Category Archives: 07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation

Designing and building a professional slide deck, using best principles of persuasion and slide-craft, using PowerPoint features efficiently and effectively

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07c-Telling stories, story-boarding, storyline structure

Telling A Great Story

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This past Thursday I, along with the rest of my classmates, had the opportunity to hear our professor, Professor Noonan, tell his story. I thought bout how would I tell a story, in a way that is purposeful and powerful.

I stumbled upon this article describing how to tell a great story. One who can tell a great story holds the power of influence. The good thing is the article tells us that the art of story telling is not something innate, but it is something that can be learned. I know that story telling is something that I would love to improve on. I am pretty loquacious myself so I would prefer to give an interesting story while talking. So what does it take to tell a great story. Well the article explains that you want to ensure that you:

Start With A Message

Know who your audience is and begin with a message that speaks to them or the problem you want to acknowledge

Mine Your Own Experiences

Use personal and life experience to express your message so that the audience can relate to what you’re saying

Don’t Make Yourself The Hero

Let the details of the story be the essence of the story and not yourself.

Highlight A Struggle

The author of the blog describes it best that “A story without a challenge simply isn’t very interesting”

Keep It Simple

Don’t let unnecessary details overshadow the true message

Practice Makes Perfect

Storytelling is an art and like any art it requires practice

Check out the full article below.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/07/how-to-tell-a-great-story/

 

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, slide-craft, story-boarding, storyline structure, Uncategorized

More Tips on Prezi

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The class got a brief glimpse into what Prezi can do during the final MP class on Thursday, but I thought that I would provide a few tips, tutorials and links that I used to orient myself with the program.

In the simplest terms, there are four steps to make a presentation in Prezi:

1. Enter content onto the canvas (words, pictures, videos, etc.)

2. Frame the content with one of the shaped frames (circle, square, brackets) or an invisible frame.

3. Connect the frames in a path (similar to re-arranging slides on the left-hand side of the page).

4. Re-position the frames to convey relation (drag and drop the frames on the canvas).

You can see the whole tutorial on transitions between slides from this link:  http://prezi.com/-oebfwip4irw/the-official-prezi-transitions-tutorial/

When creating spacial relations, remember that you can convey relation in three ways:

1.  In the x-y direction, i.e. up, down or diagonal

2. Rotation (make sure that you don’t rotate slides too much, or the transitions may become confusing and difficult to follow. In general, its best to use rotations <45 degrees).

3.  Size/Depth.  The ability to zoom in and out can either be used to convey differences in size, relationship into or out of the page, or even both.

What other great things can you do with Prezi?

Turn those boring Power Points into Prezi’s!

Share your Prezi!

Check out the official Prezi blog for even more great tips!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07b-Using good information design, charts & graphs, PowerPoint resources, PowerPoint tricks, slide-craft

10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea, from TED’s in-house expert

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One of the skills that I chose to work on this semester was improving my presentation skills and slide design. In the past, I have been guilty of using the standard slide template, including too much text and underutilizing images. Over the course of the semester, I have been tasked with giving two presentations at work and have found ways to visually enhance my slides that have resulted in more effective presentations.

I recently came across an article on the TEDBlog that was written by Aaron Weyenberg, a UX Lead at Ted, and internally referred to as the master of slide decks. Below are 10 tips on how to make effective slides that he identified, however I have highlighted 2 tips that I found the most insightful and provided excerpts from the article.

  1. Think about your slides last. 
  2. Create a consistent look and feel. 
  3. Think about topic transitions. 
  4. With text, less is almost always more. 
  5. Use photos that enhance meaning.

  • I love using simple, punchy photos in presentations, because they help what you’re saying resonate in your audience’s mind without pulling their attention from your spoken words. Look for photos that (1) speak strongly to the concept you’re talking about and (2) aren’t compositionally complex. Your photo could be a metaphor or something more literal, but it should be clear why the audience is looking at it, and why it’s paired with what you’re saying. Below is an example of a photo I used in a deck to talk about the launch of the new TED.com. The point I was making was that a launch isn’t the end of a project—it’s the beginning of something new.

newbeginning-1

  • I found this tip to be eye-opening for me because I tend to be more literal in my presentations, so it was interesting to see how Aaron Weyenberg uses images to represent more tactical elements. For example, I am currently working on a deck outlining the new features of the upcoming relaunch of CNN.com, and instead of opening the presentation with an image from the new site, I’m planning on using a photo that represents the essence of the redesign and the impact it will have on the user.

