PowerPoint Tips Blog » Resources

Discover 3 reasons most presentations fail and 3 easy ways to fix them

Ellen — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 02:36:11 +0000

I did a webinar for Brainshark.com and mybrainshark.com, a presentation-sharing website. It was called “3 reasons most presentations fail and 3 ways to fix them.” Over 500 people attended!

The 1-hour webinar included makeovers of slides that attendees submitted. You can watch the presentation for free here. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment!

Ellen Finkelstein can train you or the presenters in your organization to create high-impact, engaging, professional presentations for training, sales, business, or education. For more information, please click here.

Harness the back channel during your presentations

Ellen — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:21:21 +0000

I presented at the Outstanding Presentations Workshop on “Present Interactively–Your Audience Expects It!”

What is the back channel?

One of my topics was the back channel. The back channel is what your audience is saying behind your back, or perhaps at the back of the room. These days, they usually make their comments using Twitter and a hashtag. A hashtag looks like this: #opw2011. It’s a label preceded by the # symbol. In Twitter, people write tweets that include the hashtag.

Then, they search for the hashtag, either at Twitter’s own site or using one of many third-party tools. In this way, members of the audience can see what the other members are saying about your presentation.

Live conferences often provide a hashtag, so that people can tweet about the conference and spread the word. Many people who can’t attend follow the sessions by reading all the tweets.

It can be very useful as a presenter to know what members of your audience are saying! Maybe they don’t understand something and you can clarify your point. Or maybe they find your presentation boring and you can liven it up.

On the other hand, it can be distracting. Some presenters use an assistant to monitor back channel comments. Others watch the back channel only during breaks or the Question & Answer period.

If you’re on Twitter, you can use the Search box at Twitter.com and enter a hashtag to find just tweets that contain the hashtag. Some other tools that let you filter tweets for a hashtag are HootSuite and Tweetchat.

What if I don’t have a Twitter account?

There are 2 sites that I know of that will let you use the back channel without Twitter:

BackNoise: It no longer lets you use your own name, which means all comments are anonymous.
TodaysMeet: You must enter a name, but you can use “anonymous” if you want.

Give people a conversation or room name, and they can go to one of these 2 sites and see all the related comments. (You’ll have to choose one of them; they don’t work together.) In this way, people can communicate with each other.

Let’s try it!

Yup, let’s do it! Between November 1 & November 6, go to TodaysMeet. The link includes the conversation name. Then write something about the back channel. Have you used it? What do you think about it?

After November 6th, this back channel room will expire.

Compress your PowerPoint (and other) files for easy emailing and handling

Ellen — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 02:34:11 +0000

I was recently in touch with Mike Power, CEO of Neuxpower, the company that makes NXPowerLite. It’s software that compresses PowerPoint (and other) files. Just last week, I was working with an 11 MB file that wasn’t going through e-mail well, so I was glad to be reminded about this program that I’ve used in the past.

I sent Mike some questions and he replied via e-mail. Here is the interview.

EllenFinkelstein.com: What exactly does NXPowerLite do?

Mike Power: NXPowerLite removes bloat from oversized Microsoft Office, JPEG and PDF files. Typically these files don’t reduce much with traditional compression, but our software can often reduce them enough to easily send by email. Also, because we remove bloat from files rather than compressing, they remain in their original format, so you don’t need NXPowerLite to view or edit optimized files.

We have a demo that we use to explain our software at trade shows. [You can see it on the right.] Original document 6.2mb, when zipped 5.9mb, but when it’s optimized with NXPowerLite it reduces to 665kb. Better still, you can still Zip the optimized file and get the extra 300kb reduction you got with the original.

EllenFinkelstein.com: Could you give some scenarios of how people use NXPowerLite?

Mike Power: Anyone with a file that’s too large to email can use our software to quickly reduce it and send it on its way. Lots of organisations have included our software into their standard PC builds, to take advantage of the automatic email integration. This way they make sure any bloated files being sent by their people are automatically reduced in size. In the words of one of our customers “The problems caused by large email attachments have been instantly solved.” (Mitsui Engineering).

