Archive for the 'Presentation' Category

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.

The TV show Dancing With The Stars was a great study in crowd reaction and judging dynamics. From week to week you could see some of the top dance performers try different things to get a top score. From colorful outfits to intense music, plain was out and excitement was in.

I really enjoyed the colorful costumes and the incredible dance moves, yet it was also important to get all the steps right. A performer could wow the crowd with a jump or spin yet be marked off for lifting a foot off the ground. It was really important to put the entire package together.

Marie Osmond and her partner Jonathan Roberts, put together many incredible performances over the many weeks of the show. Marie is an entertainer pure and simple. What she lacked in dancing skill she made up for with flash and personality. At 48 years old she did an amazing job with jumps, spins and other very difficult dance moves.

What struck me though was her freestyle dance in the final round. Marie played a doll in her dance, and went from lifeless and limp to semi animated. Only in the final few seconds did she come fully alive. While the dance was creative and different, it just didn’t work. The audience and judges panned the performance. Instead of using costumes and excitement to reach outside the box, she used acting skill and emotion.

Marie’s dance was too different.

The judges didn’t know what to do with it and the audience had a hard time understanding the context. Marie put the dance together to reach out to her many fans that like her doll collection, but the general audience was lost. Her dance would have been perfect in a stage play where the context could be fully explored, but it didn’t make much sense in the 90 seconds she had in her stage performance.

I have had similar experiences myself. As a speaker in Toastmasters, I have competed in many speech contests. I always like to add some creativity to my presentations, yet sometimes I go too far and lose my audience. My presentation makes perfect sense to me, yet the audience becomes quickly lost.

This phenomenon can be referred to as The Curse of Knowledge.

This is actually a pretty simple concept. You know all about a subject or item and in your mind your facts and performance makes sense. Unfortunately your audience does not have the same knowledge and the performance fails to connect.

Chip & Dan Heath explore this fascinating concept in their book, Made To Stick. They make the point that instead of dumbing down a message, you need to find a universal language to reach your audience. And this language needs to speak quickly.

Dancing With The Stars was a great example of that. Many of the costumes that performers wore were instantly recognizable. As an audience member you quickly recognized the context and could understand what was going on. Marie did an great dance a few weeks earlier dressed in a 1940’s uniform. The dance came alive immediately, because everyone in the audience could relate.

Unfortunately, When Marie played a doll, it was difficult to fully understand what was going on. The dance started off slow and only came to life in the last few seconds. The performance lacked excitement and left you saying to yourself… what was that all about?

The bottom line is simple… For a speech, a dance, or other live performance, put yourself in the audience’s shoes and make sure you can understand what is going on. If you can’t tell immediately, you might want to consider something more universal.

I’ve been involved with small group studies for almost 25 years. They have included church bible studies, Toastmaster groups, and sales organizations. Small groups are a great way to share information and study together. The key to a successful small group is to have from 6 to 16 people and have a comfortable location to get together. If have many more than 16 people the group becomes too large to share effectively. The collective wisdom of a group this size is amazing.

One of the techniques I’ve found for leading a small group is to be a facilitator instead of a lecturer. This facilitator organizes the meeting and applies a loose structure. A good facilitator will try to get everyone involved in the conversation and control the interaction to keep anyone from dominating the entire discussion.

In church and other study groups a great technique to get things going is to have someone read a scripture or reflect on a quotation. You broaden the verse with a little explanation or practical observation. Then you ask the group a question based on the verse.

This simple three step process can generate lots of conversation with just one question. It makes it real easy to facilitate as you just sit back and listen to others. Your main job is to keep the discussion under control and draw people back in and move on to the next point.

The three points can be distilled as

1. Read the scripture or Verse

3. Ask an open ended question

I’ve put together some easy to use study cards that make this process easy. You add your verses or quotations to the front of the cards and put the expansion and questions on the back. Pass these cards out to different members at the start of the meeting and take them one by one. The great thing about these cards is the font size. You can make the verse easy to read for those people that may have trouble reading the smaller print in a bible or book.

Take one card at a time and have the person read the verse and then turn it over and have them read the example and have them ask the question. The discussion will take off from there. Many times the discussion will really take off and may last 5, 10 or even 15 minutes on a single question.

I’ve put together a front and back page Microsoft Word based template that you print out on blank Avery Business cards. You put the verses on the front, and add the example and question on the back. Just print the front first and then turn the sheet over and print the back side. Within minutes you’ll have a complete study ready to go. Break the 10 cards apart and take them along to your next group meeting.

I’ve included an example bible study in the book of Proverbs as a quick way to show you how effective these can be.

The front card has a scripture verse

The card includes the chapter and verse as reference, and includes the verse in a large serif font to make it easy to read.

The back of the card has thoughtful information and an open ended question.

There are 10 cards in this selection that can be used to generate a rousing discussion that will go at least an hour.