6. Go easy on the effects and transitions.

7.  Use masking to direct attention in images.

If you want to point something out in a photo, you could use a big arrow. Or you could do what I call a dupe-and-mask. I do this a lot when showing new page designs, particularly when I don’t want the audience to see the whole design until I’m finished talking about individual components of it. Here’s the original image:

mask-11

Here’s the process for masking it. (1) Set the image transparency to something less than 100. (2) Duplicate that image so there is one directly over the top of the other. (3) Set the dup’d image transparency back to 100. and (4) Follow the technique here to mask the dup’d image. You’ll end up with something that looks like this:

mask-31

  • I am often faced with this problem since my work is primarily focused on CNN.com, so many of my presentations include screenshots of our website. The tip above is a really great way to still show the site, but hone in on an area in a very interesting way.

8. Try panning large images.
9. For video, don’t use autoplay.
10. Reproduce simple charts and graphs.

Here’s the link to the full article where you can get the details on each tip.

 

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, slide-craft

Animations – don’t let them suck the life out of your audience!

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My main goal for the summer MP session has been to improve the overall appearance of my PowerPoint slides. I learned that slide design was a weakness of mine during the first semester when I saw some of the Carlos Museum presentations that you all put together.  I was very impressed (and jealous!). I have since spent some time searching for articles on how to improve in this area, and it has been difficult to find tangible recommendations that are easy to apply. Thus, I turned to Amazon and purchased a book called slide:ology.

While I have not read the whole book yet, it has a lot of useful content, and reading it will be part of my personal action plan. I wanted to share one of many useful takeaways in this book with you, which is on animations. Human beings are innately programmed to look at things when they move (fight-or-flight instinct), but PowerPoint animations were not designed with this taken into consideration.

Every time we include animations in our presentations, our audience will turn toward the movement. Even if your animation is subtle, it will momentarily distract our audience. It is important to note that animation, while it may distract, is not always a bad thing. If we use them to help our audience process information more effectively, they can be a huge asset. This requires selecting animations wisely.

Animation should breathe life into your audience, not suck it out. Always choose animation that looks natural and alive, and movement must feel familiar. English is read from left to right, and so our eyes are much more comfortable moving left to right. Keep this in mind if you choose to have words fly-in. A descending object is sensible since we recognize the law of gravity. Although, text dropping down and bouncing all around has no meaning and can be annoying. Objects ascending appear to resist gravity, which can be perceived as illogical. The book goes into more detail on animation recommendations, but the key takeaway is not to include animations for the sake of having animations. They must be selected wisely and help the audience process information.

WP_20140805_002

It is fine to animate points, but make sure you hide them until you start discussing them.

Duarte, Nancy. Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations. Beijing: O’Reilly Media, 2008. Print.

 

 

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07d-Delivering a presentation, clearing slides, questions, slide-craft, Uncategorized

Most people give bad speeches. But most people can give good speeches

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“Most people give bad speeches. But most people can give good speeches.” These are within the closing statements of Megan Mcardle’s article, “The Fine Art of a Proper Powerpoint”. Throughout our lives, we’ve had to listen to countless presentations and have probably had to give a few ourselves. Among these, there are those that captured our attention while others have lulled us to sleep with no recollection of what the subject of the presentation was. There are plenty of resources online to help guide what a proper presentation should look like, but I don’t intend to bore you with that. Miss Mcardle makes several good points in her article, which I will touch on, but I’ll also describe what experience has taught works best.

The number one mistake that most people can identify as a guaranteed sleeper presentation is when the presenter puts all the material on the slides and then proceeds to read what the audience is looking at. As Ms. Mcardle puts it, “Listening to people read from their notes or their slides is considerably less interesting than listening to a five-year-old read from “My Pet Goat”–at least the five-year old is really trying.” As a presenter, it’s important to remember that you are meant to be the subject matter expert on what you’re presenting, otherwise, why are you the presenter? Being the most knowledgeable on a topic doesn’t come easy, but that’s why you’re given time in advance to prepare (for the most part anyway). In your slide craft, it’s important to know what information the audience needs to visually see versus what they should expect to hear from you. With that in mind, you can begin to prepare your slides.

