PowerPoint
Innovative software is helping to make dull PowerPoint presentations a thing of the past. Here are three tools to keep handy when you’re creating slides:
Keep the size of a PowerPoint file low with these three tactics … Put a halt to communication overload by limiting the number of people you add to any group or process … Customize the toolbar of your web browser, so handy little functions appear as icons across the top.
Avoid “death by PowerPoint” by stealing presentation tips from the charismatic Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. Carmine Gallo, communications coach and author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, points out that Jobs uses presentation software as a tool to visually complement his stories.
4 great tips for using Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook to help you manage your holiday tasks.
Start with a simple circle and experiment with the new powerful graphics tools in PowerPoint® 2007/2010. Very soon, you’ll find yourself forgetting all about hours of working in custom graphics packages, painstakingly crafting creative objects to enhance your presentations.
SmartArt is one of the biggest timesavers in the newer versions of Microsoft® Office. Especially useful for PowerPoint® and Word, it is a powerful way to represent ideas in pictures, which is the preferred learning method for between 1/3 and 2/3 of the population, depending upon which expert you ask.
To help an audience tune in to your PowerPoint presentation instead of zoning out, stick to these four cardinal rules from communications coach Carmine Gallo when creating a presentation: 1.Stick to three or four themes. 2.Type should be no smaller than 30 points. 3. Use charts sparingly. 4. Divide the number of minutes you’re allotted to speak by two—that’s how many slides you should have.
Help a boss avoid “death by PowerPoint” by stealing presentation tips from the famously charismatic CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs. Jobs is a gifted speaker, not necessarily because he was born with talent, but because he sticks to several strategies. Jobs uses presentation software as a tool to visually complement his stories.
Avoid sending big files back and forth with your boss—try Dropbox, a virtual hard drive … Hold a web conference free and invite up to 20 guests, with DimDim, which Inc. magazine calls the best in its class … Print less by taking advantage of the less-popular settings in your Print dialogue box …
With more than 200 other administrative assistants in her building, Ilja Kraag sees admins working away in their “own little boxes,” independently figuring out how to tackle tasks that an admin at the next desk may have mastered long ago. So she decided to share some of her “best practices,” especially for common tasks, such as scheduling meetings.
“It’s one thing to keep a crowd engaged for two minutes, but two hours—or more—requires a different set of techniques,” says communications coach Carmine Gallo in BusinessWeek. So if you’re preparing a PowerPoint presentation, remember Gallo’s rules for keeping an audience captivated:
Put together a presentation that captivates an audience with the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint.
Take a PowerPoint presentation from good to great with these six tips from Presentation S.O.S. by Mark Wiskup.
