Archive for Presentation Tips
Top 10 Things To Improve PowerPoint Presentation
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Determine the Purpose of your Presentation
Most presentations are simply informative – The goal here is mainly to be informative. Other presentations are persuasive, you are trying to persuade the public to take action. Before you write your presentation make a list of what you want your audience to know when you are done presenting.
Use a good Presentation structure
Once you have a predetermined goal, it is necessary to determine the state of mind of your audience and determine a plan as to how you will get them to move from where they are mentally when you start presenting and where you hope they will be when you are done presenting. This will include analysis of the level of knowledge and prejudices of the audience and the credibility it has with them.
Select colors that will contrast each other
When you are putting together your presentation, stick to colors contrast each other so that the text and graphics are easy to be seen when they are shown. Popular choices include dark background color as blue or dark purple with a clear text color like white or yellow. This makes the text float on top and makes it easy to read. Think about how white will look on a yellow background! Your audience will not be able to read the slides.
Choose fonts that are not too large or too small
You should probably never use a font smaller than 24 points, preferable between 24 and 32. For titles use a font between 36 to 44 in size. A small font is hard to read and the message will be lost, a large font throughout your presentation seems unprofessional.
Use bullets
Instead of sentences, use bullet points to give the key ideas in the slides. Using bullet points, make sure to not to put too much information on one slide. The 6 by 6 Guideline is good to have in mind – each bullet item must have no more than 6 words and each slide each one must have no more than 6 bullet points.
Build Bulleted text
When using bullets, build them one by one in the slide and avoid excessive bullet points. In this way, you can talk with each issue separately and the audience will know what idea is expanding.
Avoid movement of the slide elements
While moving around text or graphics to the slide may seem fun, it’s a great distraction for your audience. Avoid excessive animated effects where the movement is outside the boundaries of the text or graphic. The effect is preferable to create the effect appears when the text appears only in the right place on the slide. Use animated effects that will emphasize a concept and don’t just do it just to make a slide be more interactive.
Carefully select Graphics
You should only use graphics or images if they will complement your message and your slide. There are so many images available for use today, with social media, but many of them will only be a distraction to your presentation. Always check that your image or graph enhances the points you are presenting before putting on the slide.
Use the appropriate box
Charts – charts and tables – can be a great way of presenting information if used correctly. When you select the chart type, consider whether the data you are trying to show is sequential in time or not and how many sets of data will be displayed. For complex ideas, the division of a graph in small amounts of common data in a graph in general can be the best way forward. This is better than throwing out a lot of complicated information at once.
Read, Read and Practice
You need to feel one hundred percent when delivering your presentation and the best way is to be really prepared! That way you don’t have to be scared of potential questions. As a matter of fact you should try to predict questions so that you can have an answer ready. There is no way to be prepared without practising. All good speakers has mastered the art of presenting and they have mastered ways of being confident. Practice in a setting that best mimics where you will actually present. Practice what you plan to say, but it is necessary to remember, because a memorized speech sounds “canned” or like an animated robot and not as a conversation, how does a good presentation sound?
Using Clip Art/Photos on Presentation Slides
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The most common slide element used after text is a graphic, usually clip art or a photograph. The old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words” and it is true. Just make sure that the thousand words being spoken by the graphics you use on your presentation slides are words that will increase the impact of your message, not detract from it. Here are some areas to keep in mind when choosing graphics to use on your presentation slides.
Graphics Should Add to the Point
The real reason for using a graphic is to add some flavor to the text that is on the slide. It gives the audience visual variety, which keeps their attention raised. A good choice of graphic can make a point come alive in the audience’s mind. A poor choice of graphic will leave the audience wondering what the point really is since the graphic is inconsistent with the message. I once saw a presentation where a picture of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France was on a slide. It was a beautiful picture, but it had absolutely nothing to do with what was being spoken. Make sure you carefully select each graphic to match the point you are making on that particular slide. I spend far longer choosing a graphic than I do typing in the text.
Choosing Effective Clip Art
The most common graphic used on presentation slides is clip art. Most presentation software packages contain a large number of clip art images to choose from. In most cases, I suggest you avoid the standard ones that ship with the software. So many people use them that the images have become overused and do not stand out anymore. Instead, look for new ones in clip art software packages that you can buy or free sources on the Internet. One of the best sources I have found is Microsoft’s Design Gallery Live (see web link at the end of the article). This is the web site that is automatically loaded when you ask PowerPoint’s clip art function to find an image on the web. You enter a search term and it displays those clip art images that match the keyword you entered. This allows me to select images that most others are not using.
When you are selecting a clip art image, make sure to select one that is stylish looking, not dated looking – it makes your slide look current and your points fresh. Be careful about the colors of the clip art image. It must have enough contrast with your slide background color in order to be seen well. I usually use a dark background for my presentation slides, so I try to pick bright colored clip art. It is usually a good idea to avoid black clip art unless you are using a very light colored background as it is hard to see black on top of most colors.
