PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Becoming a Webinar Expert: Conversation with Ellen Finkelstein

   Ellen Finkelstein is a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP and author of several PowerPoint, Flash, and AutoCAD books. She also holds webinars on presenting skills on a regular basis.

In this interview, Ellen talks about her webinar secrets.

Geetesh: Ellen, you do so many webinars—and you do these so confidently and easily. What is your secret?

Ellen: My first webinar was really scary. It seemed so strange to talk without seeing the audience. But over time, I got used to it. One technique that helped was to interact with the audience, using the webinar chat. For example, I love to start out by asking the audience a question and reading out loud some of the answers. This is the same technique that presenters use with a live audience to capture their attention. And if you can incorporate some of their answers into the presentation later, they will be very appreciative.

For example, since I speak to presenters, I often ask what type of presentations they do. I sometimes use a poll for this so I can get the exact percentages and show the results to the audience. Somewhere in the presentation, I might say, “Since 40% of you are trainers, you’ll find this particularly interesting…”

Once you get responses in this way, you discover that you have smart and thoughtful people in your audience and you sort of fall in love with them. This does wonders for you as a presenter!

In addition, if I’m doing a new webinar, I practice, just like I do for a live presentation. Without practicing, it’s impossible to know how long it will take and the results can be disastrous. Practicing makes me feel more comfortable both subjectively (how I feel) and objectively (knowing that the material will work for the time given).

One secret for webinars is to use more slides than you would for a live presentation. Even if you’re using the webcam—which I recommend highly—you’ll be a little box in the corner. It’s so much easier for the audience to ignore you and start looking at their email—and they know you can’t see them! So keep the slides moving crisply. I try to use 1-2 per minute. Of course, the slides should be clear, engaging, and persuasive—but that applies to any presentation.

Geetesh: Do you have a checklist of what you must do before a webinar? Can you tell us more?

Ellen: I have a planning worksheet that I use for a sales webinar. These webinars involve a lot of promotion, working with partners, preparation of the sales mechanism, and follow-up They are really quite a project, so it’s good to plan well in advance. It’s called the Ultimate Webinar Planning Worksheet and it’s available for free download through Monday, May 23rd 2016.

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.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Ellen Finkelstein, Interviews, Webinar

Tiling Options in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

Tiling options are available when you add texture fills to shapes or even use a picture as a fill to a shape. Tiling can really make a difference to your shape fill — just play around with the tiling options explained in this tutorial.

Explore the Tiling options for Texture fills in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2016
Tagged as: Fills, Microsoft Windows, Office 2016, Pictures, PowerPoint 2016, Textures, Tutorials

Add Texture Fills to Shapes in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

PowerPoint’s fill options for shapes are extensive. The texture fills for shape incidentally are not too different from picture fills, other than the fact that they can be tiled. PowerPoint includes a built-in library of textures, and you can also import any picture, to be used as a texture. If you want to see a sample presentation showing texture fills in PowerPoint, scroll down to the bottom of this page.

Learn to use Texture fills for selected shapes in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2016
Tagged as: Fills, Microsoft Windows, Office 2016, Pictures, PowerPoint 2016, Textures, Tutorials

Finding Your Presentation Metaphor

By Jim Endicott

For most people, creating presentations is not their day job. They sell things. They manage people. They drive projects. They make stuff happen.

So, it’s understandable that when it becomes necessary to actually create a presentation, the process is rarely motivated by an understanding of the science of how our brains actually assimilate information (who has time for that). But more often by what’s easiest and fastest. Creating bullets and sub-bullets – a piece of cake. But for those who have to actually sit through 60 minutes of the stuff, that form of information has become the visual equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed Under: Guest Posts
Tagged as: Guest Post, Jim Endicott, Opinion, Presentation Skills

PowerPoint and Presenting News: May 17, 2016

Carmen Simon speaks about her new book, Impossible to Ignore in an exclusive conversation. Robert Befus of SlideSource shares ideas on how you should work with too many slides. Sunday Mancini from Ethos3 talks about her project to create story slides. Paul Stannard from SmartDraw discusses the amazing SmartDraw Cloud program that helps you create info-graphics in a browser. Chantal Bossé, a PowerPoint MVP shares her secrets, discussing how you can create gigantic PowerPoint decks. And in our Timelines that are Different series, we explore a timeline sample slide from My Product Roadmap.

PowerPoint 2016 for Windows users can learn more about fills for shapes, such as solid fills, gradients, and pictures. Finally, do not miss the new templates of this week!

Read Indezine’s PowerPoint and Presenting News.

Filed Under: Ezine
Tagged as: Ezine, Indezine, News, PowerPoint