Interview with Cliff Atkinson

Cliff Atkinson has been writing for MarketingProfs about PowerPoint (and other graphical presentation tools) for more than three years now. I admit, when I first ran Cliff's stuff, I tended to view it as a bit limited: How much, really, is there to say about PowerPoint? Well, plenty, as it turns out. Almost a dozen articles later, Cliff continues to evolve his pet subject. It's not about PowerPoint, he says. It's about communicating your sales message (or any message, really) in a graphically compelling manner. In addition to his articles, he's recently authored a book and lectures worldwide. This month, on May 12, he leads a free online seminar, sponsored in part by us here at MProfs: "Transform Your PowerPoint Beyond Bullet Points!" (Get more information or sign up here.

Ann: You've built a career countering "Death by PowerPoint." What do the Microsoft people have to say about that?

Cliff: Microsoft is as eager as the rest of us to figure out better ways to use PowerPoint. Take a seat in any conference room in Redmond, and you'll experience the same bullet point boredom and frustration that occurs anywhere else. Microsoft's contribution toward a solution is that they invited an outside expert to offer a completely fresh way to use the tool, which became my new book — Beyond Bullet Points — published last month by Microsoft Press. Ann: So I guess they like you.

Cliff: [Next month] I'm giving my first workshop at Microsoft in June to a group of product managers, and am looking forward to sowing some bullet-free seeds of change.

Ann: PowerPoint fires people up that much? Isn't the whole topic a little on the margins, if not marginal?

Cliff: Not at all. We all normally think of PowerPoint as a fluffy and non-serious topic, but boards of directors and business schools are beginning to understand it as a serious culture issue that has huge ramifications through everything they do. HP, GE and the Wharton school of business are some of the groups that are developing an organizational consciousness about PowerPoint.

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