Atkinson - Beyond Bullet Points: Using PowerPoint to tell a compelling story that gets results

4th Edition

Cliff Atkinson

BEYOND BULLET POINTS

Published with the authorization of Microsoft Corporation by:

Pearson Education, Inc.

Copyright 2018 by Pearson Education, Inc.

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ISBN-13: 978-1509-30553-7

ISBN-10: 1-5093-0553-X

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018934573

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CREDITS

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Greg Wiegand

SENIOR ACQUISITIONS EDITOR
Laura Norman

DEVELOPMENT EDITOR
Rick Kughen

MANAGING EDITOR
Sandra Schroeder

SENIOR PROJECT EDITOR
Tracey Croom

COPY EDITOR
Wordsmithery

INDEXER
Valerie Perry

PROOFREADER
Scout Festa

TECHNICAL EDITOR
Echo Swinford

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Cindy J. Teeters

INTERIOR DESIGNER
Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

COVER DESIGNER
Twist Creative, Seattle

COMPOSITOR
Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

To my good friend, Jaine.
CLIFF ATKINSON

My thanks to Laura Norman at Pearson for shepherding this book to completion, to Rick Kughen and Echo Swinford for their expert editorial insight, and to the Pearson production team for transforming words and pictures into the book you hold in your hands.

CLIFF ATKINSON is an acclaimed writer, popular keynote speaker, and an independent communications consultant to leading attorneys and Fortune 500 companies.

He crafted the presentation that persuaded a jury to award a $253 million verdict to the plaintiff in the nations first Vioxx trial in 2005, which Fortune magazine called frighteningly powerful.

Cliffs bestselling book Beyond Bullet Points (published by Microsoft Press) was named a Best Book of 2007 by the editors of Amazon.com, and has been published in four editions and translated into a dozen languages including Chinese, Korean, and Russian.

This book expands on a communications approach he has taught internationally at top law firms, government agencies, business schools and corporations, including Sony, SC Johnson, Chevron, Toyota, Del Monte, Nestl, Deloitte, BBDO, The NPD Group, Ipsos, Facebook, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Intel, Microsoft, the American Bar Association and the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal.

Cliffs work has been featured in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News.

Cliff received his B.A. in English and journalism from Baylor University in Texas and his M.B.A. from Richmond, The American International University in London. After serving as a captain in the U.S. Air Force, he held marketing positions for start-up companies and then launched his own business as a full-time communications consultant in 2001. He currently resides in New York City.

Sometimes, when you least expect it, a story can change your life.

I was 24 and a lieutenant in the Air Force stationed in Spain. It was my first big job, chief of public affairs, overseeing the base newspaper and relationships with the media and the local community. I had dreamed of living in Europe while I was growing up in Texas, and this job was a perfect fit for a college English and Journalism major.

Whenever I could, I took vacation time to tour the cities of Europe. One rainy summer day on a trip through France, I drove an hour south of Paris, to a town called Chartres. When I arrived at the front steps of the cathedral, it looked like every other one I had seen in Europethe walls a depressing gray, the streets quiet, and the cavernous interior empty.

I joined a group of other tourists who were waiting for a guide, and up walked a tall man with a shock of thick, gray hair, wearing a tweed jacket and speaking a perfect gentlemans English. Im Malcolm Miller, he said. Welcome to Chartresmy home for the past 30 years. Malcolm was the author of several books on the cathedral, and the recipient of the highest civilian honor in France for his in-depth knowledge of Chartres.

Chartres is shrouded in mystery, he began. We dont know who built itnot a single architect, artisan, laborer, sculptor, glassmaker, or painter took credit for the work you see here. It was a true labor of love.

Malcolm pointed to the empty streets around the cathedral and explained that in the 12th century, they would have been packed with pilgrims who had traveled hundreds of miles by foot to see the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres. The outside of the cathedral would have been buzzing with activity, he said. He gestured to the walls. These were jam-packed with the stalls of merchants selling meat, fruit, vegetables, and fabrics. Over there are the benches where moneychangers conducted their business.

The gray exterior walls were impressive, adorned with intricate carvings and flying buttresses, but Malcolm said the surfaces were once painted in bright colors, making them even more spectacular. Imagine pilgrims arriving, their mouths agape in wonder as they marveled at the canopies of color above them.