NXPowerLite also works well for defense customers; on expensive, low-bandwidth satellite connections, the difference between a 10mb PowerPoint and a 300kb PowerPoint is incredible both in terms of cost and speed/reliability of delivery. We have now deployed NXPowerLite to over 300,000 defense users across NATO, The United States Armed Forces and Allies.

EllenFinkelstein.com: How does it work?

Mike Power: Files can get pretty bloated as people put them together, so when they come to email them they’re too big. This is often a result of using the wrong image formats, or images much higher resolution than they need to be – and with digital cameras these days this happens very easily. The files can also often contain large amounts of background data not necessary for normal use of the file.

NXPowerLite cuts out excess baggage and converts images to the most efficient file format and resolution. What you’re left with is a file that looks and feels identical to the original, but is much smaller. The optimized files remain in their original format, which means you don’t need our software to open or edit them.

This graphic that illustrates simply how our software works. We also have a page on our website that goes into further detail.

EllenFinkelstein.com: Besides PowerPoint, what other programs does NXPowerLite work on?

Mike Power: In addition to PowerPoint, NXPowerLite works on Word, Excel, PDF and JPEG files, and can also optimize any of these files contained with Zip archives.

Have you used NXPowerLite? Had problems with PowerPoint files that are too big to e-mail?

Full disclosure: NXPowerLite advertises on this site and gave me a free copy of the software.

Interview with visual language expert Connie Malamed

Ellen — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 21:50:00 +0000

I met Connie Malamed at the last Presentation Summit where she presented on the topic, “Your Brain on Graphics–Get your visuals on target and on message.” I was impressed with her understanding of the field of visual communication and interested in her recommendation of “primitive features,” images that are simple in terms of color, size, orientation, movement, shape and depth. Therefore, she recommended reducing the realism of graphics, because the brain can process them more quickly and efficiently than more complex realistic images.

Connie is the author of Visual Language for Designers. The paperback edition will be available in August. (You can find the hardcover edition new on Barnes & Noble, used on Amazon, and on Amazon’s Kindle.) She also has a respected blog, the elearning coach, with tips and advice on instructional design for elearning.

I recently interviewed Connie about her work.

EllenFinkelstein.com: Can you briefly explain the research you synthesized and how it relates to presenting?

Connie Malamed: My goal in writing Visual Language For Designers was to uncover principles of visual design that are based on how people perceive and understand graphics, rather than relying on intuition or likes and dislikes. Using design principles based on cognitive psychology can help presenters create slides that accurately communicate their message. It can help audiences focus on what is important and it can help presenters better connect with their audience.

EllenFinkelstein.com: What would you say most people do incorrectly when creating slides for their presentations?

Connie Malamed: Presenters may fail to take the necessary time to identify how the visual aspect of a slide can enhance and increase the value of their message. Instead, they fill the slide with text or slap a stock photo onto it as window dressing. If presenters learn how people process visual information, they might be more thoughtful in how they design slides, which will give the presentation more impact and power.

EllenFinkelstein.com: Would you list 2-3 principles that presenters should use when creating their graphics that would help their audience understand and remember more?

Connie Malamed: One principle is to identify what is most important on a slide and then to use color, shape, size or a sense of movement to make the primary element pop out more than anything else. This takes advantage of the fact that people are scanning a visual before they are aware of it.

A second principle is to use photos with faces when your message needs to connect emotionally with an audience. Emotions can cause a visceral reaction in an audience. There are several areas of the brain that process facial information so people are very attuned to faces.

A third principle is that you can make visual communication more efficient by reducing the realism in graphics, using line art, silhouettes and other types of minimalist graphics to replace photographs.

EllenFinkelstein.com: How are these principles specifically applicable to information design for eLearning and similar learning experiences?

Connie Malamed: I think all of the principles in Visual Language For Designers are relevant to learning, because like other forms of communication, instruction is based on creating an accurate message. Understanding how to design for the human mind can help instructional designers to conceive or create graphics that are perceived and understood quickly. Also, many eLearning courses created for adult learners involve complex topics. Knowing the best strategies for clarifying visual complexity can improve learning and retention.

