PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Shape Intersect

PowerPoint 2011 allows you to take any shapes — and then use Combine, Union, Intersect, or Subtract commands to create your own new shape out of them. Play around with these commands to indulge in endless hours of fun, but be careful not to be addictive. In this tutorial, you will see how you can take two or more shapes and intersect them to end up with interesting results. For example, we placed two basic shapes over a square (three shapes in all) as shown towards the left of the figure shown. With these shapes selected, we could use the Intersect command that is explained later in this tutorial to create a unified, intersected shape as shown towards the right in the same figure. This new shape only retains those areas where all the three shapes were intersecting each other.

Learn how you can intersect shapes in PowerPoint 2011 using the Intersect command.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2011
Tagged as: Office for Mac, PowerPoint 2011, Shapes, Tutorials

Indezine News Released

By the time you receive this issue of the newsletter in your inbox, it would have been already 2012, a new year with 366 days! For some reason, we love leap years that have one extra day. At Indezine, we are still pondering about what we will do on that extra day of the year, that happens to be a Wednesday. About the whole of next year, we have two focus areas — one of them is iPad presenting — and with Microsoft announcing that there will be a version of PowerPoint running on the iPad, there’s so much to look forward to in that direction! The other focus area for us this year is going to be charting — we have already started working on a series of charting articles and tutorials for you!

Read this issue of Indezine News.

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

Learn PowerPoint 2010: Creating and Editing Custom Dictionaries

Although PowerPoint provides a spelling dictionary which contains a list of all common words, you might be working on a particular project that uses uncommon words not found in everyday language. You could edit a custom dictionary or load a ready-made 3rd party dictionary within PowerPoint 2010 — but you can actually create your own dictionary that includes a set of words for a particular project. So, if you need to do a legal presentation for a client once a year, you could create a separate dictionary for just this one project — and then edit it as required within a text editor such as Notepad.

Learn how create and edit custom dictionaries in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows.

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

The Firestarter Experience: Conversation with Bess Gallanis

Bess Gallanis is the founder of Speaking with Power and Persuasion, an executive communications consulting firm based in Chicago. She is a communication coach, speaker, journalist, a student of yoga and insight meditation and the author of Yoga Chick (Warner Books, 2006). For more than 25 years, public and private company CEOs, senior executives, portfolio managers, and financial advisors have sought out Bess to help them develop their leadership voice and to make an impact through skillful communications. She prepares clients for high stakes presentations, media interviews, and sensitive conversations. Bess draws from the universal wisdom of yoga and insight meditation as a model for Presentation Yoga, which emphasizes leadership from within, personal authenticity, and storytelling.

In this conversation, Bess discusses The Firestarter Experience (link no longer exists), her new workshop on communication and presentation skills.

Geetesh: What is the Firestarter Experience workshop, and who is the typical participant who can benefit from this program?

Bess: The Firestarter Experience is a fast and focused two-day professional development program in leadership communication and advanced presentation skills. It is for people who want to make a bigger impact, whether it is around a conference room table or from a conference stage.

There has never been a more exciting time in the history of communication technology. Around the world, more people own a cell phone than a toothbrush. However, human nature has not changed and it would be a mistake to think that all this connection results in effective communication. This is the challenge that The Firestarter Experience was created to address. It changes attitudes and behavior about communication as a relationship skill.

Firestarter is designed around three interconnected sets of attitudes and actions: presence, presentation, and performance. Over the course of two days, Firestarters develop their unique leadership voice and presence, create a compelling business story, and learn a few simple and powerful delivery skills that will enhance their impact. The program empowers participants with the tools and support to manage what they say and how they are heard. This is what creates a competitive communication advantage.

The format is really innovative. The workshop revolves around creating and delivering a three-minute business story. Most communication programs include video feedback. We raise the stakes by creating The Firestarter Experience, a presentation event that is modeled on the TED and Ignite conferences. We create an informal stage, outfitted with lights and mikes, where each participant presents their story in front of a live audience and a professional videographer. Today, every business communicator needs to know how to project a professional image on video and other technology platforms.

The Firestarter Experience is appropriate for high-potential employees who are effective in the technical part of their jobs and could make a bigger impact with improved communication and presentation skills.

It also is appropriate for anyone who is in the business of pitching ideas: entrepreneurs, innovators and consultants. These are the people who need to be weaned off technical language so the rest of the world can understand their brilliant ideas!

Geetesh: When you say “your communication performance can be a game changer – or a deal breaker”, what do you mean? Can you tell us more?

Bess: Communication ability is the most critical skill needed to stay competitive in your career. This is the conclusion reached in the most recent 2010/2011 survey results from the American Management Association, which surveys trends in the broad workforce, and the International Recruiter Survey, which surveys a global audience that hires MBAs.

What does this mean? Today more than ever before, your career success depends on the cooperation of other people. Value in the workplace is created through strategic thinking and problem solving, teamwork and collaboration, and creativity and innovation. Work itself is unstructured across organizational, global, and cultural borders.

An important moment in your professional development is when you realize that to get the results you want, your communication must be strategic and intentional. Effective communicators are in command of a tightly interconnected set of skills: self-awareness, emotional management, situational awareness, intention, flexibility, an understanding of human nature, knowledge about how people process ideas and information, persuasion, storytelling skills, and a little bit of dramatic flair.

Add to the list above a few new skills. Today, every business communicator must master a range of media, tools and formats to connect, engage and communicate with people. Sensitivity and specific training may be required to effectively interact with a globally diverse audience. Add in the pressure to demonstrate and articulate that your results meet your department’s immediate goals and your company’s broader business strategy.

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: Bess Gallanis, Events, Interviews, Presentation Skills

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Shape Union

This is the second of the four Combine Shape commands in PowerPoint 2011. You have already learned how Combine, the first of these commands works on selected shapes. Now, in this tutorial you will learn how to use Union, the second command of this quartet — you will take two or more shapes and unite them. For example, we surrounded a circle with several stars over a donut shape as shown towards the left of the figure you see here. With these shapes selected, we could use the Union command to create a single united shape as shown towards the right in the same figure.

Learn how you can unite shapes in PowerPoint 2011 using the Union command.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2011
Tagged as: Office for Mac, PowerPoint 2011, Shapes, Tutorials