There is one category of clip art images that I suggest you avoid – animated GIF’s. An animated GIF (GIF = Graphics Interchange Format) is a graphic image that moves. This type of graphic is created by stringing together multiple images that are set to cycle on a time sequence so that the image has movement. The graphic can be set to cycle in a loop endlessly or cycle once and stop. Any movement you have on your presentation slide, especially continuing movement of an image, is very distracting to the audience. It will divert their attention away from your message. These images have been so overused on the Web that many people now consider them to be less than professional and your use will impact your credibility with the audience.
Using Photographs
The other common graphic used on presentation slides is a photograph. This can be a digital photo you have taken, a print you have scanned or a photo supplied in your presentation software package. As in using clip art, select photos that others are not commonly using. The Design Gallery Live web site mentioned above is a good source for photos as well as clip art. Similar to clip art, pay attention to colors of the photo to make sure they contrast well with your slide background so they can be seen. With photographs, you also need to be aware of the emotional impact that a photo has. Unlike clip art, photographs evoke a direct emotional response when shown, they bypass the logic center of our brains. The emotional response tends to be stronger for photos of people than it does for photos of inanimate objects, although there are exceptions. Be careful in using photos that may evoke strong positive or negative emotional responses to make sure that you want that emotion to be in the audience at that point in your presentation.
When you are selecting or taking a digital photograph, one concern is what resolution do I need? If the photo is only being used on a presentation slide, you do not need a high resolution image, a 640×480 image is fine. If the photo will also be used in a print publication, you will need a much higher resolution and it is best to ask the print production staff what resolution they prefer. If you have a high resolution photo that you want to use on your presentation slide, try to have the resolution reduced in a graphic program before you insert the image. A high resolution image takes a lot of disk space to store and inserting a large image file in your presentation will make your presentation file very large and run more slowly.
Modifying Graphic Images
Once you have your graphic image in your presentation slide, you can make some changes to the image that will make it even more effective. Here are some of the most common changes.
Size – The size of the graphic should be big enough to be seen but not too big as to dominate the slide and take the focus away from the text message. To change the size, you can usually just drag an expansion handle at the corner of the image once it has been selected. I suggest using the corner handle to size an image because it keeps the same aspect ratio (the ratio of width to height) and does not distort the image.
Cropping – If the image you want is a portion of the total image, you can crop out the areas you do not want after it is inserted on your slide. This function is usually found in the Properties section of the graphic element. It is a good idea to check the size of the image first before setting the cropping distances from each edge so that you can get closer to the image you want within just a few attempts.
Colors – Some images, clip art usually, allow you to change one or more of the colors used. This function is again usually found in the Properties section of the graphic element on the slide. It allows you to take an image that has low contrast with the slide background color and increase the contrast by changing one or two of the low contrast colors to high contrast colors.
Brightness – Especially when using photographs, the brightness of the photo has a large impact on how well it will look when displayed. This effect is magnified further when the image is displayed on a screen through a data projector in a lighted room. I have found that in many cases I have to make the photo brighter on my screen in order to get a good image through a data projector. The brightness setting is found in the graphic element Properties usually. Check your photos using the data projector you will use and the room lighting if possible. If checking before the presentation is not possible, learn how to set the brightness and be prepared to test the photos and change it if necessary when you set up for your presentation.
If you select your images carefully, the pictures will add “a thousand words” to the message you are delivering and you will increase your impact on the audience.
Dave Paradi’s Think Outside the Slide™ approach helps presenters get results by showing them how to quickly create effective PowerPoint presentations. He is the co-author of “Guide to PowerPoint”, part of the Prentice Hall Series in Advanced Business Communication. He offers a free PowerPoint e-course, newsletter and articles on his web site at www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com.
How to Write Powerful Bullet Points
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If you have sat through too many presentations where the presenter read the full text of their slides, you have probably wondered, “How can I avoid droning on and on and focus on just the key information that my audience needs?” One part of the answer is to create bullet points that you can expand upon. When using bullet points on a presentation slide, there are some key ideas that you should keep in mind.
A Bullet Point is Not a Sentence
Too many times a presenter puts an entire sentence as a bullet point. This defeats the entire purpose of the bullet point, which is to convey the key point only. It also tends to lead to the presenter reading each bullet point. If you plan to just read each bullet point, save the audience the time by just e-mailing them your slides and they can read the points on their own.
Reveal the Key Idea Only
A bullet point is supposed to be a short summation of the key point that you want to make. It should not reveal all you know about the idea, or there is nothing left for you to say. For each idea you want to convey, consider what the key point is and put that as a bullet point. Then add to the bullet point by the words that you speak during the presentation.