EllenFinkelstein.com: Your book is called Visual Language for Designers. After briefly what the book offers designers, could you explain what non-designers might get out of it?

Connie Malamed: Visual Language For Designers is really as much for non-designers as it is for designers. Because it’s based on cognitive psychology, the principles are applicable to anyone involved in visual design regardless of background. It’s really about designing for the human mind.

There are over 250 graphics from artists and designers around the world, so that aspect alone is very inspiring. It is a somewhat intellectual read, so readers should be prepared to learn a bit about our cognitive architecture, which I’m sure many people will find fascinating.

How to store your presentation in the cloud–for embedding, collaboration, or marketing

Ellen — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 20:20:51 +0000

Storing a presentation in the cloud, that is, in a Web-based location, has great advantages:

It’s an off-site backup
You can use Embed code to embed the presentation on your website or blog
You can share the link with colleagues for collaboration or potential customers for marketing

In this article, I’ll show you how to use the free Microsoft Office Web Apps/SkyDrive to store and share your presentations in the cloud.

Windows Live Sky Drive offers 25GB (that’s right, gigabytes!) of free online storage. You can use this storage for just about anything, not just presentations.

Tip: To share a large file that’s too big to e-mail, upload it to SkyDrive, get the URL and e-mail it to the recipient. That person can then click the URL to download the file.

How to get your presentation in the cloud

To start, go to http://office.live.com.

If you don’t have an account, click Sign Up. If you do, use the Sign In section. (When you hover over that section, a password box opens.)

When you sign in, you’ll see a list of your folders and files.

You can use the section at the top to create a new file, create a new folder, or add a file (upload).

I don’t recommend creating a PowerPoint file from within Office Web Apps; the features are too limited. Instead, I suggest that you create your file in PowerPoint and upload it. You can upload in two ways:

Click Add Files, click a folder (choose Public if you want to share the presentation on your website or blog), and drag a file into the box or click the Select Documents from Your Computer link to browse to a file. Then click Continue to see your presentation file listed in the folder you selected.

Once you have a SkyDrive account, you can save a presentation there from within PowerPoint. Choose File> Save & Send> Send to Web and then the folder you want to use.

Whichever way you choose to get your presentation online, you can see it listed when you log in to your SkyDrive account and click the folder where you saved the presentation. Here you see that I’ve uploaded a presentation called, “4 layouts that always look good.”

How to share your online presentation

You can share your presentation in 2 ways:

Give people the URL so they can see the presentation online. To do this go to your SkyDrive account and click the folder. Then click the presentation’s link. You’ll see the presentation open in your browser and its URL in your browsers address window. Copy that URL and send it to people via e-mail. Tell them to click the link at the very top—it’s the name of the presentation. On the right, in the View in Browser section, they’ll see a Download link they can click. You can click this link to view my presentation online.
Embed the presentation in a webpage or blog post. Click the presentation in the list of presentations. When it opens, click its name at the top. This seems to be the only way to select the presentation without opening it. You’ll now see your list of presentations again, but with the desired presentation selected. On the right side of the page, in the Sharing section, click Embed. You’ll see the Embed code. Click inside the code box to select all the code. Then press Ctrl+C or right-click and choose Copy. Go to your webpage or blog post, display the HTML view, and press Ctrl+C or right-click and choose Paste. Here’s an example of a presentation I embedded in this blog post. Click the Play button to advance one slide at a time.

Note: Unfortunately, the embedded presentation does not show animation, transitions, audio or video. This presentation was fully narrated, but you’ll just have to look at the images!

click the link at the very top—it’s the name of the presentation

On the right, in the View in Browser section, do you see a Download

Interview about presenting on the Web

Ellen — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:03:24 +0000

Arte Ramgopal of Presentation-Process.com has interviewed me on the topic of presenting on the Web, in an article called, “Tips about Presentation on Web from Ellen Finkelstein.”

