PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Outstanding Presentations 2015: Conversation with Matteo Cassese

Matteo Cassese is an interactive consultant and an entrepreneur passionate about innovation and technology living in Berlin, Germany. Before starting his consulting business, La Fabbrica della Realtà, in 2011, he has held technical and marketing roles in the internet, telecommunications and entertainment fields. His experience with presentations spans more than 10 years, where he has applied his skills to bigger corporations and startups alike. In January 2015 he has launched the Presentation Hero Academy.

In this conversation, Matteo discusses his upcoming webinar tomorrow, which he will present as part of the Outstanding Presentations 2015 series.

Geetesh: Tell us more about what you do — and also about how audience perceptions about visuals have changed/evolved over the years?

Matteo: Hello Geetesh, thanks for having me. It’s always a pleasure to be featured on Indezine. I have specialized in recent years in presentations, but my job is also helping multinationals and startups do their digital marketing right.

To your question! My favorite way of keeping an audience engaged and active is to enter into an agreement with them. This agreement is about mostly how much time you will use and how you will use it. I usually make sure that the audience in front of me knows who I am, what I am going to talk about and how my talk is structured in the first 60 seconds of the presentation.

This puts the audience at ease because they feel in control. They relax because they know what is going to happen next. That is just a first step, but indeed it’s an important one.

Geetesh: What will you speak about in your session as part of the Outstanding Presentations series – and what would be the takeaway for attendees?

Matteo: Let’s start with the takeaway: I want you to get out of my webinar knowing how every successful presentation, film or event follows a crystal clear, powerful structure that anyone can borrow and use for their own purposes.

After this 1 hour encounter, the attendees will all be able to create a great presentation with a powerful intro, a middle section that delivers value like a boxer delivers punches, and an ending that is unforgettable.

I am taking this advice from my Presentation Master Class that I deliver in companies worldwide and online at the Presentation Hero Academy. I’ve packed all the advice possible in these 60 minutes and I promise you will not have one dull second during the webinar.

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, Matteo Cassese, Outstanding Presentations Workshop, PowerPoint, Webinar

Working with Cards within Sway

You can create a new Sway from scratch, or you can also import existing files such as PowerPoint, into Sway. Then you can add various media elements within your Sway using the options explained in our Insert Options in Sway tutorial. Other than the Insert option, you can also work with Cards to insert various elements. So what is a Card? In Sway parlance, a Card is a container that contains text, images and videos.

Learn how Cards work within Sway.

Filed Under: Sway
Tagged as: Docs.com, PowerPoint for the Web, Sway, Tutorials

Remove Background from Pictures in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows

Do you want to remove a sky, a wall, any backdrop, or something else in a photograph so that the slide background shows through within those removed parts of the picture? The Remove Background option may be just what you need to remove the backdrop from an inserted picture in PowerPoint 2013.

Learn how to remove a part of your picture to make a transparent background in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2013
Tagged as: Background, Design, Graphics, Office 2013, Pictures, PowerPoint 2013, Tutorials

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