It’s probably unrealistic to get rid of all your bullet points in PowerPoint, but the idea is to make your slides more visual and less text-heavy. The presenter speaks the words, the screen reinforces the key points using visuals, the audience understands and remembers.

PowerPoint is one of the most abused pieces of software. And giving a good presentation is a skill that must be practiced and mastered. Don’t just take my word for it. Here’s a couple of good articles from CIO Magazine:

• About what makes Steve Jobs a greater presenter (although he doesn’t use PowerPoint).
• Examples of PowerPoint “Trainwrecks” - some of the worst slides ever created.

One reason why the slides of presentations often are weak is that they are created to do double duty: first as the visual support for a live presentation, and second as a handout (i.e. outline)  given to the audience. Keeping these two functions separate can help a presenter create more visually supportive slides for a presentation. It’s more work to create both visual aids and an outline, but your audience will be better served—and you’ll be more effective as a presenter.