Excellent advice, Kipp and Dan. As a professional speaker, I try to use visuals rather than phrases. Sometimes, however, I admit to adding some abbreviated bullet points, especially when it relates to data. This is a good reminder. :)

This reminds me of that classic advice from Coco Chanel... "Before you leave the house, take 1 thing off." I'll try to remember to do that with my slides from now on!

I'm going to share this with my students. I've also posted some tips on slideshare that might be helpful to your readers. 
 

Slides should be a simple stepping off into the point you're trying to make. A good photo that illustrates the point works best. Mixing in quotes or snippets works well too. Humor is the glue that keeps people awake and interested.

You are SO right here. Too many people go right to PowerPoint and do a brain dump. Doing it on individual Post-its first is self-disciplining. And Lord save us from templates and the logo-on-every page!

I just re-read Slide:ology again and loved the stuff right up front about Documents (70 words - hold a meeting), Teleprompters (50 words- for the presenter), or single concepts that make it pop (ideal.)

10 on 10 for your 10 points!

Thankfully I don't have to give PowerPoint presentations very often but the next one I do I will refer to this article. I have been guilty of a couple of "Don'ts" but I won't be anymore! Thanks

I agree with virtually everything on here except the bullets. I don't see anything wrong with bullets especially given your reasoning that people can read text faster than bullets. I don't want people reading, I want them glancing.  
 
I don't think that bullets reduce your points to that reading aloud, maybe it does if you're not a good presenter. I tend to use bullets as a reference for what I talking about precisely because I don't want people reading, I want them to "be with me."

I believe that most presenters fill their slides with bullet points as a crutch. They’re afraid that they’ll forget to mention something, so they make sure that every single talking point is included in their slides. The solution: practice. Learn what you want to say with each visual. Use the slide notes feature if you need to have a visual reminder visible only to you. Just get rid of the lists of text that detract from you and your story.

I agree with that completely but I still don't think that invalidates the use of bullet points; it speaks to the necessity of adequate preparation. Those that use bullet points as a crutch will use text as a crutch and just read.  
 
I agree with every other point you make but this one I just can't see. Bullets are an efficient way to convey main points without having people get lost in your slide. To throw out bullets because some people lean on them as a crutch is to say we should throw out the telephone because we don't have as many face-face conversations, it's addressing the wrong problem. There's no problem with a bullet inherently, it's how people use them.

Wait, doesn't Hubspot use their logo on every slide?

Thanks for giving a good rules for making a good presentation.

I have to agree with Jeff about the bullets. If it's just a single word or short phrase, then you're a) not reading off of the slide and b) the bullets are helping you organize the info. Often, the data presented doesn't need to go on a slide all by itself, but it does need mentioning, preferrably with some sort of structure. 
 
 
 
I think the rule should be rephrased to "Don't read your slide," since that seems to be the problem it wants to adress.

@Kasy - You are correct, but we are working on no longer doing that. You should see a change in the future.  
 
Everyone I understand what you are saying about bullets, but I have to disagree. No bullets means no bullets. Bullets help break other rules on the list and take attention away from the presenter.

Maybe you can explain why, Kipp? Personally, I want my audience to read my bullets quickly, so they can spend more time paying attention to me. So I want to better understand your reasoning and how it applies to my experience.  
 
 
 
For instance, what do you mean "help break other rules"? Are they like a "starter drug" in rule breaking?

@Kate - Thanks for your response! Bullet points help speakers to break other rules on this list. Bullets for example, make it really hard to stick to one idea per slide.  
 
I don't want the audience to read my slides. It is my perspective that the information in bullets points on slides would be better delivered in document form, most often as a handout after the presentation.  
 
To me a presentation should act as a speaker's aid, instead of a stand alone document.  
 

Thank you for clarifying and I'll definitely keep it in mind when creating my future presentations. I like the hand out idea. I never really used those, probably because they always seemed like homework, but in this context, they have a good purpose.

Thanks a lot. Different and focused to practice. The only point with I am disagree is with the bullets. Really i don´t understand your arguement. People loves the bullets becouse focused to the main points. sumarize a clear shape about what i´m trying to tell an audience.  
 
Regards

Like how you guys are encouraging people to be concise! 
 
If I can take it 1 step farther... 
DESIGN YOUR SLIDES :) 
 
Content is king, but queen is design. And for inspiration... 
http://noteandpoint.com 
 
I echo Kasy's comment above :) That was my reaction too...

excellent points! making your presentation neat and straight to the points is crucial in catching your audiences attention. people who sits on presentations are generally professionals and professional looking presentations really appeal on such crowd.

Nice post, you can read more interesting stuff regarding 10/20/30 rule for good presentation by guy kawasaki. 
 
 
 
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html 
 
 
 
Seth godin also written his tips for good presentations, I have summarized his points. 
 
you can read the summary from http://kashifalihabib.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-to-create-good-powerpoint.html

Be clear. Be memorable. Be done.

Love this! Thanks so much for the tips. I never know how large/small to make fonts, so I especially appreciate the 30pt rule. 
 
