PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques

PowerPoint Presentation

When I come across a PowerPoint Presentation online on a topic that interests me, I often like to download the presentation as a potential reference, but also to see how the presenter was using PowerPoint to make their point.  The danger, of course, is that a PowerPoint presentation by itself should be but a minor part of a presentation since the meat should really lie in how the presenter frames the message, how they deliver the message and how they expand on the content in the PPT presentation.

A recent presentation I came across that captures both content about Blogs and provides a presentation worth evaluating was in one by Ted Demopoulos on Blogging for Business in Monster Technologies Lunch & Learn program.  I encourage you to take a look at the presentation, see what you learn and let me know what you think about his use of PPT.

Microsoft and Creative Commons Announce Tool forr CC Licenses of MS Office Documents

Microsoft and Creative Commons announced the launch of a tool that will embed a copyright license selection tool into MS Office applications according to CNET News.  The tool will allow the document creator to designate a copyright intent for subsequent re-publishing of their work.  Given the 400 million licensed users of MS Office applications and the many original documents they create, the new tool could ramp up in use fairly quickly.

The plug-in is available for download at either Microsoft or Creative Commons.

File Back-ups

Are you looking for additional file security when you're on the road? 

I always take a back-up copy of my presentations on a flash drive, have it installed on my laptop hard drive, have remote access to my desktop using GoToMyPC and have a hard copy of the presentation for reference.

ITechTips has yet another tip on how to keep yourself sane and secure - back-up your large PowerPoint files to an online storage service like ElephantDrive.  They report that the service currently in beta is being offered for free while they ramp up.

Next Week I'll be Facilitiating at UW Executive Education

Next week Wednesday, I'll be the speaker/trainer/facilitator for the third day of a 3 day session on Interactive Marketing sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Executive Education program.  The program has been ranked #26 overall by Financial Times for open enrollment executive education providers.  They were ranked #4 for facilities and accomodations for their location in the beautiful Fluno Center right in the heart of the campus area.

The program runs from 8:00 to 3:00 and culminates prior day sessions on more specific topics in e-marketing.

Quotes worth sharing

Another quote from Quotationspage.com worth thinking about as presenters, speakers, trainers or teachers...

"Writers should be read, but neither heard nor seen"

Daphne duMaurier

So what do you think, is this a philosophy you would follow?

PowerPoint Resource

Seth Godin of IdeaVirus and Permission Marketing fame has a free down-loadable e-book "Really Bad PowerPoint and how to Avoid It" that should be on your reading list.  Seth places the blame on Microsoft for bad PowerPoint, stating that "Microsoft has built Wizards and Templates right into PowerPoint" creating the awful slides we often see.

He accuses PowerPoint of supporting bad presentations and ineffective communication because it is used by presenters for three things:

• As a teleprompter, in lieu of learning the content
• As as handout after or even worse before to CYA
• As a tool for helping audiences remember

I'd be curious to hear what you think of his theories and perspectives.

Quotes worth sharing

man listening to the wind
Originally uploaded by alex itin.

Another quote from Quotationspage.com worth thinking about as presenters, speakers, trainers or teachers...

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought with accepting it."

Aristotle

Color in PPT

PowerPoint novices tend to overuse or misuse color in their presentations.  Probably due to lack of training and to a desire to create their own look they often don't follow PowerPoint's guidelines or standard design considerations for a PowerPoint slide.

Here are some guidelines to follow when selecting colors for your presentation:

• Use high contrast colors - Text, background color and texture are distinct and provide high levels of contrast
• Keep colors contextual with the message - e.g. for a presentation on death, you don't want to use a bright cheery color palette
• Minimize your color selection - Typically have one or two primary and secondary colors, along with one or two accent colors.  If you have corporate identity standards, these can often provide the guidelines to follow.  PowerPoint allows you to customize colors through the drawing toolbar, which determines the colors used for the background, text and lines, shadows, titles, fills, accents and hyperlinks.
• Colors can accentuate meaning and context - Emphasizing text, background shades, image borders, etc. with color can help support the story you are trying to make.
• Colors evoke emotions that can vary by culture - select your color pallete, in part, by the emotions you are trying to create or avoid and be culturally sensitive to the audience you'll be speaking to.  Dark blue backgrounds can be calm, but also boring.
• Standardize your color family within your presentation and across presentations - You can still use color to denote hierarchy of information, but standardization through templates will help you re-use and re-purpose content across presentations.

Microsoft has a good review on selecting colors and a description of the 12 hues of the color wheel that is useful for understanding some design concepts associated with the choice of colors.