Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007 to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire (Paperback)

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Key Phrases: solid fill, protected mode, next mark, Key Point, Notes Page, Slide Sorter (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Transform your presentations--and boost your impact--with practical, easy-to-apply techniques for using PowerPoint 2007. Author Cliff Atkinson is a presentation-skills expert who is helping revolutionize the way Fortune 500 companies design and deliver their critical presentations. Even major news media reported the contribution of Cliff's techniques to a verdict in a high-profile trial. In his highly-regarded, popular book BEYOND BULLET POINTS--now fully updated for PowerPoint 2007--Cliff shares his innovative three-step method that helps you unlock the amazing story buried in those bullet-riddled slides. He guides you, step by step, as you discover how to combine the tenets of classic storytelling with the power of projected media to create a rich, engaging experience. With easy-to-use templates, advanced tips, and plenty of illustrations and examples, you'll learn techniques to help you clarify, visualize, and present your ideas so that your audience will remember your important message. This newly revised, popular guide now includes a CD with sample PowerPoint 2007 files and graphics.

From the Publisher

Key Book Benefits:

Goes beyond how-to and features innovative, easy-to-apply techniques to help you clarify, visualize, and present your ideas

-Written by a leading presentation-skills consultant and popular author

-Includes information on graphic design and delivering presentations online

-Features a CD with sample PowerPoint files and graphics--plus bonus resources on a companion Web site

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (October 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735623872
• ISBN-13: 978-0735623873
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,111 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #1 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Microsoft > Applications > PowerPoint
  #14 in	Books > Business & Investing > Skills > Running Meetings & Presentations
  #20 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Graphic Design > Web Design > Web Graphics

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best yet from Cliff Atkinson... I'm now a complete fan!, April 2, 2008

By	Tom Carpenter "- www.sysedco.com" (Marysville, OH) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

I recommend "Beyond Bullet Points" in my class all the time. I continually have people coming up to me and asking where my slides came from or how I go about creating them. While I cannot say that I stick to the BBP process strictly, I do use its concepts heavily in my slides. This is why I tell these people ot start with BBP.

Well, I just picked up my copy of the 2007 version of BBP last week and wow! This is what it should have always been. It was good before, but the difference between the original BBP and the 2007 versions is as big as the difference between PowerPoint 2003 and PowerPoint 2007. Cliff has provided much more in the way of research-based findings that support the BBP methodology. He has also, I feel, done a much better job of explaining the whole process.

If you are totally new to BBP, you will understand the process and the reason it works much better with this new version that those of us who are old timers now. If you've used the first book or were even turned off by the first book, I highly recommend taking a look at this one. I don't believe you'll regret it.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent System for Effective Presentations, November 11, 2007

By	bibliobob "bibliobob" (Northern CA, USA) - See all my reviews

Beyond Bullet Points is about how to communicate effectively using PowerPoint. You start by defining a single purpose or goal, set a limited number of objectives to achieve that goal, and support those objectives with explanations logically arranged.

Nothing new about that. What's special here is an easy-to-follow system that pretty much guarantees success by forcing you to think about what the audience needs to know, rather than what to put on a slide. It's a very solid approach and much more helpful than, "First, write down your goal."

The process starts with a MS Word template that is so simple, elegant and easy to use that I couldn't resist trying it. Once completed, it becomes a roadmap or specification that guides you in creating or finding images that best support the points you want to get across.

The author has distilled thousands of years of knowledge about effective communication - from Aristotle to recent research by educational psychologists - into a very simple and practical system. And should you for some reason want to delve into original sources, he credits them.

It's much more about content than the software, and assumes a rudimentary knowledge of PowerPoint. It does not include any of those ubiquitous thematic templates with design elements repeated on each slide, and it explains why they should be avoided. It does include a PowerPoint template to help organize and structure your presentation.

On the negative side, though the system is simple and elegant, the book less so. It would benefit from a good editing, paring it down to about a third its size. And its layout and design is less inviting than it might be.

But that doesn't detract from the value of the information, which includes advice on editing presentations ruthlessly and making the design simple, clear and attractive. The author has thoughtfully provided a concise summary of the system as appendices - not in the book but on the included CD. I suggest you print out appendices A, C, and D first, and use them as a guide through the text.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensible guide for creating PowerPoints, January 3, 2008

By	Brad Shorr "Word Sell, Inc." (Geneva, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book converted me from an anti-PowerPoint extremist to a true believer. Why? Because all my traditional - and well accepted - ideas about putting together PowerPoints were wrong. Atkinson's BBP system is far better. He starts by explaining some basics about how we learn. What he says makes sense and is backed up by research. Traditional PowerPoint presentations violate most or all of these basics by trying to convey too much, too quickly. Atkinson shows how to break up ideas into digestible and memorable pieces with the proper use of templates, text, and images. But before getting into those specifics, he details his system for creating your overall PowerPoint story. Again, his suggestions run counter to conventional practice. For instance, in BBP, everything starts with the Slide Sorter View. Like most people, I guess, I'd start with the Normal View and start pounding out slides. Wrong! With BBP, you craft your story logically and systematically using storytelling methods that are tried and true. The heart of BBP is in storyboarding, which Atkinson likens to the art of storyboarding a film. The result of using BBP is a presentation that is coherent and persuasive.

Atkinson provides the theory and all the "how-to" details for building a presentation using his templates, PowerPoint 2007, and various other Microsoft products. If you don't use the 2007 version of PowerPoint, many of the "how-to" procedures won't apply. The book is still worth reading if only for an understanding of BPP principles and techniques.