Tag: 2006

PowerPoint Tip – The most likely cause of video failure Last week when I was speaking at the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers Convention in Vancouver, one of the trends I talked about was the increasingly common expectation of audiences to see multimedia incorporated into presentations. On the Oprah Winfrey show last week viewers saw…

PowerPoint Tip – Detailed Handouts without Packed Slides One reason presenters pack slides with too much text and information is that they claim that since they will be printing the slides as their handout, they will need the audience to have the detail for future reference. But what happens is that the barrage of information…

PowerPoint Tip – Downside of Dashboards One of the recent trends in executive presentations is to create what is know as dashboard slides. A dashboard slide is a way for executives to get a quick view on projects, initiatives, financial or other measurements of interest. It is usually designed to have a red, yellow or…

PowerPoint Tip – Scary Slide Mistakes Today is Halloween for many and it brings to mind thoughts of scary things. I want to share with you today some of the scary mistakes I have seen presenters make so that you can avoid these mistakes. Is there text there? – When I was working on a…

PowerPoint Tip – Equipment Failure If you are going to use PowerPoint to present, at some point in time you will have to deal with the equipment failing. You may not have had this happen to you yet, but you will. Even though the equipment is far more reliable than it was when I started…

PowerPoint Tip – Customizing tricks The days of canned presentations are over. Oh, they’ve been over for a while now, just some presenters haven’t realized it yet. So how can you quickly customize your presentation to exactly what the audience needs with little effort each time? Use these two simple tricks. First, many presenters have…

PowerPoint Tip – Equipment Connections In my webinar this week on Setting Up for a Worry Free Presentation, one of the items I will be covering is how to connect the equipment you will need for your presentation. I’ll go into more details on the webinar, but want to outline some of the most important…

PowerPoint Tip – Photo Entrance Loop Summer is over for most as the kids are back in school and we look forward to the last third of the calendar year. I hope many of you were able to take some time off in the last few months to recharge and rest up. Most people take…

PowerPoint Tip – Graduated Color Backgrounds One of the most popular ideas I shared on my webinar last month about creating your own custom PowerPoint template was to use a graduated background instead of a solid color. I find graphics in the background, such as pictures or logos, too distracting – and so do audience…

PowerPoint Tip: Making Your Point Stand Out with a Photo As I have written many times before, using pictures can illustrate your point much better than words in some cases. Just be sure that when you use a picture, the point is clear. A recent slide reminded me of this. The presenter was using a…