May 25 2011

Localize Your Slides or Risk Losing Your Audience

Localize (localise) your slides! (c) Thinkstock

If you present in various locations around the world or even within your own country/province/state/county/city, you might want to consider localizing your slides for your various audiences. The path of least effort is to make one generic version of your slides and just present the same version to all audiences. With the generic slides, you pass up any advantage you would gain from making the slides more relevant and meaningful to a specific local audience. There are some real benefits to localization as local examples can really pique the interest and attention of your audience. Continue reading “Localize Your Slides or Risk Losing Your Audience”

Mar 17 2009

Enter the PowerPoint Design Triangle

You’ve been painstakingly working on your PowerPoint slides for the past few days. They’re close to being finished, and you decide to run them by your manager for some last-minute feedback. Big mistake. Instead of receiving the expected praise for your efforts, you end up being sideswiped by one of the following three things:

  1. Your manager asks for additional, unexpected content (e.g., “Can we add something on our new product line?”)
  2. She requests a significant change to the look and feel of your slides (e.g., “I don’t like the theme you’ve chosen or the colors you’re using.”)
  3. Your deadline changes (e.g., “I now need you to present these slides this afternoon, not on Friday.”) Continue reading “Enter the PowerPoint Design Triangle”

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Feb 11 2009

Time is the Root of All PowerPoint Evil

People love to hate PowerPoint, but the real problem is time

People love to hate PowerPoint, but the real problem is time management. (c)iStockphoto/Rickard Blommengren

When it comes to bad PowerPoint presentations, most people love to blame the tool or software. However, it’s interesting that many other people can use the same tool and achieve completely different results.

You might be able to rack up the different outcomes to a person’s experience and expertise, but I believe all ‘PowerPoint evil’ can be traced back to the simple issue of time – and how we manage it or choose to spend it. Continue reading “Time is the Root of All PowerPoint Evil”

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Nov 15 2008

8 Tips for Effective Team PowerPoint Presentations

What more intimidating that one PowerPoint ninja? How about a team of PowerPoint ninjas?

What is more intimidating than a PowerPoint ninja? How about a coordinated team of angry PowerPoint ninjas? (c)iStockphoto/Ethan Myerson

In various business scenarios, you might find yourself a part of a team that is responsible for building and presenting a PowerPoint presentation. When you’re working independently on your own PowerPoint slides, you have full control over the outcome of your presentation. Coordinating a PowerPoint presentation with other individuals introduces new challenges, which can frustrate even PowerPoint ninjas who are caught unprepared. As a team, you don’t want to waste time on unnecessary or overlapping PowerPoint slides, or reworking poorly designed slides at the end. In order to be successful with group or team presentations, you should consider the following eight tips: Continue reading “8 Tips for Effective Team PowerPoint Presentations”

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