Working Smart

Pick the Right Tool for the Job

Don’t get me wrong. I love Apple’s Keynote program. In fact, this was the very program that got me to consider switching from my PC in the first place. But now, after using Keynote for almost 18 months, I have to admit that sometimes PowerPoint is the better choice.

In general, I think that Keynote is the better when you want to motivate or to inspire. On the other hand, PowerPoint may be the better choice if you need to inform or educate—not always, but sometimes.

For example, I have been working on a presentation for our Board regarding our new employee bonus program. Initially, I started the project in Keynote. I knew the presentation would require numerous tables with lots of financial data. I started to create the tables in Keynote (which has a pretty nifty formula function), but it quickly became too cumbersome. So, I switched to PowerPoint where I could embed my Excel tables directly. This made updating the tables a snap.

In the process, I was also reminded of a couple of functions I actually liked better in PowerPoint. For starters, the drawing tools are much better and more robust in PowerPoint. They made creating my diagrams a breeze. (PowerPoint 2007 kicks this up several notches. The new SmartArt function is amazing.) When I finished, I created a PDF of the presentation to email to my Board. I was shocked by how small the file was—about half a meg. In my experience, Keynotes files are almost always huge.

Finally, I could easily share my PowerPoint deck with my staff, so they could double-check my calculations and modify the actual slides. Since I am one of the few people in my company who uses Keynote, this is not something I have been able to do easily.

I am not ready to go back to PowerPoint exclusively. I still love Keynote and am preparing two new presentations using it. My only point is that you have to pick the right tool for the job. And, though it sounds like heresy, sometimes even Microsoft gets it right.

Technorati Tags: apple, keynote, powerpoint

An Example of a Great Presentation

Business presentations are rarely inspiring. More often than not, they are outright boring. This seems to be especially true if the presenter uses PowerPoint. (Ugh.)

That’s why I was particularly impressed with Steve Jobs’ presentation last week announcing the new iPod Video. Even if you don’t have any interest in the product, it is worth watching the QuickTime movie just to see a business presentation done right. Jobs’ slides are especially impressive. Like his company’s products, the slides are simple, uncluttered, and elegant.

I was also impressed by Jobs himself. He was relaxed, articulate, and genuinely enthusiastic. As a result, his message was contagious. I’m sure people left the room buzzing about what they had seen.

Technorati Tags: apple, keynote, mac, powerpoint, steve jobs, speaking

Tom Peters on Presentation Excellence

Tom Peters has a nifty little slide show called 56 Ideas/Suggestions for Presentation Excellence. The content is great. The slides themselves are pretty weak. Ironically, he violates his own rules (e.g., “Only one point per slide”). Nevertheless, the content is great and well worth downloading.

Five Rules for Better PowerPoint Presentations

PowerPoint can be a wonderful tool if used correctly. It can also be a dangerous distraction that interferes with communication rather than facilitating it. In my role as President of Thomas Nelson, I sit through scores of presentations. Most of these are on PowerPoint. Most of them are done poorly.

I sometimes think the presenter would be more compelling if he would ditch the PowerPoint and just speak. Because of this, I’ve even thought of outlawing PowerPoint in our company. But alas, PowerPoint has become a staple of corporate life. It is the ubiquitous prop that attends every presentation.

So if we can’t outlaw it, at least we can regulate it and, hopefully, try to improve it. Here are my five rules for making more effective PowerPoint presentations.

Rule #1: Don’t give PowerPoint center stage. This is the biggest mistake I see speakers make. They forget that PowerPoint is a tool designed to augment their presentation not be their presentation. You are the presenter. You are the focus. Not your slides. Not your props. And not your handouts. You are in the lead role and you need to retain that role. No amount of “razzle dazzle” can overcome a weak presentation. If you don't do your job, PowerPoint can't save you. It only makes a bad presentation worse.

Rule #2: Create a logical flow to your presentation. Better yet, tell a story. (See Cliff Atkinson’s Beyond Bullet Points.) The absolute last thing you want to do is turn your presentation into a random assortment of bulleted lists, which is what often happens when PowerPoint is involved. There must be a flow. Start with a good outlining program (e.g., I use OmniOutliner) or just use the one built-into Microsoft Word. Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them. If people understand where you are going to take them, they can relax and enjoy the ride. If they don’t, they will be distracted and frustrated.

