Cliff Atkinson

This book, sponsored by Microsoft, uses contemporary theories about communication to advocate that people stop using PowerPoint as a crutch and instead use it as a tool to tell a story. It accomplishes that task very effectively.

Most people use PowerPoint to delineate a series of statements to be used in a presentation. I've sat through many lectures in my education where lecturers merely regurgitate a series of messages already outlines on a slide deck. One can be pardoned for wondering whether one can get by with just reading print-outs of their slides in personal time.

Atkinson seeks to revise this problem, and he got Microsoft to publish his response. He makes PowerPoint a tool in the hands of a speaker to drive home central points in a talk. Warning against overcrowding slides, he advocates a simpler approach. He wants people to put only main points on slides because more material tends to confuse one's working memory, which can only handle between three and nine items at a time, depending on whose research you use.

He uses the motif of a story/narrative to center the presenter's ideas around in order to change/inform the audience's minds better. As such, he moves the center of a presentation from the presenter's delineations to the audience's cognitive processes. This shift makes communication much more effective.

A simple and easy read with good research to back it up and with stories to entertain.
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Cliff Atkinson's "The Backchannel" is a guide every bit as appealing and potentially influential in the world of backchannel learning as his "Beyond Bullet Points" remains for onsite-online presentations. The book entices us into the subject immediately through a chapter carrying the title "Why Are You Calling Me a #@*% on Twitter?" and helps us see how a tweeter with a large following (nearly 15,000 people as I’m writing this) and a well-known presenter clashed quite publicly when the presenter saw the tweeter' note with her derogatory remark about him. If you already sense that Atkinson' mastery of storytelling and training is a wonderful talent to see in action, you'e well on the way to understanding that his book has something for each of us regardless of whether we’re new to the backchannel or already fairly comfortable in that rapidly-lowing stream of words and thoughts and resources. He shows us how to join a backchannel. Entertainingly reviews the rewards and risks of backchannel engagement with copious amounts of screenshots to lead us down that path. Offers presentation tips to make us more effective in our use of Twitter and its backchannels. And leads us through the process of effectively dealing with those dreaded-yet-inevitable moments when a backchannel becomes dangerous. By the time we finish racing through this book and absorbing what we can, we're far more comfortable with and appreciative of all that backchannels offer, and much more aware of how to be effective and civil members of the Twitterverse and its various interconnected streams.… (más)

Cliff Atkinson’s visual approach to PowerPoint slide presentations has become a virtual industry centered around this second edition of his book; his Beyond Bullet Points web site (http://www.beyondbulletpoints.com/) with a blog, free templates, and links to updated material; and plenty of samples being created and posted online by those who have learned what he is teaching. Showing readers how to avoid slides which are text-laden and full of bullet-point items read to bored learners by substandard presenters, Atkinson provides inspiration for anyone who wants to create online lessons which will be effective, memorable, and fun for everyone involved in e-learning.… (más)