Last year data viz expert Andy Kirk created a useful resource called the Chartmaker Directory. It is a collection of resources on how to create charts in different tools. The tools vary from programming languages to big data analysis tools to common Office tools like Excel and PowerPoint. The resources have been crowd sourced with people…
Author: Dave Paradi
Dave Paradi has over twenty-two years of experience delivering customized training workshops to help business professionals improve their presentations. He has written ten books and over 600 articles on the topic of effective presentations and his ideas have appeared in publications around the world. His focus is on helping corporate professionals visually communicate the messages in their data so they don't overwhelm and confuse executives. Dave is one of fewer than ten people in North America recognized by Microsoft with the Most Valuable Professional Award for his contributions to the Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams communities. His articles and videos on virtual presenting have been viewed over 4.8 million times and liked over 17,000 times on YouTube.
Half-day workshop for MBA students (January 31, 2019, Kingston, ON)
Customized half-day workshop for students in the MBA program covering planning a presentation, focusing the message, and creating effective visuals for different messages.
Options for speaker notes; Issue #406 January 23, 2018
Some participants in my custom workshops tell me that they have heard presentation delivery advice stating that presenters should not use notes when they speak. This causes them concern because they feel they need some reminders of important messages they want to convey. If you have heard this type of advice, please ignore it. I’ve…
Building an image by breaking it apart; Issue #405 January 9, 2018
It is not uncommon for me to see sample slides sent by participants for my customized workshops that contain complex images. These images, which can be pictures or diagrams, usually come from a drawing program or other source. If you show the entire image on the screen and use a laser pointer to try to…
Learning from a video of your presentation; Issue #404 December 12, 2017
When my workshop participants ask how they can improve their presentation skills, I often suggest videotaping a presentation and watching it. You don’t need any fancy equipment these days to do this, your smartphone will give you a good quality video. In presentation skills training they videotape you presenting and a coach reviews it with…
Half-day workshop for Master of Finance students (December 8 & 9, 2018, Toronto, ON)
Customized half-day workshop for students in the Master of Finance program covering planning a presentation, focusing the message, and creating effective visuals for financial results & analysis.
Two-day workshop for Telecom Company (December 4-5, 2018, Monroe, LA)
Customized two-day workshop for analysts and management covering planning a presentation, focusing the message, and creating effective visuals. The session includes slide makeovers of their own slides to reinforce the ideas. The second day is hands-on practice creating the effective visuals they saw the previous day.
6 ways to save time creating a presentation; Issue #403 November 28, 2017
As my latest survey indicated, professionals are creating and delivering more presentations each year. In a recent survey of incoming MBA students at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, two-thirds of the respondents said they presented on a daily or weekly basis. If professionals don’t figure out how to create effective presentations more efficiently, they will…
Creating a Monthly timeline Gantt chart with Milestones in Excel or PowerPoint
How do you create a Gantt chart in Excel? You can create a Gantt chart to show project tasks and timelines in Excel using a stacked bar chart. You can include milestones if needed. By using a chart in Excel, when the dates of the tasks change, the Gantt chart is automatically updated. In this…
Why it costs so much to professionally “fix up” or “clean up” a PowerPoint presentation
Every day business professionals look for people to help improve an important presentation they have developed. They’ve created the slides and are looking for someone to “fix them up”. They contact a professional presentation designer and are sometimes shocked at the cost they are quoted. They just need minor changes to their slides, why does…