with Helvetica dominating at 24%. Type faces go back centuries but Helvetica was only invented in 1957 and is a relative newbie as type fonts go. (This blog is written in Helvetica). Would welcome your comments about what makes for a powerful presentation.

SlideShare Zeitgeist 2010

View more presentations from Rashmi Sinha.