PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Did Your Laptop or Projector Die: Thoughts by Danny Rocks

Danny Rocks is a speaker, a trainer, and an author. He has published five DVDs designed to help users get the most out of Microsoft Office programs. Also, Danny has posted over 200 video lessons on his website.

This started as a thread on how to cope with a dead laptop or projector in front of your audience, and what you should do to be prepared. Here are Danny’s thoughts:

Yes, this has happened to me on several occasions. I have had my laptop “die on me” twice during an Advanced “Hands-on” Excel Class.

Lesson Learned: Always use a portable laptop fan. Laptops throw off a lot of heat! The portable fans run off a USB port, and you can get a model that folds up and is easy to put into your bag. I have had projectors “die on me” also — they do wear out / misfunction. My philosophy is, “It is not a question of IF the equipment fails; it is a question of WHEN the equipment fails.” What do you do to recover? Here is my own preparation list:

1. Always travel with a backup copy of your presentation — I use USB drives.
2. Always include a “Package for CD” copy of the presentation — I keep this on the USB drive — this comes in handy when you need to use the client’s computer and they do not have the version of PowerPoint that you used to create the presentation.
2. Always travel with a clean copy of your handout — can be copied and distributed if the original is lost or you require extra copies.
3. Always travel with a “3-prong into 2-prong” power connector — when the client has an “ungrounded” 2 prong wall connector.
4. Always travel with a 12‘ extension cord and a 6-prong adaptor — you may need to adjust the table for your laptop or projector.
5. Always travel with your own wireless “clicker” — connected by USB.
6. Always travel with your own digital clock — big enough for you to see and adaptable to various lighting conditions.
7. It goes without saying – “Always OWN your content. YOU are the presentation. The equipment simply helps you to make your presentation.”

I have also found that it is wise to spend less than 5 minutes trying to adjust faulty equipment. If possible, give your audience a short break while you try to fix equipment — find a file, etc. Your audience will be “on your side” when you continue the presentation without the equipment (if you could not fix it in five minutes).

I hope that this helps you to be prepared to respond when your equipment fails the next time.

Visit Danny’s site to get several more tips, including a separate section for PowerPoint users.

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: Interviews, Opinion, PowerPoint, Techniques

Outstanding Presentations Workshop: Conversation with Ellen Finkelstein

  Ellen Finkelstein is a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP and author of several PowerPoint, Flash, and AutoCAD books. She has just launched a new free webinar series called the Outstanding Presentations Workshop.

In this conversation, Ellen talks more about this webinar series.

Geetesh: How did the idea for the Outstanding Presentations Workshop webinar series come about? Who would want to attend the workshops, and how can they sign up?

Ellen: For a long time, I’ve been “beating the drum” about effective presenting and how to avoid Death by PowerPoint. Specifically, I’ve been trying to find ways to reach a larger number of people, those who present regularly, but don’t read books or blogs about presentations. So, I came up with the idea of a series of free webinars, presented by top presentation experts. It’s called Outstanding Presentations Workshop. It will start Wednesday, September 15th at 1 PM Pacific Time /4 PM Eastern Time (in the United States).

Anyone who presents and wants to present well will benefit by attending. It’s not only ideal for individuals, but Training Managers may want to organize groups of employees to view the webinars in a group.

Sign up at Outstanding Presentations Workshop. This is such a great opportunity so we expect a large crowd. The webinar service limits participation to 1000, so we recommend signing up early!

Geetesh: Who are the presenters?

Ellen: I’m so excited about the caliber of our 8 speakers. They are well-known authors, speakers, trainers, and bloggers. Here’s the list, in order of speaking:

• Rick Altman, author of Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck and organizer of the Presentation Summit conference (previously called PowerPoint Live)
• Nancy Duarte, author of Slide:ology and the upcoming Resonate, designer of the slides for Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”
• Olivia Mitchell, blogger at Speaking about Presenting
• Robert Lane, author of Relational Presentation and founder of Aspire Communications
• Dana Bristol-Smith, founder of Speak for Success and the Speak for Success Women’s Leadership Institute
• Jim Endicott, President of Distinction Communication
• Scott Schwertly, author of How to Be a Presentation God and CEO of Ethos3
• Ellen Finkelstein, author of PowerPoint for Teachers and a PowerPoint MVP

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: Interviews, PowerPoint, Training

Building an Interactive Public Transport Map Application in PowerPoint

Here’s a convention-challenging thought. PowerPoint isn’t here to create presentations! At least not exclusively, anyway. Jamie read a lot of articles talking about the best way to create presentations, yet PowerPoint can be used to do so many things, even create applications.

To improve your skills and knowledge of PowerPoint, it’s often a great idea to give yourself a seemingly impossible task. In this project, he decided to recreate the London Underground (tube/metro) system map entirely in PowerPoint, make it interactive, and then link it to an Internet real-time update service.

Jamie Garroch looks at creating an interactive map in PowerPoint.

Filed Under: Microsoft Office
Tagged as: Microsoft Office, PowerPoint, Techniques

Remove Mark as Final Option in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

Did you receive a presentation that doesn’t let you make any changes? Or was this a presentation you created a while ago, and now you cannot fathom why the slides cannot be edited? Yes, this could be a password-protected presentation but that’s not the only reason why you cannot edit the content, one of the other reasons might be because it is something that had the Mark as Final option applied.

Learn how to remove the Mark as Final option for files in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows.

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

Remove Mark as Final Option in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows

Did you receive a presentation that doesn’t let you make any changes? Or was this a presentation you created a while ago, and now you cannot fathom why the slides cannot be edited? Yes, this could be a password-protected presentation, but that’s not the only reason why you cannot edit the content. One of the other reasons might be because it is something that had the Mark as Final option applied.

Learn how to remove the Mark as Final option for files in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2007
Tagged as: Distribution, PowerPoint 2007, Share, Tutorials