Latest posts

Below are the most recent articles or resources I’ve published. If you are looking for help on a specific topics, it would best to look at the topics in my Articles archive as I have grouped my recent and best articles by topic there.

  • PowerPoint Presentation Best Practices Audit; Issue #455 January 7 2020

    The start of a new year is a common time to evaluate where you are and what you want to improve to make this year better than the previous year. If you are looking to make more effective PowerPoint presentations in 2020, I suggest you start with my Effective PowerPoint Presentation Audit. In this audit…… Continue reading

  • Showing key phrases in social media posts; Issue #454 December 10 2019

    As social media becomes more important in organizations, you may want to include social media posts in presentations and highlight key words or phrases. This can be a compliment you want to use to congratulate a team on an event or it could be a complaint that highlights a larger issue that needs to be addressed.…… Continue reading

  • The “last mile” in data analysis; Issue #453 November 12 2019

    The “last mile” is a term that refers to delivering service all the way to the customer’s home, not just close by. It has been a significant challenge for companies like Amazon who deliver packages to people’s homes and for providers of high-speed internet. It is relatively easy to get a truckload of packages to…… Continue reading

  • 2019 Gift List for Presenters; Issue #452 November 12 2019

    I’m seeing Black Friday previews and pre-Black Friday sales have started. For the past couple of years I’ve put together a list of the products and services I use and recommend to those looking for gifts to give presenters or business professionals who have to create and deliver presentations as part of their job. I’ve recently updated…… Continue reading

  • Highlighting an area with a mask; Issue #451 October 29 2019

    Sometimes you have a complex image, maybe a process diagram, chemical structure, or detailed schematic. You want to focus on one area to explain your message and you want the viewer to have context of where that one area fits into the overall picture. In this article I show you how using a semi-transparent mask…… Continue reading

  • Professional looking graphs; Issue #450 October 15 2019

    It is relatively easy to create a graph in Excel or PowerPoint. But is the default graph good enough for a business presentation? I don’t think so. Recently I wrote three articles on how to make professional looking graphs for the three most common types of graphs: column graphs, line graphs, and bar charts. I…… Continue reading

  • Results of the 2019 Annoying PowerPoint survey; Issue #449 October 1 2019

    Thank you to everyone who took the time and shared your honest opinions about the PowerPoint presentations you see. I have compiled all the responses and produced a full report which is linked below. To give you the highlights, I’ve included here the executive summary and the results summary infographic. Click on the image or…… Continue reading

  • 5 Good reasons to use your corporate PowerPoint template; Issue #448 September 17 2019

    How do most business professionals start creating their PowerPoint slides? They open a previous presentation and copy a few slides into a new file, making sure to click the Keep Source Formatting option so the template from the previous file gets applied. This is a big mistake. You may get an old version of the…… Continue reading

  • Free training videos; Issue #447 September 3 2019

    In our neighborhood the kids are heading back to school today. This often makes the rest of us think about upgrading our skills so today I want to highlight some free playlist s of videos I have on my YouTube channel that can help you make your presentations more effective. To get notified of new…… Continue reading

  • 3 Steps you can take to spend less time updating Excel charts each month (Hint: use a strategic approach to your Excel chart worksheet)

    With organizations measuring more metrics than ever before, the time it takes to update all the charts you create for senior managers seems to increase each month. You’ve streamlined the analysis using tools in Excel like Power Query, Pivot tables, and various formulas. Once you’ve identified the insights you need to communicate, it takes a…… Continue reading