Becoming a Slidesmith
4.7 (20)
3 Weeks
·Cohort-based Course
Practical and proven strategies for technical experts to build slides that enhance your credibility by elevating cognitive ease.
Becoming a Slidesmith
4.7 (20)
3 Weeks
·Cohort-based Course
Practical and proven strategies for technical experts to build slides that enhance your credibility by elevating cognitive ease.
Previously at
Course overview
Engage, influence, and impact your audience
Are you a technical expert who struggles to build appealing slides?
Do you have more than 6 bullet points on your slides?
Do you take long hours to create presentations?
If you want to add a professional touch to your slides without investing hours in training, this course is for you!
In this 3-week online course (90-minute live session each week), you’ll learn practical and proven strategies for building slides that enhance credibility by elevating cognitive ease.
In the first week, you’ll learn the core principles behind cognitive ease and understand the style & structure of business presentations.
The second week is focused on reducing text on your slides and writing impactful titles. You’ll learn information chunking and visual hierarchy to influence your audience.
During the third week, you’ll master the 4-step process for creating an appropriate and appealing graph or chart. You'll also hone the art of eliminating distractions and orienting attention from your visualizations.
The last week is dedicated to reviewing your work slides and working on them to give a “Slidesmith” touch. As a group, we will apply all the strategies from the course to real-life slides. You'll connect with other cohort members to accelerate your learning through examples, others' insights, and implementation in breakout rooms.
Prerequisite: Working knowledge of a slideware of your choice (PowerPoint, Google slides, or anything similar)
Alumni:
Personas: Engineers, Engineering Leaders, Product Leaders, Program Managers, Entrepreneurs, and Consultants.
Companies: Oracle, Nvidia, Salesforce, Nationwide Insurance, EY, Dell, Appzen and Taulia.
Bonus material:
- Video recording of all live sessions available via the Maven platform
- Class slides as a PDF
- 50+ PowerPoint templates to bootstrap your work slides (covers most scenarios in the tech world)
PS: See this LinkedIn post about how a Tech Lead at Salesforce uses the Slidesmith principles on his slides.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pramodavyasarao_its-great-to-see-people-change-in-4-weeks-activity-7158509082209931265-a3p-?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Who is this course for
01
Senior Engineers, Tech Leads, and EMs who create high-stake presentations to communicate with their leadership & cross-functional partners.
02
PMs, TPMs, and other functional team members who aren't yet comfortable building presentations or take a long time to build one.
03
Anyone whose role involves building presentations and they have more than 6 lines on several slides on your deck! That's a good indicator.
What you’ll get out of this course
How to put your audience at the center?
You'll learn a framework to brainstorm your presentation goals to ensure your time and effort matter and make an impact on the audience.
How to design slides that reflect cognitive ease?
You'll learn strategies and proven tools to use text, color and visuals effectively to lead the audience on your story path.
How to reduce the terror of text on slides?
You'll reduce text on your slides by using the concept of information chunking and leveraging pre-built content types and layouts.
How to create effective data visualization?
You'll learn a 4-step process for creating an appropriate and appealing graph or chart. You'll also master the art of eliminating distractions and orienting attention from your visualizations.
A mental model and vocabulary for elevating cognitive ease
What you learn in this course is applicable to anything you write: documents, emails, web pages, and many more. Your team will have a common language to discuss these strategies with your audience at the center.
This course includes
3 interactive live sessions
Lifetime access to course materials
13 in-depth lessons
Direct access to instructor
Projects to apply learnings
Guided feedback & reflection
Private community of peers
Course certificate upon completion
Maven Satisfaction Guarantee
This course is backed by Maven’s guarantee. You can receive a full refund within 14 days after the course ends, provided you meet the completion criteria in our refund policy.
Becoming a Slidesmith
Course syllabus
Week 1
Mar
28
Live Session 1
The big picture and core principles
Week 2
Apr
4
Live Session 2
Working with text and information chunking
Week 3
Apr
11
Live Session 3
Working with pictures, graphs and charts
4.7 (20 ratings)
What students are saying
Meet your instructor
Pramoda Vyasarao
CEO & Founder of Changesmith
I became an engineering manager in 2008. My role involved close interactions with Marketing and sales leaders at Oracle.
I was inspired by their ability to narrate stories using compelling slides. I attended various trainings, read books, and engaged in 1:1 mentoring to hone to become a Slidesmith.
Over time, people started admiring my slides after presentations. That's when I started teaching these skills to other engineers and managers. I ran monthly courses to help others.
If you're looking to add a professional touch to your slides without investing hours of training, this course is for you!
Course schedule
90 minutes per week
Weekly Live Session
8 AM to 9.30 AM Pacific Time
We'll work together as a group to polish your slides from the strategies you learned during each session.
We'll have breakout rooms to learn from other participants' slides and understand their perspectives.
3 Core Principles of Slidesmith
In this 8-minute video, you'll learn the core principles behind "Becoming a Slidesmith".
You'll understand the causes and consequences of cognitive ease. This knowledge will help you design and frame your slides to amplify your credibility.
Credibility + Cognitive ease = Impact on your audience!
Get this free video
Learning is better with cohorts
Active hands-on learning
You bring your slides to this course. Start making changes immediately while watching recorded videos and polish your slides - you'll apply theory to practice in minutes!
Interactive and project-based
You'll review your slides and embellish them in two 60-minute "Slide Dojo" sessions. This is an opportunity for deliberate practice with feedback on your work.
Learn with a cohort of peers
Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you. You'll interact with the community during and after the course for feedback on your slides. In breakout rooms, you'll see how others apply the Slidesmith strategies on their slides.
