Seth just put his e-book Really Bad PowerPoint online in its entirety on his blog. And I’m a little upset.

I bought that e-book probably 7 years ago, and got more value out of it than just about any piece of writing I’ve ever laid eyes on. Now, perhaps, a bunch of people will have this arrow in their quiver.

In college I used the ideas to catapult every single group presentation to the top of the pile. Every other group in a particular class would read off of their bullet-point laden, SPSS chart-infested presentation, putting their classmates, the professor, even themselves to sleep.

And then we’d walk up. Sometimes the ideas behind our project were great, sometimes they were mediocre. But every time, we had a funny, engaging presentation full of interesting, sometimes shocking photography that had students actively involved in what we were saying. It gave my team members confidence because they didn’t have to be charismatic – they knew the presentation could do a lot of the heavy lifting for them (and the lack of pressure actually made them more engaging in the process.) And the outcome was consistently great grades on the presentations. Shame I couldn’t have done PowerPoint presentations for my German classes.

Since then I’ve employed the same tactics in presentations I’ve given to schools, to internal colleagues, at tech presentations. It doesn’t take any additional time – it’s just as hard to find an interesting, emotive photograph as it is to throw together another chart in Excel. But the payoff has been tremendous every single time.

I shouldn’t get too worked up. Of course knowledge is an enabler, and having this information freely available will certainly lead to increased Pretty Presentation Prevalence. But there’s always the other part, which is a far more intractable problem – caring enough to want to do things differently. Being willing to risk weird glances from teachers or colleagues or clients in an effort to be a more effective presenter. It takes a certain amount of guts and a passion for what you’re presenting.

Which I guess is where Seth’s other books come in.