Find out my recommendations for:

A training presentation on YouTube

The difference in preparing for a presentation on the web as compared to preparing for a presentation in a meeting room
How the slides should look different
What techniques to use to keep the audience involved
How to get audience feedback
How to establish sincerity and credibility on the Web
How you need to change your voice/delivery style for a presentation that you post on the Web

Find out more by reading the article!

I’ll be giving a webinar on Wednesday, June 22 on the topic of “How to Get Your Presentation on the Web–and Reach the World.” It covers the following topics:

Why you should post your presentations on the Web
Which sites to use, including slide-sharing sites and YouTube (see the image on the right)
How to add narration and timing so that the presentation plays itself
How to embed your presentations in your website or blog
How to offer a presentation for download
How to display your presentation in a browser
How to present to others over the Web in a webinar

If you aren’t using the Web for your presentations–or if you feel that you need some solid tips–I encourage you to check it out!

A great resource for presenters–Indezine.com

Ellen — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:42:17 +0000

I want to share with you an excellent resource for presenters–Indezine.com. This site is run by a great friend of mine, Geetesh Bajaj, and includes a vast amount of information on PowerPoint, presentation tools, and more. It also offers a huge number of backgrounds, both for free and for purchase.

Recently, I interviewed Geetesh about his site.

EllenFinkelstein.com: When did you start Indezine.com and how did you conceive of it then?

Geetesh: Indezine.com started as a repository of content that I wanted to share with everyone.

In those days, newsgroups worked within news programs rather than as in-browser discussion groups. When users had questions about PowerPoint, they just went ahead and asked their questions because there were not as many search options to look for similar questions that other people had asked before them. You thus ended up with the same questions being asked several times a day. Rather than type in the answers repeatedly, I set up Indezine.com and would type in the URL that contained the answer users were looking for.

Thereafter, Indezine.com just evolved into a community. Today we have over 175,000 subscribers and millions of visitors from all over the world.

Ellen Finkelstein.com: How have you added to the original concept as time has passed?

Geetesh: It wasn’t very planned in the beginning in the year 2000 when the site went live. In the next few years, I just kept adding content as I felt the need. Since it was a small site, it worked — but by 2005, the site was huge and I knew that things had to change. Indezine.com then was incorporated as a company and I set up an office with full time staff.

Nowadays, we need to plan every small detail. I have a team that helps me with the site content and layout. Although Indezine.com is a huge site today, the concept is the same as its original raison d’être. We still are a site about PowerPoint and presenting.

EllenFinkelstein.com: Could you give us an overview of the resources on the site?

Geetesh: There are tons of resources — and they are geared to two distinct audiences.

For the basic PowerPoint users, we have thousands of templates, sample presentations, graphics, etc. These are all free and anyone can download and use them.
Advanced PowerPoint users who come to Indezine.com are looking for some other content though — for them we have interviews with presentation industry stalwarts and book authors, CEOs of companies that create presentation products, and other professionals. We also have so many reviews of PowerPoint add-ins, a huge learning section that shows PowerPoint techniques with plenty of screenshots. We also have a newsletter and a blog.

EllenFinkelstein.com: Why do you think the site has attracted so many visitors?

Geetesh: Primarily because we cover so much ground. Also many users come here not only because they found us through search engines, but also becuase their friends and colleagues asked them to come to Indezine.com — probably I should not answer this question and let the readers answer this — our testimonials page has all the responses that you may want! Go to http://www.indezine.com/info/testimonials.html.

EllenFinkelstein.com: Do you have any special plans for the future?

Geetesh: As of now, no special plans are in place. I want to consolidate the site content, streamline what we have, and add to the Learn PowerPoint section.

5 great tools for presenters

Ellen — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:45:48 +0000

Jon Thomas, in his blog, Presentation Advisors, has written a post, “My Five Favorite Free Presentation Design Tools,” and I thought I’d share them with you.

Compfight is a tool to search for images on Flikr. letting you easily find images that have Creative Commons or Commercial licenses.
DaFont is a site for free fonts. It always helps to include an original font (as long as it’s appropriate for the topic and legible).
KeepVid lets you download YouTube videos so you can insert them in your presentations, without requiring an active Internet connection. Update: I’ve been told that this program is against the YouTube Terms of Use, Section 4C. (Thanks, @bwasson.)
Note and Point is a site that contains top-quality presentations. It’s a great place to look for design inspiration.
SlideShare is a slide-sharing site. While I don’t think its tools are the best, it has the most traffic, so uploading your presentations there will get you the most traffic.

