Bullet Points Kill: And other deadly presentation traps

by Gabrielle Dolan

Do you have to sit through presentations by others that frequently include poorly designed, text heavy slides that the presenter uses as a script rather than engaging with their audience?

Presenters frequently rely on text heavy slides, littered with bullet points, that are stared at by audiences with glazed expressions and heavy eyelids. Can the presenter not see or feel the lack of energy in the room? The disinterest from the audience seems obvious yet 'Death By PowerPoint' lives on in business communications.

This book outlines the common reasons why we use slides poorly and the impact this has on your audience. It explores the ‘dos and don’ts’ when using slides because, if you need to use them, you should make sure that you are doing so correctly. Finally, it introduces you to other options for presenting.

The concepts in this book ring true regardless of whether you are giving a presentation to thousands of people from a stage or to a few people in a meeting room. No matter the size of your audience, you need to communicate your messages in the most effective way.

Together we can eliminate death by bullet point one presentation at a time.

38 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 18, 2019

About the author

Gabrielle Dolan can tell you a story or two.

In fact, it was while working in a senior leadership role at National Australia Bank that she realised the power of storytelling in effective business communication. Since that epiphany, Gabrielle has found her calling as a global thought leader on authentic leadership and business storytelling.

A highly sought-after keynote speaker, educator and author, Gabrielle has worked with thousands of high-profile leaders from around the world and helped countless of Australia’s top 50 companies and multinationals to humanise their communications - Telstra, EY, Accenture, VISA, Australia Post, National Australia Bank, Amazon, Vodafone and the Obama Foundation to name drop a few.

She holds a master’s degree in management and leadership from Swinburne University, an associate diploma in education and training from the University of Melbourne, and is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Executive Education in both the Art and Practice of Adaptive Leadership and Women and Power: Leadership in a New World.
Gabrielle is also the bestselling author of Real Communication: How to be you and lead true, a finalist in the Australian Business Leadership Book Awards for 2019. Her other published books include Stories for Work: The Essential Guide to Business Storytelling (2017), Storytelling for Job Interviews (2016), Ignite: Real Leadership, Real Talk, Real Results (2015) which reached the top five on Australia’s bestselling business books and Hooked: How Leaders Connect, Engage and Inspire with Storytelling (2013). Her latest title, Magnetic Stories: Connect with customers and engage employees with brand storytelling will be published by Wiley in March 2021.

Bringing humanity to the way business people communicate isn’t just a career, it’s a calling. Her dedication to the industry was recognised when Gabrielle was awarded the 2020 Communicator of the Year by the International Association of Business Communicators Asia Pacific region. The ultimate expression of her passion for the cause is her Jargon Free Fridays movement/ global movement (jargonfreefridays.com).