PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Presentation Summit 2015: Conversation with Taylor Croonquist

    Taylor Croonquist is the co-founder of Nuts & Bolts Speed Training, a website delivering actionable PowerPoint training and speed strategies, helping professionals cut their build time in a third. Prior to Nuts & Bolts, Taylor lived and worked in China for 10 years in finance and consulting. When he’s not busy crafting PowerPoint training, you can find him traveling and scuba diving.

In this conversation, Taylor discusses his session at the upcoming Presentation Summit 2015 series.

Geetesh: Taylor, you are doing a session this year at the Presentation Summit called Cropping, shaping, and bending: Getting 1,000 words out of any picture. Can you tell us more about this session, and what takeaways can the audience expect?

Taylor: Why is that with…

1. Over 250 billion photos on the internet
2. Over 350 million photos uploaded to the internet every single day
3. The common knowledge that we all need to add more visuals to our presentations

And yet…

Most presentations still don’t have a single full-screen image in them anywhere.

I blame picture size and shape!

The pictures we want to use are always too tall, too wide, or too “something”…which makes them easy to leave by the wayside, but not anymore!

In my session we’ll look at how to quickly Crop-Out, Stretch-Out, Stamp-Out and Push-Out the boundaries of their photos to create full screen imagery in PowerPoint for almost any photo.

There is a lot of ‘oomph’ you can get out of your photos without ever leaving PowerPoint, and I’ll prove it to you!

Geetesh: You’ve been part of the Presentation Summit before — can you share your thoughts about how this event benefits new attendees, and also how it helps repeat visitors?

Taylor: The summit is a presentation builder’s dream come true.

You get to see what’s new, what works (and what doesn’t) and get your questions answered from any number of the presentation gurus who attend.

On top of that, you get to hang out and meet (the best part of the summit) a bunch of people from around the country (and world) who live and breathe presentations 24/7. They’re fun and passionate about this topic. So it’s a great place to meet people and exchange ideas.

Last year’s summit in San Diego was my first as an attendee (and it was a blast), so I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in New Orleans and participating this year!

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: Events, Interviews, PowerPoint, Presentation Summit, Taylor Croonquist

Presentation Summit 2015: Conversation with Keith Harmeyer

Keith Harmeyer is a recognized thought leader on the topics of innovative thinking, creative problem solving, idea generation and advanced presentation and communication skills. An accomplished speaker and writer, Keith is co-author of the book, SmartStorming: The Game-Changing Process for Generating Bigger, Better Ideas. He has shared his insights with an international audience of thousands of corporate professionals from a wide range of industries. Before co-founding SmartStorming LLC, Keith worked at advertising agencies in the Omnicom and Publicis networks. He is a graduate of Loyola and Tulane Universities, New Orleans, of Coach University, and is a member of the National Speakers Association and the Florida Speakers Association.

In this conversation, Keith discusses his keynote at the upcoming Presentation Summit 2015 series.

Geetesh: Keith, you are doing a keynote this year at the Presentation Summit called Only as Good as Your Last Idea: Why innovative thinking is your most valuable asset. Can you tell us more about this session, and what takeaways can the audience expect?

Keith: Like it or not, today we all live and work in an innovation-driven world.

Many of us think of “innovation” as something that applies only at the corporate or organizational level, something that doesn’t have much to do with us, personally. But in fact, every one of us, no matter what industry we work in or what our job function may be, is under continuous pressure to deliver fresh, new, creative solutions to our customers, clients and employers—on a regular basis—or risk becoming irrelevant.

In other words, if you don’t come up with innovative ways of tackling challenges or capitalizing on opportunities… someone else will.

Innovation is a “big” concept. But in the end, it really comes down to ideas. Every innovative product, service or process ever developed – every persuasive and memorable presentation ever written and designed – began as someone’s idea. As we say at SmartStorming, in business today, you’re only as good as your last idea.

So how effective an idea-generator are you? How creative and fresh is your thinking? Are you an “every day innovator?” Or are you in danger of slipping into irrelevance.

In the presentation, I’ll discuss what it actually takes to be an effective creative problem solver, what often gets in our way, and what anyone can do to maximize his or her innate creative potential.

Attendees will even get the chance to experience a little rapid idea generation firsthand.

Geetesh: Can you tell us more about your book, SmartStorming® The Game-Changing Process for Generating Bigger, Better Ideas?

