Category Archives: Presentations

Presentation zen with emoji

Posted on October 29, 2014 by

In presentations, I find myself in a constant battle with giving the audience enough visual cues so they can absorb my messages without cramming a lot of words on slides. In a recent talk, I was able to use emoji … Continue reading →

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What software do I really need for academic work on Mac?

Posted on July 4, 2014 by

A reader has just challenged me to re-think the software I use for academic work on Mac. Well, there are over 250 items in my Applications folder, but how many do I need to remain productive? So imagine that I have a completely new Mac with no … Continue reading →

Posted in Automation, Bibliographies, Email, Files, Graphics, Notes, Presentations, Projects, Tasks, Workflows, Writing | Tagged , , | 97 Comments

Should PowerPoint be banned?

Posted on November 21, 2013 by

Originally posted on Academic workflows on a Mac:
My favorite podcaster Lucy Kellaway went into an open attack on PowerPoint (for those who wonder, Power Point is Windows presentation software also used by Mac users who have not discovered Apple Keynote). Not…

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Stop being boring! – another Keynote animation

Posted on July 20, 2013 by

These two Keynote slides illustrate some principles of animation described in an earlier post.  The first slide starts with a screenshot of Garr Reynold’s Presentation Zen website. The words “stop being boring” are captured by a separate screenshot of the same screen … Continue reading →

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Don’t let your Keynote animations compete with you

Posted on February 13, 2013 by

One of the best things about using a Mac is getting to use Keynote. It is a powerful and beautiful alternative to working with power point. Keynote has flexible and easy-to-use animations (called “Builds”) and transitions between slides which can … Continue reading →

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Talking to slides

Posted on January 30, 2013 by

Lucy Kellaway of Financial Times has just distributed the 2012 ‘Golden Flannel Awards‘ for ‘guff, cliché, euphemism and verbal stupidity‘. The winner of the Preposition Award is the innocuous word “to” as increasingly heard in presentations: “I’ve got some slides to talk … Continue reading →

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Managing audience attention: Keynote animations

Posted on January 22, 2013 by

There are only two real scarcities in the world: the scarcity of time and the scarcity of attention. In public speaking, you engage with both. You can’t afford to waste time or to lose the attention of your audience. Good … Continue reading →

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OmniFocus 2 and OmniOutliner 4 on their way … at last!

Posted on December 22, 2012 by

The OmniGroup announced its plans to release OmniFocus 2 and OmniOutliner 4 in the first quarter of 2013. Both are very welcome and some would say long overdue. In the last couple of years the group focused on developing the … Continue reading →

Posted in Presentations, Tasks | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Academic presentations: ideas, workflows, and a Mac

Posted on December 19, 2012 by

I recently commented on the declining quality of academic talks driven by the logic of conference organizers, for whom ‘a presentation’ often means nothing more than a set of slides. We can counteract this decline by taking the preparation of our … Continue reading →

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Why is the quality of academic presentations declining?

Posted on December 16, 2012 by

I think that the quality of academic presentations has been alarmingly declining in recent years. More and more of presentations I hear from senior academics at major conference don’t meet clarity and coherence standards I expect from graduate students. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Presentations | 10 Comments