Latest posts

Below are the most recent articles or resources I’ve published. If you are looking for help on a specific topics, it would best to look at the topics in my Articles archive as I have grouped my recent and best articles by topic there.

  • Donut Graphs; Issue #295 September 17, 2013

    For the last year or two I have noticed newspapers and magazines using donut graphs more often to show proportional data results. Donut graphs may look like they are hard to create, but they are actually built into PowerPoint, so any presenter can use them. Here is an example that shows how a donut graph…… Continue reading

  • Three uses for a black slide; Issue #294 September 3, 2013

    In a workshop last week in the Boston area a participant noticed that I effectively used black slides during the workshop and wanted to know more about how and when to use them. It is a topic I cover in the workshop, and in this article I will share with you what I told the…… Continue reading

  • The Globe and Mail August 26, 2013

    Dave’s advice on updating the classic three “Tell Them” statements (full article here) was featured in the Globe and Mail on August 26, 2013 in this article. Continue reading

  • The grammar of text on slides; Issue #293 August 20, 2013

    Despite what some commentators say, I don’t believe that we should eliminate all text from every slide. In my workshops I explain that text on slides is necessary and helps the audience in many ways. In this article, I want to talk about the grammar of text on slides. I regularly get questions on this…… Continue reading

  • Should you switch to 16:9 slides?; Issue #292 August 6, 2013

    One of the big changes in the latest version of PowerPoint is that the default aspect ratio (ratio of width to height) for slides is 16:9. In all previous versions, the default aspect ratio was 4:3. Why the change? Because widescreen formats are becoming more popular for projectors and TVs used in presentations. So should…… Continue reading

  • Updating the three “Tell Them” statements; Issue #291 July 23, 2013

    There is a classic piece of advice that many presenters have heard when thinking about how to structure their presentation. The advice is to: “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.” I think this advice is outdated and in this article I’d like to…… Continue reading

  • Don’t put yourself in a cage of text; Issue #290 July 9, 2013

    When audience members tell me in my Annoying PowerPoint survey that the speaker reading the slides is the most annoying thing about bad PowerPoint slides, some of the blame must be put on the “wall of text” slides that presenters use. Today I want to talk about how all this text puts the presenter in…… Continue reading

  • Eliminate 75% of the numbers; Issue #289 June 25, 2013

    Information overload is the single biggest issue in presentations today according to audience members I have surveyed. In my book, Present It So They Get It, I devote a chapter to five strategies for laser focusing your information to avoid the overload problem. One of those strategies is to eliminate data that is not relevant…… Continue reading

  • The Globe and Mail June 24, 2013

    Dave’s Proportional Shape Comparison Diagram Calculation Tool was featured in The Globe and Mail on June 24, 2013 here. Continue reading

  • Proportional Shape Comparison Diagrams; Issue #288 June 11, 2013

    In February I launched a tool on my website that allows you to create diagrams like this: I refer to this type of diagram as a proportional shape comparison diagram because the size of the shapes allows the viewer to instantly compare the numbers each shape represents. These types of diagrams are popular in print…… Continue reading