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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
Simon Morton founded Eyeful Presentations in 2003 to provide presentation services to businesses looking to improve the way they share information with their most important audiences – prospects, customers, employees & shareholders. The company firmly believes that key to their success is their unique approach of addressing the entire presentation process through their Presentation Optimization methodology. This holistic approach ensures that clients’ presentations are made more effective, not just prettier.
In this conversation, Simon talks about the prevalent PowerPoint sins, and what users can do to stay away from them!
Geetesh: What according to you are the highest-ranking PowerPoint sins? Tell us about them.
Simon: We’ve seen an interesting increase in the perception of PowerPoint sins over the last few years. Phrases like Death by PowerPoint are now commonplace and with high profile media stories surrounding hideous PowerPoints slides being used by the likes of the US Military, fuel is frequently added to the flames.
Filed Under:
Interviews
Tagged as: Death by PowerPoint, Design, Interviews, Opinion, PowerPoint, Simon Morton
We already showed you how you can create outlines for your PowerPoint presentation in Notepad (Microsoft Windows) and TextEdit (Mac OS X). We still maintain that it’s best you use either of these text editors but if you already created a structure for your presentation in Microsoft Word (or if your boss or colleague sent you one), it makes no sense to abandon it for a text editor. Follow these steps to create an outline for your PowerPoint presentation using Microsoft Word 2003 for Windows.
Filed Under:
PowerPoint All Versions
Tagged as: Outline, PowerPoint, Tutorials, Word
PowerPoint is used by a multitude of people including business persons, educators, students, trainers, and even hobbyists who spend endless hours creating countless presentations around the world. With some easy to use techniques and helpful tips, you can easily cut down your presentation creation time by half and also end up creating better PowerPoint presentations. Danny Rocks’ 50 Best PowerPoint 2007 Tips, Tricks, & Techniques DVD is full of cool videos that help you attain that objective.
Read the Indezine review of 50 Best PowerPoint 2007 Tips, Tricks, & Techniques.
Filed Under:
Microsoft Office
Tagged as: PowerPoint, Training
Mark Pierce is VP of Business Development at GoldMail, a PowerPoint integrated communication platform that is available for free. Previously, Mark spent the better part of 6 years leading sales teams for Microsoft’s Unified Communications group.
In this conversation, Mark discusses how GoldMail can help easily create convincing messages with voice-overs using PowerPoint content.
Geetesh: What exactly does GoldMail do, and how can PowerPoint users benefit?
Mark: GoldMail gives you the ability to easily overlay your voice on top of content and then share your on-demand slide show via email or post it online. With GoldMail, a non-technical business person can take a PowerPoint presentation, a picture or a screenshot and then record, in their own voice, a personalized message that puts the images in context and conveys — with nuances and affect — what is most important.
Geetesh: Can you share some scenarios that will show how GoldMail can benefit business users.
Mark: GoldMail helps businesses drive revenue, cut costs and save time by giving them a breakthrough way to communicate in an on-demand fashion.
It gives business user the easiest way to create compelling on-demand presentations and messages that create business impact. Some scenarios:
GoldMail is available for free here.
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: Add-in, Interviews, PowerPoint
Cliff Atkinson is an acclaimed writer, popular keynote speaker, and an independent consultant to leading attorneys and Fortune 500 companies. He designed the presentations that helped persuade a jury to award a $253 million verdict to the plaintiff in the nation’s first Vioxx trial in 2005, which Fortune magazine called “frighteningly powerful.”
Cliff’s bestselling book Beyond Bullet Points (Microsoft Press, 2007) was named a Best Book of 2007 by the editors of Amazon.com, and it expands on a communications approach he has taught at many of the country’s top law firms, government agencies, business schools and corporations, including Sony, Toyota, Nestlé, Nokia, Nationwide, Deloitte, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Intel, Microsoft and the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal.
In this interview, Cliff discusses the Beyond Bullet Points Live Courses.
Geetesh: What exactly is the Beyond Bullet Points Live course – and who can benefit from this 1-day course?
Cliff: When Microsoft first published Beyond Bullet Points five years ago, the book opened up a new way of thinking about PowerPoint presentations. It shifted the focus away from bullet points and templates, and toward improving the underlying story and structure of a presentation. After all, if you have clear ideas, you will have clear slides.
I’ve had a great deal of interest to teach this approach in private workshops, where I go onsite and teach teams at organizations including top law firms as well as Sony, Intel, Microsoft, Del Monte, Deloitte, and even the United Nations. In the meantime, I’ve had many individuals, consultants, and small organizations ask for the training, but I haven’t had a way to offer it. So now I’m providing the opportunity for the same training publicly at two 1-day courses on Nov. 11 and 12 in Los Angeles. No matter what your profession – graphic designer, creative services director, executive assistant, management consultant, attorney or executive – you will walk away with vastly improved skills in storytelling, storyboarding and delivery.
Geetesh: There are 2 courses that span a day each – are they both complementary to each other?
Cliff: The “BBP 101” course on the first day teaches the fundamentals of Beyond Bullet Points in an accelerated format. There are some fun exercises at the start including Visual Improv, where we create a story as a group using only images as prompts. We also cover a bit of theory but then jump right into building a real presentation step-by-step from the materials that participants bring with them. We begin with story structure, then storyboarding, and then by the end of the day participants stand up and deliver what they built, so they can experience the impact of this effective approach for themselves.
Where the first 1-day course is focused on building a presentation quickly to completion, the second 1-day “BBP Advanced” course goes into more detail on advanced story structures, accelerated storyboarding graphic design techniques, and effective delivery.
Those who attend both days are welcome to attend a third certification training day at no cost so they can learn how to teach BBP to others. If any Indezine readers interested in improving your presentations well Beyond Bullet Points, I hope you can join me!
You May Also Like: Cliff Atkinson on Indezine | Cliff Atkinson interviews Richard Mayer | A Broken PowerPoint Culture, by Cliff Atkinson
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: Cliff Atkinson, Interviews, PowerPoint, Training
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