Archive for the 'Powerpoint' Category

Out of the box, most Powerpoint templates are pretty cookie-cutter and boring. Powerpoint 2007 raises the bar, but the basic page layout is still heavy on bullet points and weak on effectiveness.

If you want to completely reach your audience you need to create effective slides for the three main learning styles. They are…

1. Audio learners: Receive information audibly or by reading to themselves
2. Visual Learners: Receive information with their eyes
3. Kinesthetic learners: Receive information by touch or feel (hands-on)

Here are three common slide types and their overall effectiveness.

1. Basic Powerpoint Slide

Lets take a look at the common Powerpoint slide and see how we can improve it

You have probably seen this type of Powerpoint slide many times. It features the built-in Narrow Arial font in black with rounded bullets and a standard MS Office template background. If you’ve seen one, you have seen them all.

Unfortunately this slide will do nothing for your visual or kinesthetic learners in your audience. Very few visual people find a lot of text interesting. And it will only be helpful to your audio learners if you read it to them or they read it to themselves. This will take their focus off of you and have them reading the slide. The more information, the longer their attention will be focused on the slide.

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2. Enhanced Powerpoint Slide

Let’s modify our font, customize our bullets, and add a photo to spice things up.

Notice in this slide we have added a bold title font with shadow, we have limited our bullets to main points only, and used custom graphics for the bullets. We added a photo that is large enough to see easily and added a custom frame to have it dissolve into the background. The template background features a custom gradient for added visual interest.

This type of slide is certain to draw the attention of your visual learners. The photo adds visual interest along with a colorful background and graphical bullets. The strong title font gets your message across quickly, and limiting your bullet points to just main points get your message across much quicker for the audio learners (they will be able to read it much faster) and returns the focus to you.

The only group generally left out with a slide like this is your kinesthetic learners (hands-on). If you tie this in with a hands-on worksheet, you’ll have a slide that works well for all groups.

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3. Emotional Picture Slide

The final type of slide is one that can be effective for all learning styles. The power is in its simplicity. In just a matter of seconds you message is presented.

The text is generally one or two words in bold text. The emotional picture takes up the entire slide. The bold text is quickly read by your audio people, while the bold picture is a delight to your visual learners, and your kinesthetic people will feel the emotion of the photograph.

This type of slide tells a story without distracting from you, the presenter. Your audience can quickly figure out what is going on, and the slide reinforces what you are saying. You tell the story and the slide adds the emotion.

In figure 3 above, the gentleman in the front is frustrated that his football team just lost. His co-workers who were for the other team, hoot and holler in the background. We’ve all been there, but the picture quickly brings back the emotion! They say a picture is worth a thousand words. For a slide like this pick one that tells a story!

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In conclusion, you can create a much more effective presentation by using the enhanced slides to cover your facts and figures and the emotional slides to tell your story. Use both to create your next masterpiece!

Additional References:

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter) by Garr Reynolds Read more about this book…

Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007 to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire by Cliff Atkinson Read more about this book…

As a speaker I’ve always had a fascination with Powerpoint, flipcharts, overheads and other visual media. As a kinesthetic-visual learner I always do better with a subject if I can SEE what is going on. Show me a picture, and I will learn better and remember more of what you said.

While I like visual media, I have struggled with it greatly. As a speaker, using any one of the mediums tends to distract me and draw my attention away from the audience and focus it instead on the visual media source. I have found that it takes a lot of practice to present well and communicate with the media smoothly.

I have had some blundering failures with visual media and also some amazing successes. Here are five things I’ve learned by trial and ERROR that have helped me move further into the success column and stay out of Powerpoint Hell!.

1. Be Prepared: If it can go wrong… it will… when presenting. I have made a new rule for myself and that is to arrive an hour early for any visual presentation in unfamiliar surroundings. Having an hour will give you the time needed to overcome the worst technical problems. Here are some of the common things I’ve run into…

• The projector doesn’t work
• My laptop won’t sync with the projector
• A cable is not available to connect the laptop to the projector
• The overhead projector’s bulb is burned out
• There is no electricity to hook up the projector or overhead
• A flipchart is NOT available
• There is no adapter available to hook up my Mac laptop

These are just a few of the things I’ve run into that can be show stoppers. The audience does not want to see you fiddling with a projector or cables. Giving yourself an hour of prep time will help immensely in overcoming them. The other thing that will help is to …

2. Develop A Presenters Toolbox: This is a collection of gadgets, wires and other items that will save the day. Mine has morphed over the years as technology has changed but here are a few of the common items that are now priceless.