As you can see these questions are not always easy to answer and people will have many different viewpoints to go along with them. These cards make great bookmarks to mark the reference verse for further study. Here are the instructions for downloading…

1. Download the Study Cards zip file to your computer.
2. Unzip the file and open the templates in Microsoft Word.
3. Put a sheet of plain white Avery Business Card stock in your printer.
4. Print out the front of the cards first with template 1.
5. Turn the business card sheet over and print the back side with template 2.
6. Break them apart
7. Take them along to your next study or small group…

Technorati Tags: bible study, small groups, study

As I was perusing the aisles of my local Barnes & Noble bookstore at lunch a new book caught my eye. It’s called The Hot Diet, by chemical engineer AJ Djo. I picked it up and started reading. Page after page it drew me in with one simple premise… something in almost everyone’s diet was poison and causing us to gain weight. This poison is right under our noses, front and center at virtually every meal. Yet despite hundreds of diet books, thousands of seminars, and countless hours of research, it has escaped discovery.

I immediately started thinking about this and trying to guess what it might be… the author said it exists in almost all of our meals. Hmmmm….

Could it be Refined Sugar? This seems to be the villain in many diet plans and sugar, even small amounts, seems to be in almost everything we eat and drink. But the author dismissed this idea in the first chapter.

Could it be High Fructose Corn Syrup? This is certainly it. This fat inducing man made concoction has found its way into almost every processed product on the shelves. But AJ dismissed this idea in chapter two.

Could it be Salt? This has got to be it… Salt is in almost everything we eat, whether sweet, spicy, or salty. Pick up any box of sweetened cereal and you’ll find salt as one of the ingredients. Salt is a very popular additive but the author dismisses this as the poison in the first few pages.

Could it be Pepper? With a name like The Hot Diet, I was beginning to think it was a common spice like pepper. Certainly this type of spice was in most common foods and cayenne pepper was used for medicinal purposes. I was really certain this was it, until the whole class of spices was eliminated by an example in the book.

As I read further I was getting a little antsy. I had hoped to find the answer quickly, but the author kept the suspense going for three chapters when he finally revealed the secret. I had stood there reading for almost 15 minutes, unable to put the volume down.

When the item was finally revealed it all started to make sense. This substance was certainly in front of me multiple times a day. But the premise that this could be a reason that so many people find themselves overweight was hard to believe. The answer will certainly be controversial for some time to come.

As I put the volume down, I really started to think… could this be true?

Could this mysterious ingredient really be the culprit in our battle of the waistline?

As I left the store I headed for a nearby restaurant and had lunch.

As the waitress brought they tray of food, there it was staring me in the face.

It was right in front of me, something I had never considered before.

Could the “ice” in my drink really be all that bad?

Could this clear and solid form of water really be sabotaging my diet?

Could the cold that this induces really be slowing my digestion?

I had to go back and find out more…. Could this chemical engineer be on to something?

I stopped back and read on…

I still don’t know about this one…

What do you think?

Technorati Tags: diet, diet books

I’ve been a fan of the Getting Things Done methodology for some time now. The idea of working with “Next Actions” works well for me. I usually use Outlook and the GTD Outlook plug-in from David Allen to categorize my action list.

While this works good in most cases, when I get really busy my next action list is buried in small print in Outlook. Unless I’m looking directly at it, it can disappear with different e-mail and calendar views. I’ve come up with different solutions over time that help with this situation, including Next Action business cards and a daily actions sheet on my desk.

The main idea is to keep next actions where I can see them. I realized the other day that a GTD screensaver would work well to put these next actions up in view when the computer is not being used for a few minutes. I put together three different slides in PowerPoint, one for each of my common actions that I do at work, and made it so that it could be modified in just a few minutes.

I saved the slides as bitmap files and used the built in screen saver function in Windows XP to make it work. The resulting screen saver shows my next actions at the computer, on the phone, and errands I have to run. It’s quick to setup and it jogs my memory when I need it most… when I’m really busy.

Since it works so well, I put together a copy for you to use on your own computer. It’s a quick download and you can have your own Next Actions Screensaver up in just a matter of minutes. This version is designed for PowerPoint 2000 and later and Windows XP.

Here are the instructions.

Download the Next Actions Screensaver for PowerPoint.

Unzip the file and save it in a folder on your computer.

(Note: There are two versions of the file included, one uses plain text for the actions and is quick to setup, the other uses WordArt for the text and the resulting text will have a cleaner look when presented. Give each a try and see what works best for you.)

Open the file in PowerPoint and edit the three next action slides as necessary to include your next actions for the day. Just click on the text and modify. When you are done save your slide or presentation as a .bmp file

Open the PowerPoint presentation. If you want to save a specific slide, select it in normal view.

On the File menu, click Save As.

Select an empty folder or create a new empty folder in which to save your presentation or slide.

Please Note: If you use the default My Pictures folder under My Documents, make sure it is empty.

In the Save as type box, click Device Independent Bitmap, and then click Save.

Give your presentation a new file name.

Click Every Slide or Current Slide Only, and then click OK. (In PowerPoint 2000, click Yes to export every slide.)

Your presentation or individual slide is saved to the folder that you selected. After you close your PowerPoint presentation, you will use Windows XP to open the presentation or slide as a screen saver.

Close your PowerPoint presentation.

Step 2: Create the screen saver

Instructions for Windows XP to perform this procedure.

Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Display, or click Appearance and Themes, and then click Display.
On the Screen Saver tab, click My Pictures Slideshow, and in the Wait box, set the amount of time you want to elapse before the screen saver is displayed.
 
Under Screen saver, click Settings.

Under How often should pictures change?, set the slider at the interval you want between pictures. try different settings to see what works best for you.

If you are making a single slide a screen saver, move the slider all the way to Less to avoid a distracting flicker on the screen during the transitions.
 
Under Use pictures in this folder, browse to the folder in which you saved the presentation or slide.
 
If you saved a single slide, make sure to clear the Use transition effects between pictures and Allow scrolling through pictures with the keyboard check boxes.

Note: The screen saver transition effects in this screen saver option are preset and cannot be modified.

Click OK.

To preview your new screen saver, on the Screen Saver tab, click Preview.

Enjoy Your Next Actions All Day!

Powerpoint Resources:

How To Do Everything With Powerpoint

Kingston Wireless Presenter

Portable Powerpoint

Other Powerpoint Posts:

Powerpoint Made Simple

Powerpoint that Sticks

Five Must Have Tools For Powerpoint

Do You Make These Mistakes With Powerpoint?

5 Quick Tips To a Better Powerpoint Presentation

Technorati Tags: Powerpoint, GTD, Productivity

You can use Powerpoint to edit your photographs with advanced features like transparency, masking, and custom borders. You can actually create some pretty stunning creations using your digital photos and auto shapes. The drawback to PowerPoint is that you are unable to accurately measure things. You can’t set the resolution or the actual graphic size by pixels.

Setting up Powerpoint for graphics editing

Under the view menu select grids and guides. Select snap objects to grid and select 1/16th as the grid size. Make sure the display grid on screen checkbox is checked. On the right side menu click the “blank” layout box (this gets the annoying text boxes out of your way)

Under the view menu select toolbars and make sure the drawing toolbar has a check mark next to it.

The drawing toolbar is where you will import your graphics, select AutoShapes, and select WordArt.

Importing Your Pictures

Once you have your screen setup you can import your first picture. To do this click on the insert picture icon from the drawing toolbar, select the picture file you want to import, and click OK. This will put your picture on the screen.

Click and drag the corner handles of the picture to resize it. Don’t use the center handles as this will distort the picture. Resize the picture to the size you want it. In the case of this tutorial I resized the picture to 2 grid blocks high by three grid blocks wide. In my version of Powerpoint, each grid box represents approximately 150 pixels, so my resized picture will be 300 pixels high by 450 pixels wide.

This is a good size for e-mail and the resulting file size will be much smaller than the original picture.

To Save The Resized Picture: Right click on your resized picture and click Save As Picture from the menu. For a finished picture that you want to e-mail or use on your website, chose the JPG format. This will result in the smallest file size. If you are going to bring your picture back into Powerpoint for use with AutoShapes, use the PNG or TIF format.

File Size Reduction: Resizing our picture from almost full screen to a 2×3 grid size resulted in a much reduced file size when saved as a JPG.

Original size: 600H x 900W = 256K 

Reduced size: 300H x 450W = 14K

When you send pictures by e-mail, a small file size is a must for people who have dial up internet connections. Using Powerpoint is a quick way to modify your large digital camera pics for sending by e-mail.

Adding a Border To Our Picture: To add a quick border to our picture, right click on your resized picture and click Format Picture. In the box that opens select the Colors & Lines tab. In the Line section, set the color, line type, and size in the boxes. Click OK.

You can create some interesting borders easily with this tool. Experiment with different colors and line sizes until you get the look you want. By clicking on the color box and selecting patterned lines, you can create all sorts of creative borders. Experiment and have fun with this tool.

Importing Pictures Into AutoShapes: You can easily import your pictures into different AutoShapes as a background for a lot of creative effects. Using the grid decide how big you want your final picture to be.

In the example above I resized my original picture to two grid blocks high by three grid blocks wide. I saved the reduced size picture as a PNG file to my computer.

I then created an AutoShape from the AutoShape menu (On the Drawing Toolbar) that was the same size. I dragged the AutoShape to two grid blocks high by three grid blocks wide. Now I had a picture and a shape that were both the same size.

To import my saved picture as a background, I right clicked on my AutoShape and clicked Format Auto Shape from the menu. In the box that comes up, click on the color box under the fill section . Then click on the Fill Effects selection. In the resulting box, click on the Picture tab. In the picture dialog box click the Select Picture box and select the reduced picture you saved to your computer above. Make sure to click a checkmark into the Lock Picture Aspect Ratio checkbox. Click OK.

Your picture will now be the background of your AutoShape. In our picture above you can see some of the great graphics you can create using this technique. Make sure you save the resulting pictures as PNG files so they will have transparent edges. You can use these great graphics on web pages, word documents, and objects in your next Powerpoint presentation.

Here is a full size example showing the transparent edges and great quality of the PNG file. Have fun with this and experiment with different AutoShapes, colors, and border effects.

Technorati Tags: Powerpoint, Web Graphics, Photo Editing