PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Preparing for Ignite or Pecha Kucha: Conversation with Yancey Unequivocally

  Yancey Unequivocally is the co-founder and President at Empowered Presentations, a slide design firm based in Honolulu, Hawaii. Yancey is in the business of helping companies and nonprofit organizations get their message across. Her business has received accolades such as two first-place finishes in the World’s Best Presentation Contest on Slideshare.net and a Best in Slideshow Finalist in the Microsoft PowerPoint Slidefest Contest.

In this conversation, Yancey discusses how you can prepare efficiently to create and deliver a better Ignite or Pecha Kucha presentation.

Yancey’s Photo Credit: Tina Yuen with Pacific Business News

Geetesh: How is an Ignite presentation or even a Pecha Kucha presentation different from the conventional slide deck?

Yancey: First of all, what is a “conventional” slide deck? If one is referring to a presentation that is like every other presentation; which is less than average, unentertaining, and basically a waste of time. Or, you may think a conventional slide deck is one that spends an hour or so explaining a certain topic of interest in hopes to educate, convince, or inspire one to take action.

Pecha Kucha and Ignite platforms lean more on the latter, while keeping it short and to the point and not dragging it on for a large amount of time keeping them fast-paced, fun, and entertaining.

Not only is Ignite and Pecha Kucha different from the “conventional” slide deck, they are also different from each other. Not having control over your slides is sometimes unnerving to some who are used to clicking on their own. To others is a release not having to stress about what is coming up next and just letting your content flow out of your mouth.

Pecha Kucha is a total of 20 slides that transition every 20 secs automatically, for a total presentation of 6:20. We created this What is a Pecha-Kucha presentation.

For more information on Pecha-Kucha or to locate an event near you, visit the Pecha Kucha site.

Ignite’s platform is 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide, and runs automatically for 5 minutes. We also created this What is Ignite presentation.

For more information on Ignite or to locate an event near you, visit the Ignite site.

Geetesh: Other than the slides, what can a presenter do to make a better impression at an Ignite or Pecha Kucha event?

Yancey: Here are some thoughts:

Do what others do not. There are many ways you can stand out as a presenter and make a lasting impression. It just depends on what you are speaking about. What we try to do to make a better impression as a presenter, when appropriate, is to incorporate all the five senses of, see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. If you are speaking about recycling, why not have a pile of recyclables on stage to illustrate. If you are speaking of food, why not cook it on stage while you present. If you are speaking on leadership, use a live demonstration with the audience and have them participate with you. The things you can do are endless, so step from behind the podium and do what others do not.

Be different. We were given the opportunity to give another Ignite talk and the Theme was Education, Technology, and Interactive Design. So knowing the venue prior to the presentation, gave us an idea to create just that. An Ignite on How to Ignite using Technology (Keynote), using an Interactive Designed Slidedeck, and of course the educational component of How-to.

Since then we have been brought on board the Ignite Honolulu Team and plan to schedule the next one in the fall. By being different from all the other presentations, will surely raise the bar for everyone else. And we will assist all the presenters at Ignite Honolulu with their presentations.

Kick-Butt. When we attend any event here in our local city whether it be a networking event, seminar, workshop, etc. people know who we are and automatically start sweating if they are presenting (it’s hilarious). And for the people not presenting, they are already waiting in anticipation for our presentation. That is a huge distinction from any other presenter. When was the last time you attended a seminar and already knew from word of mouth that the person giving the next presentation was either going to suck or kick-butt? Yes, we know, this is our professional and expertise and we should be the best right? No. It is just the time invested into our presentation that makes it stand apart from the rest of those who scramble last minute to throw something together, and their excuse for beginning bad is that they did it last minute. There are many amazing presenters out there that kick-butt in their own ways. You don’t have to be remarkable right out of the gate if it is your first time presenting. Remember, just one step above mediocre will allow you to slowly step away from the rest. So go and kick some butt!

See Also: World’s Best Presentation Contest 2010: Conversation with Cory Jim | 10 Tips for Pecha Kucha | Ten Easy Topics for Pecha Kucha | Pecha Kucha Questions

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: Ignite, Interviews, Pecha Kucha, Presentation Skills, Yancey Unequivocally

PowerPoint Animation: Alarm Clock

This sample presentation includes 3 animated clocks that are equipped with old-fashioned alarm bells that ring after either 1, 2, or 5 minutes – depending upon the clock you choose! Use these in a quiz session, a quick break, or adapt them to run a longer time and use for an assignment time – or even a lunch or tea break! These clocks have been created using basic PowerPoint shapes and are made Theme aware so that when you copy them to your presentation, they appear in harmony with the overall appearance of your slide content.

