Presentationism

Randy Pausch’s ‘Last Lecture’ at Oprah Winfrey show.

Some of you might heard of Randy Pausch - a dying pancreatic cancer sufferer and a Carnegie Mellon University Academician of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design; have inspired and attracted millions of audiences about his ‘Last Lecture’. We are not going to discuss about the speech content as we are pinpointing about his simple and captivating Powerpoint presentations.

First of all, presentation slide layout must be simple and clear. In his lecture, he had used black-colored background and light colored fonts. He regular uses two to three bullets for the text-contents. In some slides, he did not use any bullets at all.

Sample of his introductory slide.

As for the image display, especially putting pictures about his childhood and also his rejection letters, he had included maximum of three pictures in one presentation slide. If it is only one picture in one slide, magnify this picture so that it fits exactly on the slide. Please make sure that the pictures included in these slides must have high resolution for better display.

Two-picture presentation slide. One overlaps with one another.

Three-picture presentation slide. Use high resolution images for a better view.

‘Twin-picture’ arrangement. Two pictures are perfectly aligned with each other.

Other than that, he had improvised his speech earlier in order to have a smooth delivering skills, in terms of clear pronunciation and suitable body language. He has used several suitable metaphors for instance - “there is an elephant in the room…”, that allows audiences to get along with his speech.

A-title-and-a-picture slide. He has improvised his speech well without looking much at his presentation slides.

Besides the Powerpoint presentations, it is very important to have a positive mind in order to become a true presenter. You need to learn to put aside your problems quickly before your presentation starts - as if it is your ‘Last Lecture’. Perform your skills to the fullest without concerning much about the final outcome. In conclusion, Randy Pausch is a great presenter and he is able to make audiences listen to his speech - so can you!