You don’t need a full orchestra

While on vacation recently we went to a musical called Anne & Gilbert in Summerside, PEI. We’ve been to musicals in Toronto and on Broadway in New York and this was at least as enjoyable. If you know the Anne of Green Gables story and want to see a musical that takes the story on the next journey, go to www.AnneandGilbert.com to check it out.

Here’s why I mention the experience. In all the big musical stage productions they have a full orchestra. But in Anne and Gilbert, they only had three instruments accompanying the musical: a piano, violin and cello (no, there wasn’t a recorded soundtrack either). And it sounded just as good as the productions with all the instruments. It got me thinking about presentations. Do you really need all the fancy bells and whistles or will keeping it simple do just as well? I think keeping it simple and making sure you deliver your message is the way to go. Most of us don’t have the time or ability to do all the really fancy whiz-bang stuff in PowerPoint anyway.

The producers of this musical decided to keep the background music simple and let the actors tell the story through their words, actions and singing. In your next presentation, focus on telling your story through what you say and simple visuals. You don’t really need the full orchestra.

PowerPoint Tip: Creating a customized Excel presentation

Recently a presenter called who wanted to know if PowerPoint could accept inputs and do calculations while in Slide Show mode. While this is far beyond the capabilities of PowerPoint, I was able to help with an idea that I want to share with you today. If you are doing a presentation where you want to enter inputs, such as financial figures, and show the audience the result of calculations in real-time and possibly as a graph, this technique will enable you to do so.

It leverages PowerPoint’s ability to hyperlink to another file type and have that file open in the proper program. In this case we will use Excel and have it function almost like it is PowerPoint, hence the title of this tip being an Excel presentation. Here’s how this works.

First, set up an Excel spreadsheet that has the inputs at the top of the sheet. Format the sheet so the font is large enough to see when projected, usually at least 18 or 20 point. If you want to show the result of calculations, enter those formulas so that the results are shown. If you want to perform some calculations and not have them seen, place those in cells a few pages down the sheet. If you want to show graphs of the calculated results, create each graph on a separate worksheet. Save this file to your computer.

Next, create your PowerPoint presentation as follows. Start with some introductory slides that explain the topic. Include that you want to show the audience the results live and give them any background information they need to know in order to help you determine the inputs for the calculations. You may also need to explain how the calculations are done if that is relevant. After these slides, create a slide that has a hyperlink to the Excel spreadsheet file you have set up. If you want to be able to access the spreadsheet from any slide, put the hyperlink on the Slide Master.

During your presentation, you will go through the explanations and arrive at the slide where you are ready to work with the inputs that the audience has helped create. Activate the hyperlink to open the Excel spreadsheet from within PowerPoint. Use Excel as you normally would, showing the effect of changing the inputs and how the results change based on the calculations. Switch to each of the graph worksheets to show the results visually. When you are done, you can save the spreadsheet and it is now ready to be e-mailed to the audience after the presentation if necessary. Exit Excel and you are back in your presentation in PowerPoint ready to continue delivering the rest of your message.

By using this technique, you effectively engage the audience, you customize any examples specifically for this group, they immediately see the results numerically and visually and you have a customized set of calculated results ready to send them when you are done. I can see this being used for presentations on investment planning, budgeting and what-if or scenario analysis. Use the power of hyperlinking to Excel from a PowerPoint slide to allow you to essentially use Excel as a presentation tool. If you want to learn more details on hyperlinking in PowerPoint, check out the training video here.

PowerPoint Slide Makeover - Explaining calculations or methodology

Just a quick note to let you know that a new Slide Makeover Video Podcast based on the ideas in "The Visual Slide Revolution" is available for your viewing through the iTunes Store, online or through my YouTube channel. If you have to explain the calculations you did or methodology used to create your results, don't use paragraphs on the slide. Instead, like this makeover shows, illustrate the methods using a simple approach and examples.

This slide was submitted by one of the participants in a workshop - someone just like you who is looking for a way to make their presentations more effective. If you want to submit some of your slides to be considered for a future slide makeover, e-mail them to me at Dave@ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com.

If you have already subscribed through iTunes or another podcatcher, the new podcast should be automatically downloaded when you next run the program.

To subscribe via the iTunes Store, click here.
To view online or get the RSS file for other podcatchers, click here.
You can also watch all the podcasts on my YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/ThinkOutsideTheSlide

If you have subscribed via iTunes or YouTube, please provide your positive feedback on the videos in the Comments and Ratings areas of the service so others know the value you get from the videos.



To get your own copy of "The Visual Slide Revolution", click here.
To access quick "how-to" videos for only $1.99 each, click here.

Explain how to interpret unfamiliar graphs before you show them

In a recent consulting assignment, I was reviewing the slides that my client was planning on using for a presentation to a very high-level official in the organization and then to the media. There were four slides that showed the value for each data point and an error bar of two standard deviations. If you don’t know what that would look like, don’t worry. Most people without a statistics background would not understand what it meant. I’m sure it’s no surprise to hear that the slides were created by statisticians.