One thing I would add: Go easy on the animations! I don't even like it when the slide changes are animated - it can make me nauseous from all the movement. I like to stick to 1 type of animation for objects/text(usually fade or peek in from below). Make the animations fairly quick; don't let an image take 3 secs to fade in, then another 3 secs to fade out - your audience will die of boredom. Also, don't use animations where the object is going to fly all around the slide like crazy before finally landing. Those are just a nuisance and distract from the message. No one cares how animated you can make a PPT presentation. They are there for the info, so keep it relevant and focused. 
 
I feel that at the end of the presentation, the audience should not be thinking about the actual PPT slide, but rather the information in it. They should be impressed with the thoughts and ideas presented. If they mention the animations, the text size or any other functional part of the presentation, the message was not delivered because the audience was distracted by the method of delivery.

nice post

Yup, totally agree with all of your points, although for me: DO NOT READ YOUR SLIDES should have way more emphasis. Can't bear it. I could read the stuff back at my desk, I don't need a colleague to do it for me.  
 
However re #9, I think graphs do need to be used - particulary when you are in a science/fact heavy industry.

I love these tips. The sticky note trick also helps you keep only relevant slides to tell the story and cut out the nice to have (the Coco Chanel trick may work here too). It seems like a lot of work though for an audience that is going to be tweeting on their phones the whole tim. I don't get how this has become acceptable etiquette, and in an era where multi-tasking has proven to be bad for you, that people are ok with tuning out a presenter so they can tweet with their friends about the bit they heard.

Thanks everyone for your comments! 
 
@BB - Yes but this post is a document not a presentation. Bullets work great in documents.  
 
Thank you, 
Kipp

Excellent advice except for the no bullet rule. The advice really should be "know your audience". There are times when bullets not only make sense, but are necessary. Example: in our organization pre-reads and leave-behinds are a common expectation. However, there are other times when bullets are superfulous and used as a crutch as others mentioned in their posts. For example, in a Toastmasters speech I would rarely consider using bullets.

To bring clarity to the bullets debate, note that Kipp finally said that a good tactic is to give them a handout *after* the talk. Perhaps you should mention this to your audience at the beginning so that they take less notes and listen more. This handout could/should have a few bullet points that support Kipp's one idea per slide concept. I recently began creating two versions of my ppts, a minimalist one for the live audience and a fuller one for the takeaway. 
 
Another great presenter is Steve Jobs, and his 30 minute presentations usually consist of 2-4 slides with one picture per slide. Not a graphic or an image, but a picture of the real world. But that probably only would work for about 0.0001% of the presentations that are given.

Number one question to ask is WHY. Why does this audience need to hear what I'm planning on presenting. Once that is answered you're set to add the right meat to the bones of your outline. 
cheers.

JOIN TOASTMASTERS......PP WILL BE A FRIEND, NOT A CRUTCH

Can you share an example of a great presentation? I'm struggling to visualize what one might look like. Thanks!

I do a lot of presentations to international audiences who have English as a second (or third or fourth) language. I find that some critical words or phrases need to be spelled out on my slides so that they don't get lost in translation. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Well done! Power Point used poorly is truly a productivity and morale killer! Thanks for the post. 
 

We've all sat in a snoozer of a Power Point presentation. This will help make sure our audience stays awake. Thank you.

When it comes to presentations, even if your slides has more than one idea, you could always use the animation scheme "fade in one by one" effect of where one idea is shown as you click on the laptop key or wireless presenter. However, it is better to stick to the 6x6x6 rule (not more than 6 words a line, not more than 6 lines on a slide and it can be read from 6 meters away) or not having more that 30 words on a slide. Having the main points available to participants usually helps people who are none native speakers of that langauge to understand better. It is also useful for visual learners.

Annie, you make an excellent point! As a former educator, it's important to engage all types of learners. I, too, am a visual learner and appreciate seeing what it is I am absorbing. 
 
In addition, we must all be cognizant of those with certain disabilities who benefit from seeing visual cues in order to process information.

Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds is a great reference book on this topic. 
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321525655/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=4813404389&ref=pd_sl_18hmlkggs1_b

Well hell. Let's take it one step further.  
 
Completely ditch powerpoint and have zero slides

I give presentations in churches and they have to be one of the worst environments for slide clutter, charts and all out noise. I don't know that I can single handedly stop the bad presentation etiquette but I will use this post to try. Thanks.

Well done,Nice post.

Great advice on all the issues you covered, however I think there is one other very important and simple tip. People should understand that a presentation is a presentation. Save your PowerPoint as PPS. I have seen untold numbers of "Professionals" Open there presentation as a PPT. I have always viewed my PPT as my "working garage" and the PPS as the finished product. When saving your finished PPT, goto "save as" and then save it as a Power point show. It is so much more professional in my opinion. JLane

Rule #11: Don't use PowerPoint. 
 
Or any of the knockoffs for that matter. Your ten rules above goto this line of thinking.

Two Suggestions: Let me upgrade your point #2. Before you start playing around with sticky notes, take the large piece of paper and identify the most important message in your presentation. Then the 2nd most. Then the third. Ask yourself, "What is the best way to communicate these three points to my audience?" Powerpoint or other visuals may NOT be the answer.  
 
Second, once you have identified your three points, create a way to tell a story or stories to make your message more impactful. (This is your point #10. It needs to move up on your list. 
 
See Tim Kogel's book, "The Exceptional Presenter," "Made To Stick" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath,and Garr Reynolds's "Presentation Zen," for more useful tips.