So, as many of you know, right now I’m working on my master’s degree Capstone Project and have been going at full tilt lately. My project is based around the idea that the way people give oral presentations today (utilizing PowerPoint and other “Slideware”) might not be optimal, and it might even hinder the learning and information transfer process. That is, PowerPoint sucks the living soul out of presentations.

It turns out that there hasn’t been much in the way of academic literature in this domain. Of course, there have been plenty of opinion articles, and there is a wealth of research in Education & Learning Theory, but research that aims to explain what is going wrong in many PPT presentations just doesn’t exist. (Somebody please correct me if you think this judgement is in error.) This dearth of research exists mainly in academia, however, and many people have taken this subject up in less research-based areas. A number of authors have thought long and hard about presentations. It is my goal to personally interview many of these authors, so that my designs can be informed by their masterful insight.

Yesterday I interviewed Cliff Atkinson, author of Beyond Bullet Points. He had some amazing insights that helped to cement a lot of the ideas that have been floating around in my head. I was a little nervous before the interview began, but it worked out amazingly well. Turns out authors who sell a ton of books can be nice guys as well. 🙂

I’ve also been in contact with Andy Goodman (author of Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes), who has also given me amazing feedback. This man is brilliant, and has a passion for helping those in the public and not-for-profit sector give stellar presentations so that their causes will succeed. Now if that’s not inspiring work, I don’t know what is.

Soon I look forward to conducting interviews with a number of other authors on the subject of presentations, but I don’t want to jinx it just yet. I’ll let you know when I hear back from the rest. 🙂