When I deliver a customized workshop, I always start the day spending at least 90 minutes talking about how to structure your message. During this time I don’t mention slides at all, even though I am talking about creating effective PowerPoint presentations. Why should all business presenters spend time on the structure first? Because the…
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 Media professionals (February 7, 2018, New York, NY)
Customized program for media company professionals covering planning a presentation, focusing the message, and creating effective visuals. The session includes slide makeovers of their own slides to reinforce the ideas.
Replace the default legend; Issue #381 January 24, 2017
When a column or bar chart has to be small so that other content can fit on the slide, the default legend can cause a challenge. The color chips used in the legend become so small that it may be hard for the audience to see which color represents which data series. This gets even…
FastCompany.com January 14, 2017
In this FastCompany.com article, Dave’s survey on what annoys audiences about bad PowerPoint presentations is used as a starting point for the author giving some tips on using images in presentations.
Axis that doesn’t start at zero; Issue #380 January 10, 2017
If you read articles by data visualization experts on the topic of measurement axes that don’t start at zero, you will find one common theme: strong opposition to the idea. While I agree with them in most cases, I want to suggest an exception to this rule. Let’s start with the key issue. By default,…
Showing performance where we want to be below a goal; Issue #379 December 20, 2016
Showing performance where the desire is to remain below a standard (vs. the usual above the goal)
Half-day workshop for Master of Finance students (December 8, 2017, Toronto, ON)
Customized program for students in a Master of Finance program covering planning a presentation, focusing the message, and creating effective visuals. The session includes real world examples from finance presentations to reinforce the ideas.
Focusing the message for variance analysis; Slide Makeover #86
Focus your message with a visual that highlights important variances
Order data to support your message; Issue #378 December 6, 2016
When comparing values, make sure the order supports the message
One and a half day workshops for Financial Services company (November 28-30, 2017, Boston, MA)
Two customized one and a half day workshops for IT and project professionals covering planning a presentation, focusing the message, and creating effective visuals. The session includes slide makeovers of their own slides to reinforce the ideas.