• Memory Stick to carry a copy of your presentation on
• Presenters handheld slide changer/laser pointer for Powerpoint
• A long and short extension cord and duct tape to secure it to the floor
• A VGA cable to connect a laptop to a projector
• Batteries of all types: AAA, AA, and 9 volt are a must
• A burned CD of your presentation in case the computer doesn’t have a USB port available (this one has saved me multiple times)
• A copy of the free Powerpoint 2007 viewer program (saved on CD)
• If you use a Mac laptop, there are two common VGA adapters that are priceless. Make sure you have both types. (Apple doesn’t ship them with the laptop)
• A portable flip chart easel that you can store in your trunk

3. Keep It Simple: While many things can be visually presented, your overwhelming amount of data should be put in a handout… not on your slides. If possible, limit your slides to one point and one graphic per slide.

Lots of bullet points will distract your viewer and have them reading the screen. Remember… you are the focus of your presentation… not your slides. The slides should reinforce and enhance what you are saying. They should not be a reading script.

Using the notes feature of Powerpoint will help you keep your slides simple but quickly be able to see your notes by printing them out or using the presenter’s view in Powerpoint.

4. Practice, Practice, Practice: Get familiar with the media source (laptop, overhead etc) before you give your presentation. Go through the entire presentation at least once to make sure there are no glitches or technology problems and that the presentation flows properly.

Arriving early will give you a chance to use the equipment provided and make sure that everything works together. It will also give you a chance to visually check the room for blind spots and distractions.

One of the big things is to test any wireless devices (microphones-pointers etc) and make sure they work consistently at the distance you will be presenting. If your audience can’t hear you, they will let you know!

Use the slide sorter in Powerpoint to re-order and fine tune your presentation for maximum impact. Make sure you have enough handouts for your expected audience and that you have printed your slides in handout view (6 or 9 per page) so you can refer to them throughout the presentation without looking at the screen.

5. Set Up The Room: If you have a meeting room that is configurable, you can enhance your presentation by following a few simple steps. For Powerpoint, set the projector and screen to your right (as you face the audience) and put the laptop or other computer source on a table facing you.

This will allow you to use Presenter’s mode in Powerpoint where you can preview your slides and see any notes as you face the audience. This will prompt your memory slide by slide and help keep your attention on your viewers. It will also keep you from turning your back to the audience and reading the screen.

Putting the screen to your right (audiences left) will help place your slides in your viewer’s Visual Remembered Mode. Researchers have found that people tend to look up and to their left when recalling things from memory. If you place your screen or flipchart in this position (upper left as the audience sees it), they will remember more of your presentation. It also puts you center stage where you are the primary focus of attention.

It’s also a good idea to have someone sit in the back row and listen to you. Can they hear you without a microphone? Try raising your voice slightly a few times until you reach a comfortable range for your listener. As you are presenting, focus from time to on time someone sitting in the back row and direct your voice to them. This will help you remember to keep you voice at a proper level for everyone to hear you.

Wrap Up: These are just a few of the things I’ve encountered when using Visual Media. A great place to practice in front of a live audience is Toastmasters. Many Toastmaster clubs have visual media tools available, where you can practice your Powerpoint or Flipchart presentations in front of a supportive audience.

Further Reading: There are some great books that will help you create and fine tune an amazing Powerpoint presentation… here are three of the best…enjoy!

Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007 to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire by Cliff Atkinson Read more about this book…

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter) by Garr Reynolds Read more about this book…

Presenting Magically: Transforming Your Stage Presence with NLP by Tad James, David Shephard Read more about this book…

When you first get started with Powerpoint, you’ll learn a lot of new commands and keystrokes. As you work through the interface you’ll find buttons that you constantly use to make things happen.

One of the first little toolbars that you’ll discover is down in the status bar area in most versions of Powerpoint and contains three buttons.

