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| Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire | 
 enlarge | Author: Cliff Atkinson
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $17.92
You Save: $12.07 (40%)
New (39) Used (14) from $15.75
Avg. Customer Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 9691
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 7.3 x 1.3
ISBN: 0735623872
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.58
EAN: 9780735623873
ASIN: 0735623872
Publication Date: October 10, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: All orders ship same business day via standard shipping (USPS Media Mail) if received by 1 PM CST.
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Product Description
Unlock the amazing story buried in your presentation and forget boring bullet points forever! Now updated for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, this widely-acclaimed book includes seven new examples of compelling presentations from board room to classroom. Communications expert Cliff Atkinson guides you, step by step, through his revolutionary three-step method for increasing the impact of your presentations. You ll discover how to combine classic storytelling techniques with the power of visual media to create a rich, engaging experience. Transform the way you create and deliver your critical message and quickly bring your ideas to life! FOCUS Learn how to distill and shape your best ideas into a crisp and compelling narrative. CLARIFY Use a storyboard to illustrate your ideas, creating the right blend of message and media. ENGAGE Move from merely reading your slides to creating a rich, connected experience with your audience and increase your impact! CD includes: Cliff s custom templates build your story! Quick reference checklists for compelling presentations Complete eBook plus bonus content!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 16 more reviews...
 Best yet from Cliff Atkinson... I'm now a complete fan! April 3, 2008
31 out of 31 found this review helpful
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.
 Business People Beware! January 5, 2008
29 out of 37 found this review helpful
This book fails in a big way - it does not address the real needs of a Powerpoint user within a corporation today, which is the source of the vast majority of Powerpoints created. There is virtually no attention given to how to present analysis, data, and findings and how to report on the details of a critical project that manangers, senior leaders, executives, and board members will use to guide their decision making.
Did it really take two versions of the book to make the point that slides that contain fewer bullets are easier to read? Do we even need a book to tell us that? The countless times we have all sat through truly awful presos suggests that we are already highly adept at making this point ourselves. If you added all the "cute" pictures from the examples in this book, you'd burn out you ink cartridge if you ever had to print one!
Readers, please understand: the author's message about this topic resonates with a certain segment of the user population and he makes part of his living from it in the form of a website, media interviews, books, and consulting gigs where his REAL interest is. You'll notice too that creating an "updated version" is a great way for the author to start boosting the sales price of his book since you could have picked up a new copy of the last version for about $13.00 or less!
This book does well for the Powerpoint user who is creating a presentation that will be talked through and explained to an audience (Eg. teachers in a classroom, salespersons with customers, speakers at a large conference etc.). There are some great tips on how to craft and deliver your message. However, the techniques do little for the slide deck that will be printed and circulated around a table for review or one whose content needs to stand on its own without the verbal narrative it would otherwise need to be meaningful. You'll note that the author's credentials suggest that his strength is in communications rather than business. And this is indeed what he delivers. If your need is not presenting any type of business analysis, then I believe this book will help you very much.
I have spent a great deal of my time coaching analysts and managers on Powerpoint and presentations- both MBA and non MBA - and these are definitely not the techniques that lead to best in class business presos.
Hope that helps.
Excellent System for Effective Presentations November 11, 2007
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
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.
Indispensible guide for creating PowerPoints January 3, 2008
17 out of 19 found this review helpful
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.
simple but useful January 18, 2008
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
For a book that is about presenting information concisely, there are a lot of unnecessary words and pages, but perhaps that's necessary to make a book out of it. Nonetheless, the information is useful, and my presentations are much better as a result of following his advice. His focus on making your main points fit into a two line title has made my verbiage much more effective, and it's kind of a fun challenge. I've modified his approach significantly to fit my needs, but without having read the book I'd still be back with overly long and kind of boring PP presentations.
If you are only going to buy one book, tho, I'd probably recommend Presenting to Win [ASIN:B000OHZG9Y Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story]] instead.
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