#LFMF I recently spoke about Cheating Death by PowerPoint to a group of businesspeople. I came in early, connected my laptop to the projector, opened up the title slide to my presentation, then proceeded to work the room. After chatting with folks for about twenty minutes, I glanced at the … [Read more...] about Cute Kids Not So Cute During a Presentation
Cheating Death by PowerPoint: Animation
PowerPoint Design Gets Set Back 20 Years
Last week, the New York Times published an article about creating and editing PowerPoint presentations on mobile devices (such as iPhone, Blackberry, and Android smart phones, and iPads) using an app called Documents to Go. Reading it sent shivers down my spine — not the good kind — because this … [Read more...] about PowerPoint Design Gets Set Back 20 Years
Ugly Templates Make Ugly Presentations
A colleague of my husband's recently forwarded me a PowerPoint template that he was required to use for a presentation he was giving at a particular event (let's call it XYZFest). He was lamenting its many flaws and wondering how he would be able to make a decent presentation from such a lousy … [Read more...] about Ugly Templates Make Ugly Presentations
PowerPoint for Print? Sometimes!
Last week, I did some work for a client who wanted me to create an image library in PowerPoint. The person I was working with was appalled and would have preferred doing the job using InDesign. While it's true that InDesign would have yielded professional results, this time it wasn't the right tool … [Read more...] about PowerPoint for Print? Sometimes!
Cheating Death by PowerPoint: Analyze and Synthesize
Are your PowerPoint slides full of text? Well, guess what, your audience is going to have a hard time dealing with that. So don't make them work so hard to understand your message! The more focused you can make your slides and the less text you use on each one, the better your audience will retain … [Read more...] about Cheating Death by PowerPoint: Analyze and Synthesize
Cheating Death by PowerPoint: Shine a Light
I am a library trustee in my town, and in November we were interviewing people from five architectural firms who submitted proposals to draw up some new plans for the library. One of the firms committed a big presentation no-no that I'd like to share with you: they turned the lights off in the room … [Read more...] about Cheating Death by PowerPoint: Shine a Light
Five Ways to Be a Bad Presenter
The other night, I attended a meeting that featured a keynote presentation on the subject of increasing sales. The speaker, John McConnell (not his real name, what do you think I am, crazy?), has been a sales consultant to hundreds of companies for over a decade, so he knows what he's talking about. … [Read more...] about Five Ways to Be a Bad Presenter