The first button is called the normal view button. This will quickly bring you back to the normal or default view. The second button will lay out a photo album style view of all your slides. This makes it quick and easy to move slides around and sort them the way you want. The third button starts your slide show (the F5 key is the shortcut). You’ll use this button all the time to test and present your shows.

Once you are in your show you may find that the N key or Right Arrow key becomes your best friend. This key will advance your show one slide at a time. If you find that you need to go back a slide, The P key or Left Arrow key will be useful

As important as all of these are for a great presentation, they don’t compare to the most important button. in fact they don’t even come close.

You see, the most important button is the B key. When you press this during a slide-show the screen turns black. If you press it again your screen returns.

The reason this is the most important is it returns the focus to you, the presenter! You are the most important part of the show.

You are the center of attention.

Your slides should enhance your presentation, but not be the center focus.

Press this button and all eyes return to you!

Are you ready?

With the advent of low cost, large format, flat screen monitors, it has always been a goal of mine to see how they would work as a Powerpoint solution. I have a 23 inch widescreen that I picked up a year ago that I’ve been testing at different distances, with a variety of media.

I like to use emotional photographs in my presentations along with minimal text. Photographs are a little harder to see at a distance than title text, so they are a good test of legibility. I have had good results with the 23″ monitor at distances up to 15 feet which make this a great solution for small conference rooms and an audience of up to 25 people.

This solution is ideal for Toastmasters meetings, rotary clubs, and many other small group settings. Basically this is an electronic replacement for the average paper flip chart. The main challenge is to mount the monitor high enough so it can be seen by people in the back row. It works especially well with title sized text.

I have looked around for tables or other mounting devices and have found that most of them are too low to work well. So far the best solution has been a taller cocktail style table or a display rack that is commonly used for retail sales.

I ordered a 6 foot gridwall wire rack unit from Display Warehouse to test out the idea. The unit I purchased was six feet high and has a very sturdy wire mesh. It comes with two legs and adjustable feet. The unit will accommodate monitors up to two feet wide and the open wire mesh will allow you to mount the monitor at varying heights.

The main thing I have run into in my testing process is to find a good way to attach the most common flat screen monitors. There are a variety of hooks and shelves available, but computer monitors vary widely on their mounting options.

Currently I have tested it with a couple of hook brackets at the bottom of the monitor and mounted a shelf on the back for a laptop. While this is not ideal from an aesthetic viewpoint it did give me a chance to test the concept. The rack does have a slight amount of sway, but is very stable in an upright position.

Overall the monitor can be mounted about 2/3 of the way up the rack which is a nice level for most meeting rooms. The cost for the rack and shelves is under $60 which makes it a very affordable solution for your company, club, or civic organization.

My next goal is to work with our maintenance department to come up with a way to mount the monitor without the external brackets and come up with a permanent and easily removable solution. The closer the monitor can be mounted to the wire, the better the center of gravity, and the less chance of any swaying/tipping problems.

With the cost of larger flat screen monitors coming down, this type of solution can be done for 300-400 dollars which is much cheaper that buying a projector. I’m sure you could easily scale this up and use a 30-40 inch monitor with a stronger rack or table.

If you add a small table to place your laptop on, you can easily use the presenters view in Powerpoint and take you presentations to the next level. You’ll just need a monitor cable long enough to reach from the monitor to your laptop.

Overall I am pleased with this project so far. It works well for small rooms and the black wire mesh adds a nice aesthetic. You can easily add pictures or signs to the gridwall for a nice standalone display for a showroom or display window.

I have used Powerpoint for years and the interface has stayed mostly the same. With each new version, Microsoft has added new features but the menus and interface have had a consistent layout.

With the advent of Powerpoint 2007, the interface has changed dramatically. The usual menu bars have been replaced with what Microsoft calls The Ribbon.

Powerpoint 2007: Quick Access Toolbar

Over the next few days, I would like to take you on a tour of some of the new features in the 07 version and explore the new ribbon interface.

In our first look at the program I would like to introduce you to the Quick Access Toolbar. If you are new to the 2007 version you may not have noticed this bar at all. This fully customizable toolbar will allow you to group your favorite Powerpoint commands in one convenient place.

For new users this can be a real help to find your favorite commands while learning the new ribbon interface. Take a look at the video above to see just how easy it is to setup.

The default drop down box for the quick access Toolbar offers a few popular options, but by choosing the more commands button in the pull down, a window opens up that allows you to add icons for over 50 different commands.

