This is the print version of this page. All content is copyright Indezine.com 2000-2026.
Thoughts and impressions of happenings in the world of PowerPoint and presentations, continuously updated since 2003.
See Also:
PowerPoint and Presenting Notes
PowerPoint and Presenting Glossary
Jeremey Donovan is Group Vice President of Marketing at Gartner Inc., the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company with $1.6 billion in annual revenue. During his career, Jeremey has led successful teams focused on market research, new product development, marketing, acquisitions, and product management. He is a three-time TEDx organizer, a TEDx speaker, a coach for many TED and TEDx speakers, and long-time member of Toastmasters International. His other books include What Great Looks Like, How To Win the Toastmasters World Championship, and How To Deliver A TED Talk: Secrets Of The World’s Most Inspiring Presentations.
In this conversation, Jeremey discusses his new book, Speaker, Leader, Champion: Succeed at Work Through the Power of Public Speaking.
Geetesh: Tell us about your new book, Speaker, Leader, Champion: Succeed at Work Through the Power of Public Speaking. What was the motivation behind this book. Also tell us about your co-author.
Jeremey: As a student of effective communications, I’m always on the hunt for examples of inspiring storytelling. After deconstructing TED Talks, I turned my attention to the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking. While there are countless speeches delivered in clubs every week, I figured the winning speeches represent the pinnacle of the Toastmasters experience. However, when I started writing what became “Speaker, Leader, Champion,” I got completely stuck. You see, I had been a Toastmaster for over a decade, but I had avoided the competitive part of the journey.
For help, I decided to ‘phone a friend.’ Ryan Avery, the 2012 Toastmasters World Champion, and I had traded some emails mostly in admiration of each other’s work. Ryan, despite the fact that he was only 25 when we met, has an unparalleled wealth of public speaking knowledge that he gleaned from self-study, practice, and the best mentors on the planet. It did not take me long to ask if he would team up with me to write the book.
During the process, we actually wrote three completely different books but ended up throwing away the first two. We are pretty proud of the end result. It uses Toastmasters world championship speeches as examples of the kinds of techniques that people can leverage in work presentations to share their ideas and accelerate their careers.
Geetesh: Your book has many examples of Toastmasters speeches yet all the advice can be used in any speaking scenario including business presentations. Please do share some thoughts.
Jeremey: You hit the nail on the head. Every type of speech I write about, be it Toastmasters, TED, The Moth, whatever…, has techniques that can be applied in personal and professional settings.
The key is to remain authentic to the situation. Take storytelling for example. In Toastmasters, storytelling is often dramatic and highly theatrical. That level of performance would not be suitable for most corporate settings. However, the fundamental structure of stories is the same. One of my favorite personal storytelling frameworks is the Pixar Pitch. It is a 3-act structure that goes like this:
Act 1 is: Once upon a time and every day… Until one day…
Act 2 continues with: And because of that… And because of that… Until finally…
Act 3 concludes with: And after that… And the moral of the story is…
Business stories have the same structure but use different language. Act 1 is the situation, Act 2 is the complication or opportunity, and Act 3 is the resolution. Some people call that problem solution, but I prefer the three-part version by splitting the problem into situation-complication.
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: Books, Interviews, Jeremey Donovan, Opinion, Presentation Skills
Comments Off on Speaker, Leader, Champion: Conversation with Jeremey Donovan
Unlike the Windows versions of PowerPoint which shows the active Theme name on the Status bar, the Mac version does not show the active Theme name anywhere on its interface. If you need to know the active Theme’s name for any open presentation, how do you find this information? You can find the name of the Theme applied to the presentation following the steps explained here.
Learn how to identify the active Theme name in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
Categories: office_mac, powerpoint_2011, themes, tutorials
Filed Under:
Uncategorized
Tagged as: Office for Mac, PowerPoint 2011, Themes, Tutorials
Comments Off on Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Identify the Active Theme
We start with an exclusive conversation with Sam Haddad who discusses PowerPointWriter, a solution that lets you create PowerPoint files with code.
PowerPoint 2013 for Windows users can learn about manually embedding YouTube video, Smart Connectors, changing the default Theme or template — and also about Table Style options. PowerPoint 2011 for Mac users can learn that there are ways in which you can make your chart Plot Area look different with texture and pattern fills. We also explore how you can alter Chart Gap Width. And if you are using PowerPoint 2010, learn how you can repair your Office installation. PowerPoint 2003 users will learn about editing, creating, and renaming Slide Masters.
And finally, do not 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
Comments Off on PowerPoint and Presenting News: April 22, 2014
If you want to use a line that links two shapes together, you may then want that line to be always linked, even if move the original shapes. This sort of linking is called connecting shapes. And to keep these shapes connected, you most certainly will start by drawing a connector instead of a normal line. A connector looks like a line, but it stays connected to the shapes you attach it to. There are three types of connector lines: Straight, Elbow (angled), and Curved.
Learn about different connector types in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.
Filed Under:
PowerPoint 2013
Tagged as: PowerPoint 2013, Shapes, Tutorials
Comments Off on Learn PowerPoint 2013 for Windows: Types of Connectors
When you launch PowerPoint 2003, it opens an empty presentation of just one slide. Typically this one slide has a title placeholder and another placeholder for a subtitle — typing any text within these placeholders shows black text over a white slide background. This is the default template PowerPoint 2003 provides — but you don’t have to live with these defaults. You change this blank presentation so that you get a slide that’s part of your custom PowerPoint template. Or even any of the other templates built within PowerPoint.
Learn how to change the default template in PowerPoint 2003 for Windows.
Filed Under:
PowerPoint 2003
Tagged as: PowerPoint 2003, Templates, Tutorials
Comments Off on Learn PowerPoint 2003 for Windows: Change the Default Template
Microsoft and the Office logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.