| ******************************************************************* Dave Paradi's PowerPoint Tip Issue #142 September 4, 2007 Published & Copyright by Dave Paradi of ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com Circulation 8,686 ******************************************************************* Please forward this newsletter to sales executives and professionals who want to achieve greater sales rep productivity and deliver presentations that close more sales. If this newsletter has been sent to you by a friend, sign up to get your own copy at http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/newsletter.htm . ******************************************************************* In this issue: Seattle Public Workshop September 28th Annoying PowerPoint Survey Now Open PowerPoint Tip - Ideas from 5,000 years ago Best of the Blog - Politicians and PowerPoint Dave's Travel Schedule ******************************************************************* Public workshop: Seattle, September 28, 2007 - register now! By attending the Think Outside The Slide workshop, you will come away with new ways of making your presentations more effective and be more efficient at creating your slides. If you've been holding off registering, now is the time to take action and reserve your spot. Get the details and register at http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/powerpointseminar.htm . ------------------------------------------------------------------- Annoying PowerPoint Survey Now Open Every two years I repeat my survey on what audience members find anoying about bad PowerPoint presentations. This month the 2007 version of the survey is taking place. It only takes two minutes to fill out and the results will be first announced at the Think Outside The Slide workshop in Seattle. The benefit of participating is that you will help all of us avoid making key mistakes in the future. Please take a couple of minutes to complete the short survey at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=TzWkZi7eD0pPQPvasbIA4A_3d_3d ------------------------------------------------------------------- PowerPoint Tip: Ideas from 5,000 years ago We can learn valuable lessons from how humans communicated 5,000 years ago. At that time, formal written language was not well established, so how did people communicate? They used pictures and stories. They drew a picture on a cave wall and told the story of what was depicted, whether it was hunting, family relationships or other important ideas. One of the ideas I'll be sharing at the Think Outside The Slide workshop later this month in Seattle is what we can learn from this method of communicating. Today, let me share a high-level lesson learned by thinking about communicating through cave drawings. Some people might refer to cave drawings as primitive. I am not sure I agree. I think what people even back then realized, is that visuals are powerful communication vehicles. So they drew with detail and used vivid colors. They did it so well that the drawings still exist today. Once the drawing was complete, they told the story of the event they depicted. The story referred to the drawing, but added details and context that the drawing could not. The audience listened to the story and looked at the drawing when it was important to do so. Is this how you use visuals? Are they well drawn, clear and will they stand the test of time? Do your explanations add color and context to the visual? Is the visual secondary to the point you are making or do you hide behind the visual as if it was more important? Difficult questions to answer honestly. But ones that force us to consider the role we assign to visuals in our presentation. At the workshop, we will be spending time on thinking visually. You'll see examples, hear how to make different visuals effective and practice thinking visually in exercises. If you haven't registered for the workshop on Friday, September 28th in Seattle, WA, I suggest you do it right now. Spaces are limited and you won't want to miss out because you delayed. Here is the link: http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSldie.com/powerpointseminar.htm . ------------------------------------------------------------------- Best of the Blog - Politicians and PowerPoint Well, this seems to be the year that PowerPoint has really made a big splash in American politics. It seems that using PowerPoint slides has started to become more popular with presidential candidates. They are even starting to post them on web sites for all to see. So how are they doing with their slides? One I looked at this week from the campaign of Mitt Romney was not too bad. But the designer made a few mistakes. First, there were a few instances of poor color contrast - black text on a medium gray background and black text on a turquoise background. Unfortunately in both cases they were using a background to the text in order to try to highlight it, but ended up making the text harder to see instead. Another mistake was in using meaningless titles for some maps. The title told us the topic, but with multiple colors and a legend in micro printing, you have no idea what the point of the map is. And in a graph on how malpractice premiums have increased, the swooping lines don't look so dramatic when you realize that the vertical scale has been altered to range from 90 to 150. This makes an increase from 100 to 120 for All Physicians look much greater than it would if the scale started properly at zero. Are these mistakes restricted just to politicians? No. These are common mistakes presenters and those who create their slides make every day. It is just that now we will get to see the mistakes played out in public more than we have ever seen before. Disclaimer: I am not an American, so I can't vote in the upcoming elections. I don't have a bias for or against any candidate, I offer these comments as a useful discussion of slides we are seeing and what we can learn from them. Other recent blog posts at http://pptideas.blogspot.com : ------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave's Travel Schedule I work with sales teams who struggle with the quality of their sales presentations and the productivity of the sales reps in creating the presentations. Sales executives would like their sales reps to easily create presentations and deliver a customized and consistent message every time. My research based PowerPoint Presentation Effectiveness System helps my clients achieve greater sales rep productivity and deliver presentations that close more sales. You can save money by booking me to speak to your organization or conference when I am close to your area for other clients. Here's where I will be in the next few months: September 7-9 Winnipeg, MB September 17-19 - Mississauga, ON September 28 Seattle, WA one-day public workshop - register at http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/powerpointseminar.htm September 27-30 Seattle, WA October 10-12 Washington, DC October 18 Barrie, ON October 25 Ottawa, ON October 26 Huntsville, ON October 29-31 New Orleans, LA at PowerPoint Live - register at http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/powerpointlive.htm November 14 - Toronto, ON December 6-9 - Halifax, NS January 23-24 - Cincinnati, OH E-mail me at Dave@ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com to discuss how my Think Outside The Slide(tm) sessions can help your organization be more productive and improve communication throughout the organization. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Privacy Policy: I will never sell or distribute your e-mail or information to anyone. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Need articles for your newsletter? 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