This is a quick way to get things setup just the way you like it. Watch the video above and take a few minutes today and add your favorite commands.

I received an e-mail the other day from SmartDraw about their new 2007 release of their popular flowcharting software. I decided to download a free trial and give it a spin. I’ve used SmartDraw in different versions since the late 1990’s but this new release is really sweet. The interface is all new designed around Microsoft’s new ribbon interface for Office 2007. If you have used MS Office 2007 you’ll feel right at home. If not it may take a few minutes to get oriented to the new look and feel.

The installation took a few minutes but installed without a hitch. I opened the program and was greeted with a selection interface on the left and a preview of my selections center screen. The selection of documents and charts you can create flows off the page. This is one powerful piece of software. For my first selection I selected a blank Mind Map from the document bar.

The Mind Map application opened with a ribbon bar at top, a left hand smart panel and a large work area. I took a quick look through the menus and found the ribbon interface very similar to Word 2007. This new interface is very intuitive. The blank mind map page opened with a single “Main Topic” button in the center of the screen. For my first mind map I decided to create one for my work activities.

I clicked the add topics button from the left menu and added a few buttons. As they appeared on the screen I clicked them one by one and gave them each a title. Once I had my main projects on screen I added sub topics to each one. This was fun as I went through my mind and put down everything I had been working on for the week.

The software was intuitive and it was really easy to add titles and sub titles since the connector lines were automatically drawn. Soon I had a very complete diagram of what had been going through my mind over the previous few days. I was blown away how quick and easy this was. I was also greeted with one huge fact….

Here was all the STRESS I had been feeling all in one place. The chart was almost overwhelming. I could not believe how much stuff I had been dealing with on a daily basis. This is what was so eye opening for me… I knew I was busy… but I had no idea of the magnitude of the problem. With thirty to forty boxes it was easy to see that something had to be done.

This diagram put all my work stress visually in one easy to navigate chart. Now it was easy to break things down by project. And the big one for me… It was easy to see at a glance the Next Actions. So many of these projects were stalled by one thing or the other. But when you can visually see them all in one place your mind really gets to work.

I printed out the mind map and got out a highlighter pen and started marking it up. Top priorities were highlighted and it was really easy to see that completing just two things would move 6 of the projects to the next stage. Dear readers… this is one of the most productive things I have ever done. It took under 10 minutes to create this mind map, but the results have been amazing.

As a visual person this on screen representation really hit home. I have tried mind mapping before with other software, but the interfaces have always been a little clumsy for me. I would usually give up in frustration. But this new interface from SmartDraw just works. I didn’t have to think about anything. When I clicked… it worked the way I thought it should.

And then I discovered some additional features that were really cool. With a click of a button, I had a Powerpoint slide of the mind map. Another click gave me a PDF and another gave me a complete HTML webpage. With the themes button I could change the look and feel of the whole document in just seconds.

After modifying the map I exported it to a Word document and added a Next Actions list to the bottom. Now my GTD skills came into play and I was able to get the “big rocks” on their way to completion. Simple, effective, and it took under 15 minutes to complete.

As I started to write this post I decided to create a mind map of my blogging activities. In just a few minutes I had a great view of my weekly blog activities. As before the visual representation instantly got my mind to thinking… man I’m doing a lot on every post. My mind asked, “is there a way to simplify this? The next actions became apparent and I realized quickly that some new blogging software might help me immensely. I’ve taken some action on this this morning and I’ll post about this on an upcoming article.

Here is a mind map of my blogging activities (I simplified this quite a bit to get it to fit on one screen). When you see everything in one place you realize that blogging is not as easy as it sounds. If you multiply this with multiple blogs you can easily see how it can get out of hand. With SmartDraw you can easily add sub-topics to this diagram to really fine tune the process.

I have only touched on one facet of this powerful software. I’ll be posting about additional features in the coming days. The great thing about SmartDraw is that you can download a trial version for free. This is one piece of software that I highly recommend you take for a spin.

To help you create flowcharts and mind maps in a workgroup or during a meeting, check out our Desktop Flowchart and SuddenMind Idea Mapper. These cards are a great way to brainstorm ideas in a group before bringing them into a software application like SmartDraw.

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