Presentation Summit 2024: Conversation with Chantal Bossé

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    Chantal Bossé, president of CHABOS, is a presentation & visual communication leader, TEDx speaker coach, M365 MVP recognized for PowerPoint and Teams, expert trainer on the LinkedIn Learning platform, and author of Microsoft PowerPoint Best Practices, Tips, and Techniques. She helps speakers and small businesses improve their PowerPoint presentations and public speaking, and their Microsoft 365 & Teams skills.

Her goal is to help clients increase their bottom line by leveraging the power of their Microsoft 365 applications. CHABOS’ mission is helping small businesses and end-users be more empowered and efficient with communication and collaborative technologies.

In this conversation, Chantal talks about her participation at the upcoming Presentation Summit 2024, being held on location in Oxnard, CA this year from October 20 to 23, 2024, and virtually from November 3 to 6, 2024.

Indezine.com is the official media partner for the Presentation Summit.

Geetesh: Chantal, you deliver the Plan, Create, Deliver session at this year’s Presentation Summit with the objective of providing down-to-earth tips for busy people. What can audiences expect from this session. Please do share your thoughts.

Chantal: I have worked with countless businesspeople for the past twenty years in business, and the three main complaints I was getting from users were that they were always pressed for time, did not know the best way to start developing their presentations, and that they did not know PowerPoint enough to work with it efficiently.

Realizing I was always working the same way on client projects by starting with a planning phase, then leveraging PowerPoint’s tools and features to create more visually appealing content and finally helping clients discover some of PowerPoint’s delivery tools, I shared with them the basics of that 3-step process.

That is what I will be sharing with the Plan, Create, Deliver session at the Presentation Summit. We can say it will be my top 3 things to consider doing and using for each step in my process for more engaging and impactful presentations. People will get a sample of essential questions they need to answer before even opening the tool and we’ll go over the basics to understand how the various masters work in PowerPoint – yes! PowerPoint masters are part of my planning process. We’ll also go over some of the newest PowerPoint features that can help create more engaging content while leveraging features that will help people rehearse and practice with PowerPoint.

Geetesh: Having been a frequent attendee of the Presentation Summit, how do you feel about this year being the final event? Additionally, what significance has the Presentation Summit held for you over the years?

Chantal: I still remember the first year I attended the conference in 2005 when it was called PowerPoint Live, eager to learn more about my favorite application but also to refine how I could develop and create better content. What a great crowd!

Through the years, great friendships have developed, I have learned to master my craft, got noticed by other Microsoft MVPs, got awarded as a PowerPoint MVP myself in 2013, and got involved as a conference volunteer since 2014. The conference crowd is like my second family, or as Rick Altman often said: our summer camp for adults! This year being the last in-person event will surely feel strange. But this is a close-knit community so I’m sure we will find a way to meet again.

Geetesh: You’ve recently authored a book, Microsoft PowerPoint Best Practices, Tips, and Techniques. Can you share more information about how this book evolved, and how it has been received by readers?

Chantal: The first time I was approached to write a book about PowerPoint the format constraints did not fit with how I feel we should be using the tool to create presentations. The second time around the publisher wanted to have a book on PowerPoint that would help businesspeople. Much better fit.

I submitted an outline that would also bring readers through the same process I had been using for years so they would be able to Plan, Create, and Deliver better presentations while using PowerPoint, and it was accepted. We can say that I was testing my presentation creation process on my book writing process – and it worked!

Readers with basic PowerPoint knowledge can start reading the book from chapter 1 and have a complete presentation by the time they finish it. Or it can be referenced to use a feature or technique that has not been used in a while. So far it has been very well received by the presentation community, receiving positive reviews from people I respect a lot. It did take a lot of time to plan, structure, research and test my content, but it was all worthwhile.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.