Presentation Summit 2024: Conversation with Echo Swinford

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    Echo Swinford has been working with PowerPoint since 1997. She is President Emerita of the Presentation Guild, a not-for-profit trade association for the presentation industry which she helped found in 2015. She has been a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP since 2000. With co-author Julie Terberg, Echo recently released the definitive guide to PowerPoint template development: Building PowerPoint Templates v2.

In this conversation, Echo 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: Echo, you’re delivering a crash course on Sunday called the Template Creation Workshop, in which you explain the process of creating a perfect PowerPoint template. Who can benefit from this workshop, and what takeaways can the audience expect?

Echo: During this workshop, we’re going to actually build a template together. Of course, we won’t be able to have everyone build their own custom template during this session – there just isn’t time for that. But my goal is for everyone to at least start working on a solid template, so they have some good, foundational information about building PowerPoint templates. And they’ll have a starter file they can continue to tweak for their own needs.

People who want to attend this session should have a good grasp of PowerPoint and at least a basic understanding of slide masters and layouts. We’ll of course go into more detail during the workshop, and Julie Terberg will be in the classroom to help out as well to help folks keep on track as we build. But the session will be pretty fast-paced, with a focus on gotchas, dos and don’ts, and making good template decisions.

Geetesh: You also deliver the Copiloting Templates session that looks at best practices to ensure your template works with Microsoft’s implementation of AI. Can you provide a brief explanation?

Echo: Once Copilot becomes more widely available, people will want it to not only help them with their content, but also to be able to use templates with their corporate branding. We’ll focus on some of the things you can do to ensure that Copilot can use your template rather than a generic stock Microsoft template when it’s creating slides.

Geetesh: This year is the last season of the Presentation Summit. Tell us more about your experiences at this conference over the years, and what you will remember the most.

Echo: Omigosh, I think the very first Presentation Summit will always hold a special place in my heart! There was a much smaller group of us, because it was essentially a proof-of-concept conference. But that meant I led, like, six sessions that year! I remember coming back from dinner with a bunch of folks, commandeering an empty ballroom, and staying up until midnight talking, arguing, and laughing about PowerPoint until the wee hours of the morning. That eventually became an official “late night guru” session, but that first spontaneous one was the most fun!

I also remember doing a session about charting in PowerPoint, maybe around 2005 or 2006. Rick (Altman) put my session up against one by Nancy Duarte, and I was convinced my room would be empty. I was so happy that people actually attended my session!

It’s been such a bonus to be able to see old friends and meet new friends every year. It energizes me! I’m going to miss it.

Presentation Summit in Tucson

Geetesh: What do you think is the most common mistake people make when creating slides, and how can they avoid it?

Echo: Oof, that’s a tough one. Honestly, though, I think the biggest problem is that folks just jump into the slides and spend all their time looking for a template or worrying about this color or that font. Your presentation really isn’t about the slides. You are the presentation. Your information is the important thing, not the slides. Spend your time figuring out what you want to say and nailing down that content, and then the visuals will become much easier.

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