I just finished a training video on “Getting Your Presentation n the Web” and it included a review of all the major slide-sharing sites. If you’re interested, leave a comment and let me know.

Interview with Shai Schwartz of VisualBee, automatic PowerPoint design software

Ellen — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:56:30 +0000

VisualBee was a Gold Sponsor of my Outstanding Presentations Workshop last fall. To bring you more information about this unique product, I interviewed Shai Schwartz, VP Creative & Marketing, of VisualBee.

Question: Please describe briefly what VisualBee does.

Answer: VisualBee is a Free PowerPoint 2007/10 plug-in that automatically designs presentations. VisualBee uses the existing content and adds appropriate graphics to create an effective PowerPoint presentation. Using our software you won’t need to worry about the look anymore and can be completely focused on your content. Once your presentation messages are ready in simple slides, just let VisualBee to do the rest of the work for you, selecting your favorite design from its gallery. Once the presentation enhancement is done, you save it in PowerPoint format and can continue to edit your content as usual. Our Premium offer gives you even larger variety of professional designs, images, and features, such as automatically adding your own logo on every slide.

Question: Why did you decide to create software that does PowerPoint slide makeovers?

I’ve been working in the PowerPoint business for over 10 years now, helping people to create better presentation with better content and better design. I’ve noticed that although most people know what they want to say, they find many difficulties working with Microsoft PowerPoint. Some have technical difficulties, others don’t really have the talent to make slides look nice and clear–they end up with a presentation that is practically unreadable, and you can see how their audience is lost or just bored with it. I thought it could be a miracle if some simple software could take the burden off those people and take care of all the design of the presentation, setting them free to deal with the important messages and not the look.

Question: Can you provide some success stories—how customers have used your product?

We launched VisualBee 2.0 about 6 weeks ago and already have close to 10,000 users. People like the idea because they know the pain of creating PowerPoint for themselves. We have several hi-tech companies that are using our software on a day-to-day basis such as Alvarion, PwC, and many others. We feel VisualBee can help mainly that group called “the individual business user,” all those freelancers and self-employed people who are using PowerPoint and cannot afford to pay a design studio or graphic designer, yet still need to have a professional presentation in order to make the best impression on their clients.

You can download the free version here.

Free PowerPoint alternatives–Google Docs

Ellen — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:10:16 +0000

Google Docs is probably the most commonly-used free PowerPoint alternative. For sharing word-processing, spreadsheet, and presentation documents, Google Docs has become the standard and the features are good enough that you can even create the document online. Sharing is very easy, so when you need to collaborate with someone in another location, Google Docs is an easy choice.

Here are the steps for getting started.

Step 1: Go to Google Doc/Gmail

Go to Google docs and Sign in your Google Account or create a new account.

Alternatively, Log into to your Gmail account and click the Documents link at the upper-left.

Step 2: Create a new presentation

After you log into Google docs, choose Presentation in the Create New drop-down list on the left.

Step 3 : Work on your presentation

A title slide appears. Click to add text. To create a new slide, choose Slide> New Slide from the menu or press Ctrl+M. You have a choice of 5 layouts. Editing is pretty intuitive using the menu and toolbar and you’ll find a lot of familiar tools. If you type a title on the first slide, your presentation title changes to match, or you can click “Untitled Presentation” to change the title. To share the presentation, click “Private to only me” and use the dialog box that opens to add people. You can choose a theme or format the background by choosing Format tab> Presentation Settings.

Step 4: Show your presentation or download

When you’re done, click Start Presentation at the upper-right corner to go into a full-screen mode. You can download the presentation in PowerPoint format (.ppt), PDF format, and others. From within the presentation, choose File> Download As> PowerPoint.

Thanks to Pan Yue (Mimi) for doing the research and writing the first draft of this post.