I’m giving a presentation in a couple of days. As typical, I’m using PowerPoint. (Can you give a presentation without using PowerPoint?)

I have a lot of experience with PowerPoint, from both sides of the projector. Some foils are interesting; others are eye charts.

Guy Kawasaki has a 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint:

• No more than 10 slides
• No more than 20 minutes
• No font smaller than 30 points

I like it! I even created my slides using these rules. Unfortunately, the person managing the presentation didn’t see the wisdom of nine slides having only a word or two each. I guess it makes sense; I think the slides will be given as handouts afterwards.

Which makes me ask: why not use different slides for the presentation and handouts?

For an example of using more than ten slides, watch Dick “master of the clicker” Hardt at OSCON 2005.