The Mobile Presenter

The list of changes for the recently released Keynote 1.7 for iOS includes words to the effect that it now seems possible to import themes into Keynote. This makes it sound like you are no longer restricted to the 12 default themes that Keynote for iOS ships with.

As it turns out, this new feature is not quite what you think it is ...

I get this question a lot: I'm giving a 60 minute presentation. How many slides should I use? There is of course no right answer to this. In fact, it's the wrong question to ask.

In her book, The Non-Designers Presentation Book, author Robin Williams argues that a presentation should start with an introduction into the topic, like the preface in a book. [I]t's the foreplay before you start reading. We enjoy that process., she writes.

I happen to disagree with this advice. Actually, I've stopped reading forewords in books. They usually only tell me how important the topic is or how great the author is. I'm not interested in this any more. I already bought the book; just take me to the content already!

15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations by Joey Asher

This book is strictly aimed at business presentations. For those, the approach must seem pretty radical: Your presentation should take no longer than seven minutes - the rest (of the 15 minutes) is for Q&A.

The author proposes a rather rigid format for those presentations. That's necessary, so that you can keep that time limit and also as a guideline for the presenter to cope with the requirements of this approach.

The Non-Designers Presentation Book: Principles for effective presentation design by Robin Williams

Robin Williams (not to be confused with the actor) is the author of the classic The Non-Designers Design Book that I recommend when you want to learn about the basics of design. As the name suggests, The Non-Designers Presentation Book is a variation of that book focusing on presentation design.