Rule #3: Make your presentation readable. I constantly ask myself, why is this so difficult? Memorize this sentence: “If people can’t read my slides from the back of the room, my type is too small.” Now repeat it over and over again while you create your slides. If people are squinting during your presentation, trying to make out what’s on the slide, you have lost your audience. In my experience you must use at least 30-point type. Obviously, it depends on the size of the room, the size of the screen, etc. This is precisely why you can’t afford to leave this to chance. You must test your slides and make certain they are readable.

In Really Bad PowerPoint (And How to Avoid It), Seth Godin also sets forth five PowerPoint rules. In the first one he says, “No more than six words on a slide. EVER.” I think this is too extreme, but you get the idea. The more words you use, the less readable they become. I have made some really effective presentations with no more than a word or two per slide. It can be done.

Here are some other things to remember regarding text:

• Avoid paragraphs or long blocks of text. If you really, really must use a paragraph, then whittle it down to the bare essentials. Use an excerpt—a couple of sentences. Emphasize the important words. Put the text block by itself on a single slide.
  
  
• Use appropriate fonts. I recommend a sans serif font for titles (e.g., Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, etc.) and a serif font for bullets or body text (e.g., Times New Roman, Garamond, Goudy, Palatino, etc.). Most books are typeset this way because it make them more readable. The serifs help you recognize the characters (and thus the words) faster. It makes the text more readable. It’s also customary to use san serif fonts for chart labels.
  
  
• Avoid detailed reports. If you need to include a report in your presentation, hand it out. Don’t force people to try to read a ledger printout on a slide. It’s maddening! If you must show a report, use it as a picture and then use a “call out” to emphasize the part of the report you want people to focus on.
  
  
• Avoid “title capitalization” unless (duh!) it’s a title. Sentence capitalization is much easier to read. For example, “Sales are up 100% in the southeast region” is easier than “Sales Are Up 100% In The Southeast Region.” This is especially true when you have numerous bullet points.

Rule #4: Remember, less is more. Fancy slide transitions and fly-ins get old quickly. I strongly recommend that you keep things simple. A basic dissolve from one slide to another is sufficient. Have all your bullets appear at once rather than one at a time. Avoid sound effects—they serve no other purpose than annoying the audience and distracting them from your presentation. And finally, cut down the number of slides. You don’t need a transcript of your speech with every point and sub-point! People are only going to remember the major points any way.

Rule #5: Distribute a handout. For those who like to take notes, they can take them right on the handout. It also keeps people from getting frustrated when they can’t write down what is on every slide. Again, you don’t want people to get distracted and tune you out. In my experience, a handout helps them stay focused on you.

Finally, I would encourage you to hone your PowerPoint skills like you would any other essential business skill. The more you work at it, the better you will get. And the better you get the more compelling your presentations will become. If you haven’t done so already, you might want to start with my list of PowerPoint resources.

Note to Mac Users: Dump PowerPoint and use Apple Keynote instead. It is the software that first gave me Mac Envy and eventually convinced me to buy an Apple PowerBook.

PowerPoint’s “Presenter View”

To give an effective speech, you need great content and a lively delivery. But it also helps to have the right technology. I typically use PowerPoint. But I also rely on my notes to expand on the slides and a wristwatch to keep track of the time. Until today, these were not integrated in my presentations. I had to fumble between my presentation my notes, and my watch. It doesn’t sound like much, but sometimes it can prove distracting and take your focus off your message.

Today, I had a minor breakthrough. I made a major presentation to a group of investors. As I was connecting my laptop to the projector, the AV tech showed me how to make use of PowerPoint’s built-in “Presenter View.” This enables you to display your slides through the projector as usual while simultaneously viewing the slide on the projector, your upcoming slides, your notes, and a timer—all on your laptop. It took about 60 seconds to setup. Here’s how I did it:

1. I right-clicked on the desktop and selected Properties. I then clicked on the Settings tab. I clicked on the second monitor (the one with the “2” on it). This enabled the “Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor” setting. I made sure this setting was checked (as below). I clicked on OK.
   
