PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

PowerPoint and Presenting News: October 27, 2015

We start with our review of Dynamic NEWS, a PowerPoint add-in that lets you source RSS feeds of stuff such as news, and show it on your slides, with content dynamically changing at intervals. We then bring you a synopsis of Carmen Simon’s amazing keynote at the Presentation Summit in New Orleans. If you attended the session, you want to read what she said. And if you did not attend, you still want to read it to discover what you missed! There’s more — Dave Paradi discusses the findings of his amazing PowerPoint Survey!

We continue our tutorial series about the interface options in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows. Finally, don’t miss the new discussions and templates of this week!

Read Indezine’s PowerPoint and Presenting News.

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

Status Bar in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

The Status Bar is a thin strip located at the bottom of the PowerPoint 2016 interface. This area provides information about the active slide and also provides several View options. To work with options in the Status Bar, you must have a presentation open in PowerPoint 2016; otherwise the options within the Status Bar will be grayed out.

Learn about options available in the Status Bar within PowerPoint 2016 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2016
Tagged as: Interface, Office 2016, PowerPoint 2016, Status Bar, Tutorials, View

Removing Customizations from PCB Files in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

PowerPoint add-ins help in adding new capabilities that can polish your presentation in many ways. But when the time comes to uninstall these add-ins for whatsoever reason, you might be surprised to find their menu customizations, such as buttons that represent add-in features still exist! Click those menu extensions and nothing may happen, but these menu options are still there! In another scenario, you may have customized your PowerPoint menus and toolbars to a large extent. Now, you want to restore everything to a pristine state, almost like how the interface looked when you first installed PowerPoint. In either case, it is possible to lose all these customizations. The key to this solution lies in PCB files.

Learn how to remove customizations from PowerPoint’s PCB files in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows.

You May Also Like:
Enable The Developer Tab in the Ribbon in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows
Customize Quick Access Toolbar in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows
Add and Rename Ribbon Tabs in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2016
Tagged as: Customizations, Office 2016, PCB, PowerPoint 2016, Preferences, Tutorials

Guy Kawasaki at the Presentation Summit 2015

Guy Kawasaki did the Tuesday morning keynote at the Presentation Summit in New Orleans on September 29, 2015. He started by reminiscing about his days as the chief evangelist for Apple Computer. He spoke passionately about Steve Jobs.

Guy speaks around 75 times a year in conferences and delivers keynotes. His work certainly has to do so much with speaking. And that’s a continuation of his job at Apple, where he was evangelizing the Mac to the world.

Like Steve Jobs, Guy also quit Apple. He left Apple twice. He returned to Apple when the company had to survive. And that was good, because as Guy said in jest:

I left Apple twice. If I had stayed either time, I would not have been here today.

Guy then spoke about his role at Canva. He asked about how many people in the audience used Canva?

He then also spoke about his role on the board at Wikipedia.

Here’s another witty remark from Guy:
If you suck, and if your speech is short, it is OK. If you have a long speech, and you do not suck, it is OK. If you suck and are long, then that’s terrible.

And that’s how he led the audience to the topic of his keynote, How to get a Standing Ovation. Guy admitted that there’s a reason why he structures his talks with numbers, and that is to hold attention. He was, therefore, going to talk about 10 ways in which you can be assured that your talk gets a standing ovation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed Under: Events
Tagged as: Guy Kawasaki, Keynote, Presentation Summit

2015 Annoying PowerPoint Survey Results: Conversation with Dave Paradi

    Dave Paradi has been recognized by the media and his clients as a presentation expert. He has authored eight books and four Kindle e-books on effective PowerPoint presentations. He consults on high-stakes presentations including one used to brief one of President Obama’s cabinet ministers. Dave is one of only fourteen people in North America to be recognized by Microsoft with the PowerPoint Most Valuable Professional Award for his contributions to the PowerPoint presentation community. His ideas have appeared in publications around the world.

In this conversation, Dave discusses the results of the 2015 Annoying PowerPoint Survey.

Geetesh: Dave, what did the respondents tell you in this survey and how does that compare to previous surveys?

Dave: In this survey, the trend of presentations being used as the default method for communicating in organizations continued. Even more people said that they see at least one presentation every day of the work week. The percentage of people seeing one presentation per day has doubled in the last eight years. Presenting effectively is now a critical skill for professionals, as the expectations of audiences have increased.

I also unfortunately saw that overloading slides with text and reading them to the audience continues to be the case in far too many presentations. The top issue of reading slides has not changed in the seven surveys I have conducted – it is always the most common response by far. It happens when the presenter overloads the slides with text and feels compelled to share everything with the audience.

What emerged as a growing issue is the use of visuals that are too complex. As presenters start to use more visuals, they need to make sure the graphs, diagrams, and images are clear and relevant. Just using visuals instead of text isn’t the solution. The visuals must be effective in order for the audience to understand them.

Geetesh: In this survey for the first time you asked what advice audience would have for presenters. What did they say?

Dave: The key message for presenters from the survey respondents was a strong one, and one that presenters need to listen to. Audiences are upset that too many presenters don’t take time to properly plan the presentation, create effective visuals, and prepare to deliver the presentation. Audiences feel that the presenter doesn’t care enough about them to spend time doing a good job on the presentation. It is really an issue of feeling disrespected by the presenter. It is a harsh message for presenters, and one that all of us need to take to heart.

Audiences want presenters to tailor their message for that audience and focus the content on what the audience needs to hear. They have had enough of presenters just throwing together slides from past presentations and hoping the audience figures out a message. They want slides that have one message each with a summary headline and a clear visual. Don’t overload your slides because that indicates you didn’t take the time to focus your message. When a presenter apologizes for something during the presentation, the message the audience hears is that the presenter couldn’t be bothered to test the slides or technology in advance. The audience just isn’t important enough for the presenter to have solved any issues, like spelling mistakes, unreadable fonts, and poor visuals beforehand.

Audiences have seen enough great presentations online, through TED talks, and at product introductions that are covered by the media. They know what a good presentation is supposed to look like. They want presenters to invest the time and effort creating and delivering a good presentation.

Links to Survey Results: Full Report and SlideShare Summary.

See Also: 2015 Annoying PowerPoint Survey: Conversation with Dave Paradi

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: Dave Paradi, Interviews, PowerPoint, Survey