PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Managers Toolbox for PowerPoint

Project plans, product comparisons, scenario evaluations or process maps – managers need to communicate their decisions and plans, and many managers use Microsoft PowerPoint presentations to transport their message to stakeholders and decision-makers. The Managers Toolbox for Microsoft PowerPoint is an add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 and 2003 that helps managers to create typical management charts in seconds.

More info.

Filed Under: Add-ins
Tagged as: Add-in, PowerPoint, Process Maps, Projects

The Dave Paradi Interview

  Dave Paradi is known as The Office Technology Lifeguard because he rescues people from “Death by PowerPoint” and other electronic sins. His articles, special reports and books help you quickly and easily leverage the technology you already own to save time and make money.

In this interview, Dave discusses the true cost of bad presentations and also discusses death by PowerPoint. He also talks about creativity blocks and the importance of outlining.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Dave Paradi, Interviews, PowerPoint

Perception is Reality

Many Indezine readers have heard about Edward Tufte, who is an American statistician and professor emeritus of political science, statistics, and computer science at Yale University. Tufte is famous for his not so charitable opinions about PowerPoint and other slideware programs. His essay, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint has been either well-received or much criticized.

One counter to Tufte’s thoughts is from Peter Coffee, who is Technology Editor at PC Magazine. In a recent post on eWeek, he states: “I part company with Tufte when he blames this kind of sloppiness on PowerPoint itself. He compares it to a drug with ‘frequent, serious side effects’ of inducing stupidity, wasting time and degrading ‘the quality and credibility of communication.’ He’s wrong. PowerPoint doesn’t corrupt; it concentrates. If you have something useful to say, it helps you say it in a more effective way; if youre ignorant or confused, PowerPoint makes it more obvious, but only to an audience that isnt in the same condition. Moreover, Id argue that its easier to be deliberately obscure, and to cover ones self against every possible outcome, in a document laden with footnotes and appendices than it is in a 40-word chart.”

Read the full article on the eWeek site.

Filed Under: Thoughts
Tagged as: Edward Tufte, Opinion, Peter Coffee, PowerPoint

Of the Medium and the Message

Aparna Mahalingam discusses about the medium and the message of presentations. She says, “How to make presentations is important. These cannot substitute for the content, though.” She also reached out to me, and included some of my quotes in this feature.

Here are some quotes:

• Content is the king. What is most important is how you put the point across. PowerPoint is just a medium at the end of the day.
• A lot of extempore is actually improvisation of the presentation.
• Even if a junior in the organisation is preparing the presentation, the senior person who is going to make the presentation has to be involved in the process.
• Limit animations to emphasise key points.
• Better still, record a video while you are rehearsing for the presentation. You can be your own critic then.

Read more here.

Filed Under: Thoughts
Tagged as: Opinion, PowerPoint, Quotes

Giving PowerPoint Pizzazz with Macromedia Flash

There are many reasons you might want to use Flash movies in your PowerPoint presentation, most notably to take advantage of Flash’s interactive vector animations and small file size. In some cases, you may already have Flash movies on your Web site or intranet that you want to incorporate into PowerPoint. Or you may want to create a Flash movie specifically to include in a presentation, enabling you to add some extra pizzazz to PowerPoint’s existing functionality.

Learn about using Flash in PowerPoint with Patrice-Anne Rutledge.

Filed Under: Guest Posts
Tagged as: Flash, Guest Post, Patrice-Anne Rutledge, PowerPoint