   
   
2. I set-up PowerPoint to make use of the dual monitors. In PowerPoint, I selected SlideShow | Set Up Show. Then, under the Multiple Monitors section, I selected Display slide show on Monitor 2 and checked Show Presenter View. The dialog box looks like this:
   
   
   
   I clicked OK to save my settings.
   


3. I then opened my slideshow and pressed F5. PowerPoint displayed my slide on the projector. It displayed the special “Presenter View” on my laptop. It looked like this (click to enlarge):
   
   
   
   Note that I could see the slide that was currently on the projector (top center), my notes (bottom center), my upcoming slides (left), and various controls (middle and right). There’s even a timer right above my notes, so that I could tell how long I had been talking.

I haven’t tried this on any other machines, so you may have to futz with it a bit to get it to work, but, based on my experience, it was a small investment for a big payoff.

My Favorite PowerPoint Resources

I don’t know about you, but our business runs on PowerPoint. Last Friday, I led a seminar in Atlanta on publishing strategy with a group of 55 foreign publishers. Today, I made a presentation in Boston to some investors attending a “small cap” investor conference. I couldn’t do either without PowerPoint. Or, if I could, it would be much more difficult and much less interesting.

Of course, I am not the only one in our company who uses PowerPoint. Hardly. It has become ubiquitous in our organization. We use it for Board meetings, author presentations, sales conferences, and other ad hoc meetings. To misquote a verse from the Gospel of Matthew, “where ever two or three are gathered, there is PowerPoint in their midst.”

The problem is that most people using PowerPoint have not received adequate training. In fact, most have received no training whatsoever. As a result, too many people misuse the tool. This results in too many slides, too many bullets, and too much copy. Consequently, the tool often becomes a hindrance to communication rather than an aid.

Evidently, these people are not aware that the Web is full of PowerPoint resources. I contend that in less than two hours of surfing, you can radically improve the effectiveness of your PowerPoint presentations. Here is a list of resources to get you started (in alphabetical order):

• Beyond Bullets—This is great Web site on how to use PowerPoint more effectively. The content is very stimulating—and will challenge your presuppositions. Guaranteed. This is not a collection of more templates and clipart. Instead, it presents serious thinking about the way you use PowerPoint and how to improve your effectiveness.
  
  
• Crystal Graphics—This is a great source for PowerPoint add-ins that enhance the basic program. Television-like transitions, 3D Titles, supershapes, and custom templates are some of the more popular add-ins. I have purchased several of these and found the quality excellent. My only caution is that some of the effects, particularly the television-like transitions, require some serious hardware horsepower.
  
  
• DesignSense—This company advertises itself as “graphic design training for businesspeople.” It contains a series of design lessons for people (like me!) who have no formal graphic design training. They claim that the training you receive on the site is equivalent to a 40-hour graphic design course. However, it is condensed into 12 hours of computer-based training. It costs $59.00.
  
  
• Excelsius—This is my favorite charting program. It essentially creates animated flash movies, based on Excel data. It is highly customizable and very sophisticated. This also makes for a somewhat steep learning curve. However, if you want your charts to have the “wow” factor, no other charting program I have tried comes close.
  
  
• MasterViews—This site is actually a blog. It offers a large collection of very specific and very practical PowerPoint tips. Comments from readers further enhance the value of the content. The site also offers news related to new PowerPoint add-ins and related hardware (like wireless pointers and mice).
  
  
• Microsoft Clip Gallery Live—This is Microsoft’s clipart site. It is a good resource and it’s free. However, I prefer JupiterImages.com. It’s probably worth checking here first to see if you can find what you need. If you find that it just doesn’t have enough horsepower, then you can join JupiterImages.com or some other subscription site.
  
  
• MindManager X5—This is one of the five most-used pieces of software on my computer. It will change forever the way you plan and prepare your presentations. It is essentially a brainstorming tool that allows you to create “mental maps” of your presentations. It will help you quickly get all your ideas out of your head and then organize them. In my experience, this tool provides a much faster path to the final result than any other tool I have ever used. When you are done with your map, you can export it directly to PowerPoint. Best of all, MindJet, the software developer, offers a free 30-day trial.
  