Download and use these clocks in your presentation.

Filed Under: Presentation Bank
Tagged as: Animation, Graphics, PowerPoint, Presentation Samples

Zenler Studio: Conversation with Tom Burton

Tom Burton is VP Business Development at Zenler. Tom is responsible for developing North American markets for Zenler’s eLearning authoring tools as well as Learning Management Systems. Tom also chips in as one of Zenler’s community managers. Tom has extensive sales background and eLearning is his big area of interest and he blogs often on e-Learning. Zenler’s products include Zenler Studio eLearning Authoring Tool and Zenler Online Learning Management System.

In this conversation, Tom discusses how existing PowerPoint users can use Zenler Studio, and about delivering the created content through devices such as the iPad.

Geetesh: What exactly is Zenler Studio, and what makes Zenler Studio attractive to PowerPoint users?

Tom: Zenler Studio is a new eLearning authoring tool that lets users easily create rich interactive eLearning courses. Traditionally PowerPoint based authoring tools were more of just a PowerPoint to Flash Conversion tool, but with Zenler Studio, its much more than that with its Course Designer which gives the course a proper structure and other interactive features. Zenler Studio treats a course just like a book having chapters and questions at end of each chapter.

With Zenler Studio, you can create courses with Multiple Quiz Styles, Multiple format import including Word as embedded eBook & PowerPoint, Video/Audio Narration, Screen capture videos, a range of customisable interactions all from right within PowerPoint and all within a single tool.

Currently in the authoring tools available, you would create a flash quiz and embed it into the course. But this approach causes limitations on the extent to which these quizzes can be customised. We take a radical approach in Zenler Studio, the quizzes are inserted as pure slides into PowerPoint.

That is — even the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers are nothing but just slides in PowerPoint. This gives users the ability to customise each quiz slides to great lengths than they were able to do before.

Also another key differentiator is that it also lets users create simulations and scenarios using it’s Scenario Builder feature. Moreover, with Zenler Studio pro+ users which is coming up. users can also can create fully integrated end-to-end simulation/game based courses from an authoring tool now without the huge costs involved in custom game development.

Take a look at the quick demo to see to create a course using Zenler Studio.

Geetesh: Once you create content with Zenler Studio within the familiar PowerPoint environment, what output options are available? Also is the ouput iPad compatible?

Tom: Zenler Studio allows users to publish courses in SCORM/AICC format and Adobe Flash currently. With almost all mobile OSs dropping support for Flash and eLearning going more mobile, we believe HTML5 is the future. HTML5 is still very much an evolving standard, but let me take this opportunity to announce that Zenler Studio with HTML5/Mobile compatibility should be out soon as it’s in final stages of development.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: eLearning, Interviews, PowerPoint

Learn PowerPoint 2010 for Windows: AutoRecover and AutoSave Options

Has this ever happened to you: you have been working on a presentation for hours and suddenly PowerPoint or even the computer crashes? This may happen due to a power outage, instability of the system, or even PowerPoint itself may crash. You realize that you had not saved the presentation for a long time and you may have lost most of your work! Although you can keep your programs updated, system secure, and even save your file often, these steps provide no guarantee that you will never see a crash again and lose all or some of your work. Fortunately, you can salvage most f your work if PowerPoint closes abnormally by enabling AutoRecover and AutoSave options. These options can be life savers as they help you prevent losing your precious work in two ways.

Learn how to enable AutoRecover and AutoSave options in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2010
Tagged as: PowerPoint 2010, Tutorials

Learn PowerPoint 2008 for Mac: Theme Fonts

Each Theme contains several unique facets such as Theme Fonts, Theme Colors, and Theme Effects that set each Theme apart from other Themes. Note that all the slides differ in terms of colors, fonts, and effects applied. Yet the text content is still the same. When a different Theme is applied to your PowerPoint presentation, the fonts, colors, and effects applied to your slides change. Unless you override this on a per slide basis, these changes show up in all slides in the presentation. The resulting slides all look consistent.

Explore how you can change the active Theme Fonts set in PowerPoint 2008 for Mac.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2008
Tagged as: Fonts, Office for Mac, PowerPoint 2008, Themes, Tutorials