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.

  • Lessons from TED talks; Issue #334 March 31, 2015

    Recently the TED organization released new videos on their website at TED.com from the recent TED Conference. As a corporate presenter, why should you care? Because they set the bar for all presentations. In this article I want to discuss three areas you can improve based on what you see in TED talks. Are the…… Continue reading

  • Have the impact of Apple product launch slides without copying their style

    The media makes a big deal of every product introduction presentation that Apple makes, such as the recent introduction of the newest Apple MacBook and Apple Watch. Presentation experts watch the sessions carefully and comment on how corporate presenters can learn from the slides Apple uses. These commentators suggest all presenters should use images and…… Continue reading

  • Visuals that indicate performance; Issue #333 March 17, 2015

    A few months ago I delivered a webinar on turning spreadsheets into visuals because far too often presenters just copy their analysis from a spreadsheet onto a slide and think that the audience will figure it out somehow. Today’s insight comes from that webinar. You can’t just copy dozens of numbers onto a slide. In…… Continue reading

  • Showing a range of values; Slide Makeover #81

    Use a trick in a stacked bar chart in Excel or PowerPoint to create a graph that visually shows the range of values. Continue reading

  • The correct visual to show a trend; Issue #332 March 3, 2015

    As I write my next book which is due out in late spring, I am forced to think deeply about the decisions business professionals should make when selecting visuals for their slides. One of those decisions is whether to select a column chart or a line graph when showing a trend or direction in the…… Continue reading

  • I disagree with the Canadian Business article on PowerPoint

    I strongly disagree with the article James Cowan of Canadian Business magazine published today concluding that “PowerPoint is a terrible way to communicate anything important.” My study on PowerPoint usage is quoted and he uses a 12 word quote from me. By including me in this article, he gives the impression that I agree with…… Continue reading

  • Graph labelling techniques; Issue #331 February 17, 2015

    In this article I am going to share a couple of innovative ways to use the built-in graph data label feature of PowerPoint to make your graphs more effective. I’ve always taught that if the built-in data labelling feature does not work for your graph, just add text boxes with the labels you need. And…… Continue reading

  • Testing how a slide looks to someone with color deficiency; Issue #330 February 3, 2015

    For many years in my workshops I have been discussing the importance of considering how colors look to people who have color deficiency. The term many people commonly use is color blindness, but that is not accurate. Some people truly can’t see the colors red and green, but more commonly the colors don’t look the…… Continue reading

  • Select Effective Visuals: The Business Professional’s Guide to Selecting and Creating Effective Presentation Visuals

    This book contains a three step approach to help business professionals create effective presentation visuals. Step 1 is writing a headline that summarizes the message you want the audience to understand and remember from that slide. Step 2 is to select and create an effective visual for the slide. The book focuses on this step… Continue reading

  • Fixing the Excel Rounding Error; Issue #329 January 20, 2015

    When an executive sees a calculation error on your slide, how does it affect their view of the information you are presenting? It makes them question all the other data and analysis you did. But you checked your analysis and it is correct, so why is there an error on your slides? That’s what I…… Continue reading