  
• PowerPoint Add-Ins—This is a collection of mostly useful add-ins written by PowerPoint Guru, Shyam Pillai. My favorites are the “Handout Wizard for PowerPoint,” which allows you to create customized layouts, “Rename Shape/Slide Add-in,” which enables you to rename slides and shapes by clicking on them, and “Toolbox for PowerPoint,” which provides a collection of Shyam’s VBA code snippets for PowerPoint.
  
  
• PowerPoint ImageObjects—This site offers a collection of what others call “floating objects.” These are graphic objects with transparent backgrounds that appear to float on top of the slide. The site offers collections of symbols and shapes, metaphor objects, numbers, bullets, and other objects. These objects are very cool and very professional.
  
  
• PowerPoint Templates Pro—This is yet another collection of professionally produced PowerPoint templates. You can purchase single templates or a collection of templates. The site’s customers include a impressive roster of Fortune 100 companies.
  
  
• PowerPointers—This site is not so much about PowerPoint as it is about planning, building, and delivering great presentations. It contains a series of very helpful articles, especially for people who are just getting started. Even veteran presenters will find plenty of helpful tips to improve the quality and impect of their presentations.
  
  
• Presentation Plates—Yet another collection of PowerPoint templates. If you haven’t found what you are looking for, this site is worth checking.
  
  
• PresentationPro—This site offers some very cool tools not found anywhere else. For example, EmailPRESENTER allows you to e-mail a PowerPoint presentation to someone within the body of the e-mail itself (rather than as an attachment). OnlinePRESENTER is similar, in that it allows your Web site visitors to run a PowerPoint presentation on your site without having to download the presentation and run it within PowerPoint itself.
  
  
• Presenters Online—This site is sponsored by Epson. It contains a variety of helpful articles and resources related to PowerPoint software and presentation hardware. Naturally, the purpose of the site is to sell Epson hardware; however, I still found it useful.
  
  
• Presenters University—This site is sponsored by InFocus, a competitor to Epson. It is one of the best siites for PowerPoint training. It contains a number of courses that you or your staff can work through. It has tons of articles, software you can download and try, and even an “Ask the Professor” bulletin board where you can get answers to your specific questions.
  
  
• Projector Solution—This site has many resources. One article is must reading. It is called “The Art of Communicating Effectively: Tips about all aspects of pulling off a successful presentation!” It’s must reading for every PowerPoint presenter.
  
  
• Really Bad PowerPoint—This is a controversial white paper written by Seth Godin, the author of The Big Red Fez, The Purple Cow, and Permission Marketing. You may not agree with Seth’s conclusions, sbut it will definitely stimulate your thinking. I distributed the article to my staff following a very tedious sales conference presentation. They read the article, made adjustments, and dramatically improved their presentation at the next sales conference. This article is great for squashing the tendency to make your slides too copy-intensive and bullet-heavy.
  
  
• ZapIt Media—This is another collection of PowerPoint templates. But these are very different and very cool. Like PowerPoint Templates Pro, you can download single templates or collections.

Update: Here are some sites I missed on my first list:

• AbsoluVision—This is a royalty free collection of images in the JPEG2000 format. (This is the new JPEG format that offers better quality at higher compression.) These are excellent images, many them depicted as floating objects. You can buy individual images for $4.95 each or subscribe to the service for $25.00 a month or $99.95 per year. Either option entitles you to download 200 images a month.
  
  
• Indezine—This is a great PowerPoint information site run by Geetesh Bajaj, a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP. It contains PowerPoint articles, links, reviews, and templates. Geetesh also sends out a weekly ezine on PowerPoint. The reviews page is especially helpful. He lists almost every known PowerPoint add-in.
  
  
• Tony’s PowerPoint Weblog—This blog bills itself as the Internet’s first business weblog dedicated to PowerPoint, presentations and related topics. It contains many short, insightful tips bound to improve your PowerPoint presentations.

If you have other resources that I have omitted, please use the comments feature on my site (see the end of this article) to share your favorites.