Keith: As I mentioned earlier, fresh, innovative ideas are the currency of success in business today. And the most widely-used process for generating and developing ideas in organizations is group brainstorming. At this very moment, as people are reading this, tens-of-thousands of brainstorms are taking place in offices and conference rooms around the world.

But remarkably, over 90% of individuals leading brainstorms, in any industry, have had no formal training in how to do so effectively.

The result: brainstorming sessions that lack an effective structure; are poorly planned and facilitated by team leaders who possess inadequate understanding and skills; all-too-often, frustration on the part of participants; and worst of all, disappointing results in terms of the quantity and quality of ideas produced.

The SmartStorming book is the most comprehensive book ever written on the topic of group idea generation. It’s a practical guide that provides everything the reader needs to know to plan and lead highly effective brainstorming sessions, every time—a proven meeting structure, essential leadership skills, and specific techniques designed to help groups think in new and different ways. In fact, we include detailed instructions for 20 different idea generation techniques, as well as planners, “cheat sheets” and more.

The book also contains tips for how to apply the concepts and techniques when working by yourself, and when working virtually with others.

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: Events
Tagged as: Interviews, Keith Harmeyer, PowerPoint, Presentation Summit

Advanced Background Removal Options for Pictures in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

We already showed you how to remove the background from an inserted picture in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac — this process works great for simple pictures that have fairly distinct foreground and background areas. However, if the picture is little crowded or does not have clearly demarcated areas, you need to manually select the areas to be retained or removed in the picture using some fairly advanced background removal options.

Learn about advanced background removal options in PowerPoint 2011 using markers.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2011
Tagged as: Background, Design, Graphics, Office for Mac, PowerPoint 2011, Tutorials

2015 Annoying PowerPoint Survey: 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 his new 2015 Annoying PowerPoint Survey.

Geetesh: Dave, you have been carrying out your acknowledged surveys on what annoys audiences every 2 years now. How long have you been doing these surveys, and how do these results help us create and deliver better presentations?

Dave: I started the surveys in 2003, so this is the seventh survey I have done. The reason I keep doing the surveys is that they show important trends that all presenters need to be aware of. Some of the things that audiences find annoying haven’t changed in the past surveys. For example, according to the past surveys, presenters can stand out by simply not reading their slides and not putting unreadable small text on slides. These aren’t hard to do, but the surveys indicate that these are still issues in so many presentations. The surveys have also shown how much more reliant organizations have become on communicating through presentations and how audience’s expectations have changed over the past ten years.

Presentations are becoming the key way that professionals communicate in organizations, so getting better is important to one’s career. With the latest survey, we will see how the trends have changed and what that suggests for presenters. Readers can complete this year’s survey (it only takes a few minutes). This year’s survey will close at midnight on Thursday, September 24 and the results will be published about a week after that. I’ll be providing the results to Indezine so you can share them with your readers.

Geetesh: How many people responded to the survey two years ago and why is it important that people fill out this year’s survey?

Dave: Over 680 people responded to the survey in 2013 and I am hoping that we can reach that many responses this time as well. The reason it is important to have many people complete the survey is that it is one of the only ways that presenters can hear what audiences are truly thinking. After a presentation, it would be rare to have someone give you honest feedback that you might not take well. They don’t want to hurt your feelings by telling you what they really thought. You may never get the feedback that will truly change your habits and make you a great presenter. This survey allows audience members to anonymously tell me what they really think. I get many strongly worded comments on the survey — ones that people would not be comfortable saying out loud. This means that as presenters, we get that brutally honest feedback that helps us improve. By seeing the true thoughts of the audience and seeing the trends over time, we can develop improvement plans for our presentations so that we can become the best presenter we can be. Let your colleagues, friends, and social media contacts know about the survey and ask them to complete it so all presenters can improve.

Take part in this survey now.

See Also: What Annoys You About Bad PowerPoint Presentations?: Conversation with Dave Paradi | 2013 Annoying PowerPoint Survey Results: 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: Uncategorized
Tagged as: Dave Paradi, Interviews, PowerPoint, Presentation Skills, Survey

Remove Background from Pictures in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

Among PowerPoint 2010’s newest and most magical abilities is the Remove Background option that lets you remove the background from an inserted picture. This can be a great feature if you want to remove a sky, a wall, any backdrop, or something else in a photograph so that the slide background shows through within the removed parts of the picture.

Learn how to remove a part of your picture to make a transparent background in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2010
Tagged as: Background, Design, Graphics, Office 2010, Pictures, PowerPoint 2010, Tutorials