So what was the problem? The audience would have no idea how to read the graphs. And the entire message would be lost, or even worse, misinterpreted. I suggested that they start that section of the presentation by explaining to the audience how to interpret what they were about to see on the graphs. We enlarged one of the data values and explained what the data point represented and why the error bars were there. Armed with information on how to interpret the graphs, the audience would then read the graphs correctly.

If you have to present graphs that may be unfamiliar to the audience, make sure you first explain how to understand what they are about to see. It may be familiar to you, but those without your background will not understand what you are showing unless you first teach them how to read the graph.

PowerPoint Tip: Confirming your colors have enough contrast

Recently I commented on a blog post regarding colors that are used on slides. The writer had made some suggestions on colors to use or avoid based on the color wheel used by graphics professionals. While this is a good first level approach, we have all seen slides that are unreadable due to the choice of colors. I don’t have a design background, and I am guessing you are probably like me. How can we make sure that the colors we choose will be seen easily?

The most important factor in making slides readable from a color perspective is not whether you choose a light or dark background. It is whether the colors you choose have enough contrast with each other. You can choose a white background and if you use light pink letters, your audience won’t see the text. Similarly, you can choose a navy blue background and if you use dark green text, it’s as good as not even there.

In many workshops, people often point out that they can’t select the background color because their organization mandates a certain template or look. This is not a problem. Contrast is still important and the choice of color for text or shapes is still within your control. So how can you be certain that the colors you choose will work? Don’t rely on looking at them on your computer screen. Laptop and flat screen monitors are far brighter than projectors and give you a distorted perception of how much contrast two colors have. Instead, be sure by using the international standard tests for color contrast.

A number of years ago, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created a standard that tests the contrast between two colors. They developed it to help web developers create easily readable web sites. We can use these two tests to make our slides readable. Both tests are calculations that use the Red, Green and Blue (RGB) attributes of the two colors to determine if there is enough difference between the two colors.

I’ve made this easy for presenters by creating an online Color Contrast Calculator that allows you to test the difference between two colors you are considering for your slides. Just go to http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/colorcontrast.htm to use this tool. The page also contains detailed instructions on how to find the RGB attributes of a color and some ideas on what you can do to improve the contrast of two colors if they don't pass the tests. You can also use this tool as an objective viewpoint when discussing color choice with colleagues.

Now you can make sure that when you are choosing colors for text, shapes, callouts or graph elements, your audience will be able to see them easily.

Flipcharts coming back? I’m not sure about that

An article in the newspaper this week referenced a communications consultant saying that flipcharts are making a comeback due to the backlash against PowerPoint. The article then gave some tips on using flipcharts. This is a position I’d not heard of, so I read the tips. And what I found was that almost every tip was really a tip on presenting when using any visual, flipcharts or PowerPoint. Tips such as not turning your back to the audience and speaking to the visual, making text big enough so the audience can read it, picking colors that have enough contrast, and using visuals instead of all text are tips that apply no matter what visual support you use.

I’ve heard people that are upset about the poor use of PowerPoint by presenters, but I’ve never heard them want to go back to using flipcharts. Here are some downsides of using flipcharts:
1. They are almost impossible to use during a web meeting. With travel costs being cut, more meetings are being held virtually.
2. They are very difficult to send to someone who missed the meeting. Many PowerPoint presentations are e-mailed to others who need to know what was said. Flipcharts have to be transcribed before being sent, a long, time-consuming process.
3. Writing on a flipchart and drawing visuals is difficult for many of us who don’t have graphics skills. The tools in PowerPoint make this much easier and allow for quicker creation of persuasive visuals.
And I am sure there are more that I could think of.

Here’s my suggestion. Learn how to use PowerPoint effectively by creating persuasive visuals instead of overloaded text slides (check out my book The Visual Slide Revolution for a five-step method). It’s not the tool you choose, it’s how you choose to use the tool that makes the difference.

PowerPoint Slide Makeover - Showing Movement of Numeric Values

Just a quick note to let you know that a new Slide Makeover Video Podcast based on the ideas in "The Visual Slide Revolution" is available for your viewing through the iTunes Store, online or through my YouTube channel. When you want to show numeric values that have moved between two tests or time periods, don't use a copied Excel table on your slide. This makeover shows how to use a visual with appropriate movement animation to illustrate the results.

This slide was submitted by one of the participants in a workshop - someone just like you who is looking for a way to make their presentations more effective. If you want to submit some of your slides to be considered for a future slide makeover, e-mail them to me at Dave@ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com.

If you have already subscribed through iTunes or another podcatcher, the new podcast should be automatically downloaded when you next run the program.

To subscribe via the iTunes Store, click here.
To view online or get the RSS file for other podcatchers, click here.
You can also watch all the podcasts on my YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/ThinkOutsideTheSlide

If you have subscribed via iTunes or YouTube, please provide your positive feedback on the videos in the Comments and Ratings areas of the service so others know the value you get from the videos.



To get your own copy of "The Visual Slide Revolution", click here.
To access quick "how-to" videos for only $1.99 each, click here.