Use a Consistent Style
When using bullet points, make sure that they have a consistent style. This means that:
* start each bullet point with either a verb or a noun – a verb is more action oriented and is usually preferred
* use the same tense for each verb – the most common is the present tense with the past tense being the next most common
* capitalize each bullet point the same way – usually the first letter of the first word is capitalized and the rest of the words are in lower case unless it is a proper name
Observe the 6 by 6 Guideline
In order to keep the amount of information in each bullet point concise and to keep the slide from looking cluttered, you should keep the six by six guideline in mind. It states that each slide should aim to have no more than six bullet points and each bullet point should aim to have no more than six words. I would not consider this to be a strict rule, but it is a good guideline that will keep your slides clean and concise.
Know When NOT to use Bullet Points
Increasingly, audiences are turned off by slides that contain nothing but a list of bullet points slide after slide. They are asking “What is relevant here for me to know in order to make a decision in my business?” Make sure you are also using visuals to convey the key points of your message. Visuals can be graphs, diagrams, pictures, videos or combinations of the above. If you want to know how to create persuasive PowerPoint visuals, check out my book The Visual Slide Revolution.
By keeping these ideas in mind, the bullet points on your next presentation slides can add even more power to your presentation. If you want more ideas on communicating effectively when using PowerPoint, sign up for the free seven day PowerPoint Effectiveness e-course and newsletter by filling in your name and e-mail address on the right.
How Many Slides Are Too Many?
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If you delivered 155 slides in 35 minutes, would that be too many slides? Most presenters would immediate say “Yes! Way too many!” And up until recently, I would have agreed. But a recent experience made me reconsider my initial response.
A rule of thumb has been that there should be one slide for every two to three minutes of presentation. And I have agreed with this. But I reviewed a presentation on video tape for a client from one of their top sales professionals in front of clients and he used 155 slides in a 35 minute presentation (yes, I counted). And it looked great. How could this be?
It stems from what is on the slide. Most of his slides were product photos that he showed in fairly quick succession showing off the different features. His use made it almost like a movie of sorts, with the flow working quite well. He spent more time on the text slides, such as when he was explaining how to place the order for the product. He spent time on the most important part of his presentation, the call to action, and did not stick to a particular formula.
So based on this experience, here is what I am now thinking. If it is a primarily text slide with bullets for example, I think the traditional rule of two to three minutes per slide would still be a good guideline. But when the slide is primarily a graphic, a much wider range of timing can apply. A sequence of photos may be run through quite quickly, with maybe five slides in one minute. Some graphics, such as a process flow diagram, require a two or three minute explanation. So my new thought is that a graphic slide could range from 10 seconds to three minutes, depending on what the graphic is and how it is used in the presentation.
I am starting to use more graphics, primarily photographs, in my presentations, and sometimes it is on the screen for a short period of time since the point is clear. Other times, I show the photo, tell a store about the photo, and then make a point. In this case, the photo slide is on the screen for multiple minutes.
If you have been basing the number of slides in your presentation on the traditional formula, consider these ideas in determining whether you want to modify the rule you have used in the past. If you try to count image slides using the same two to three minute rule, you may find that you cant find enough to say about the slide.
PowerPoint Sucks? Actually, no it doesn’t!
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PowerPoint bashing has reached an all time high with major media picking up on the story and reports of PowerPoint being banned in some organizations. Some organizations are even transforming to open office. What a bunch of hogwash. PowerPoint is not the problem, it’s rather the lack of training to use the tool.
It has become popular to blame the tool when something goes wrong instead of looking at the real cause of the issue. PowerPoint is just the latest example, many other Microsoft tools get the same bad name. People see poor presentations done using PowerPoint and instantly blame the tool without realizing that it might be the user of PowerPoint why the problems exist.
Too many presenters use PowerPoint as a crutch for their own lack of preparation or skill. Instead of investing time in thinking through and planning their message, they simply fire up the software and start banging away.
You can see this in almost every airport waiting lounge on any day of the week. It is pretty easy to look around and spot a professional looking businessperson madly creating PowerPoint slides as they wait for their plane to board. And you know that at the other end of the flight, they will hop into a rental car and drive to a meeting where they will read every word off the screen – boring their audience to tears.
Poor presentations are due to the presenter, not PowerPoint. Presenters need to take the time to plan their message and then determine what visual support will enhance what they want to say. PowerPoint is a wonderful addition to a well created message, but it can never substitute for the message. PowerPoint was never designed as word processing tool, and it is commonly used as one.
Don’t blame PowerPoint for the millions of poor presentations that are delivered every day. The hundreds of millions of dollars wasted every year in boring meetings with mind numbing presentations is the fault of professionals and organizations not wanting to put in the hard work it takes to craft a clear, compelling message.
Next time you are asked to present, craft your message first, then see how PowerPoint can add a visual dimension that reinforces your message. It is a powerful tool when used properly.
Dave Paradi’s Think Outside the Slide™ approach helps presenters get results by showing them how to quickly create effective PowerPoint presentations. He is the co-author of “Guide to PowerPoint”, part of the Prentice Hall Series in Advanced Business Communication. He offers a free PowerPoint e-course, newsletter and articles on his web site at www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com.