PresentationSECRETS a book by Alexei
Kapterev

Hi. I’m Alexei.SOME OTHER GUY
ALEXEI KAPTEREV

I live in Moscow and
I teach at theMoscow University’s business school

4 year s ago I
pub lisheda pr esen tation Slideshare on

As se TV! en onW
hich became one the world’s most popular presentation about presentations (funny, yes)

B ut letme makea small
confession...

Back then Iwasn’t reallymuch of
aguru myself

I was justmaking myfirst steps

But when “Death by Powerpoint”
went viral, lotsof people came to me asking for helP!

I had nochoice butto becomean
expert

Q: So, 4 years later,
do we still suffer from Death by Powerpoint? YES.A:

Most presentations still have:Incomprehensible Lousy
Sleep-inducing structure slides delivery

TypicalstructureYou cannot summarize the argumentNo
answer to the question “why bother?”No story arc — just tons of facts

Typical slides (it did get
a bit better, but still…)Too much text and dataAesthetics? What’s “aesthetics”?Pictures for the sake of pictures

Typical delivery Talking to the
mic, not to the audience Mo-no-to-ny-mo-no-to-ny-mo-no-to-ny Scripted, canned… inauthentic

What is still wrong?

Bad presenters share either of
the 2 extreme beliefs: orIt’s voodoo magic, You can do it you have to be by following born with it “3 simple rules”

areOK, presentationsdifficult(This is true and
I’m notgonna lie to you on this)

It m ight SEEM likeyou
have to become: Scriptwriter YOU Designer Actor

But afterdoing it myself I’m
convinced:EVERYONECAN DO IT

4 RULEIt’s just NEVER PRESE
a matter of 1. Don’t e“simple rules”. 2. Use san 3. Avoid uFor example… 4. Always

The rule“Use pictures not words”often
leads to irrelevant,cheesy slides

So I suggest adopting3 PRINCIPLES
(not rules):Focus Contrast Unity

Focus Contrast Unity Our attention
is limited, so weshould FOCUS only on few things and leave out the rest.

Focus Contrast UnityWe can truly
understand facts only in CONTRAST to other facts.

Focus Contrast Unity By working
from a SINGLE UNIFIED METAPHORyou achieve internal consistency.

Theory pracTice Now, principles are
easy. Applying them is hard.Let me give you some examples.

Structure 1st point 2 nd
point GOAL 3 rd point 4 th point Ideally, a presentation should haveONE GOAL supported by 3-5 KEY POINTS.

Slides LARGE BIG STATEMENT PICTURE
• Much • Smaller • Supporting KEY INDICATOR • Points A slide should have a CLEAR FOCAL POINT, something it is “about”.

Delivery A presenter has to
GUIDE the audience’s attention, making sure they can FOLLOW.

Structure The story must describe
both solutionsand PROBLEMS — otherwise it’s POINTLESS.

Slides Best illustrations COMPARE or
show things CHANGING.

Delivery Great presenters ENGAGE *
the audience. * En•gage [enˈgāj]: 1. occupy, attract, or involve 2. enter into conflict or combat

Structure Solution + Intro Call
for action Problem —The S-curve is a CLASSIC PATTERN of CHANGE. What’s the overall pattern of your story?

Slides This font works with
this object This font works with this objectWhat’s your OVERALL DESIGN METAPHOR? For this presentation it’s a whiteboard.

Delivery Improvise Rehearse Both improvisation
and rehearsal areINDISPENSABLE if you want to look authentic.

OK, principles areimportant, but thisbook
is NOT aboutthe principles.It is mostly aboutILLUSTRATIONS,EXAMPLES, CASES.

I believe that bystudying examples
youlearn to APPLY thoseprinciples CREATIVELY —and this is the secretof GREAT presentations.Get your copy ofPresentation Secrets ALEXEI KAPTEREVon WILEY.com. www.kapterev.com