Avoiding the “reading” method of presentation will help reduce the overall word count that is placed on each slide. It forces you to take on the role of the educator with the material, rather than the messenger. Slide craft focuses on ensuring enough material, mixed with white space, appropriate graphics and visuals, and proper takeaways are present from each slide. Slides with a purpose are the only ones that should fill a presentation. Crafting the look of the slides is often the easiest part, the content chosen needs to be meticulously determined by understanding who the audience is and catering the content specifically for their position. Not all gaps have to be filled within the slide, there’s a Q&A session for a reason. No presentation, however, can ever account for content not prepared for; therefore, the most important part of the presentation is the pre-work of the material you’re presenting on (recall the Delta presentations, without the work we put in before, we would’ve had no material to present).

At this point, the slides are mostly ready and the delivery practice begins. When delivering, remember that you know the content of the presentation and you’re explaining to, expanding on, and educating with the material to the audience. This requires audience engagement. The #1 way to be sure that they’re engaged is to look at them. Eye contact helps not only engage the audience, but it also lets you know when you’re beginning to lose the audience. This awareness helps you change your presentation on the fly. Since you’re familiar with the material, you can determine if you need to expand further on the slide, move on, or ask a pertinent question to determine overall audience engagement. Knowing the material and being passionate about what you’re delivering help this type of presentation style. If you are excited about your subject, the audience will feed off this energy and remain engaged more easily. There are many more nuances to presentation delivery, and the best way to improve is to just give more presentations, which will help you find the style that works best for you. Plenty of resources are available online but if you can keep the presentation clean and focus on the audience, you’re well on your way. Besides, “The slides, after all, have probably already heard this talk before.”

 

07b-Using good information design, 07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation, clearing slides, PowerPoint resources, slide-craft

What Not To Do

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What Not To Do (When Giving a Presentation):

While most of us know what we “should” be doing when it comes to giving presentations, we oftentimes forget what we should NOT be doing. I have realized over time that what we should vs. should not do are not inherently mutually exclusive. You can be doing everything that you are “supposed to” (i.e. following best practices), but simultaneously be making common errors that can limit the effectiveness of your delivery.

I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to checking the boxes for everything that a strong presentation should have, but I’ve started to realize that by diagnosing errors that I am more inclined to make, many of the recommended strategies subsequently fall in line naturally.

To frame this as a metaphor, I’m talking about targeting the disease, not making the anecdote stronger. I’ve found that this starts with getting back to the basics and building from there. So, what are some of the more common pitfalls in presentation delivery? After vetting several resources I’ve consolidated a list of quick anecdotes that I have found to be helpful to keep in mind:

  • Avoid reliance on slides. Slides are there to compliment your presentation and provide a framework, not the other way around.
  • Overload: Less is more. Too much talking and/or too much text will easily disinterest any audience, no matter how rich the content.
  • Avoid Apologies: If something goes wrong, there is a typo, you say something incorrectly, etc… JUST GO WITH IT. Odds are that no one else noticed and by drawing attention to it you are just calling out yourself (and your credibility).
  • Avoid filler words: This is public speaking 101, it sounds easy and we’ve heard it thousands of times, but it is absolutely critical. Unfilled airtime between sentences and ideas is okay. Specifically avoid “um”, “so”, “right”, and “you know” are very common and very distracting!
  • Going over your allotted time: Once you start to go long you begin to lose your audience. And once you even begin to lose your audience, it’s too late. This can cause the audience to miss your “big finish” and really tear down everything you’ve worked so hard to build.

While there are many more, these are just some of the most common problems that can hold you back from delivering the most effective presentation possible. We never get to a point where we are too advanced to worry about the basics. While one of these points are anything that you haven’t heard before, hopefully you will find some of these to be helpful reminders.

 

Helpful Resources:
http://www.inc.com/eric-v-holtzclaw/big-presentation-5-rookie-mistakes-to-avoid.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNG0etmnwuk
http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/12/avoid-these-five-mistakes-in-y/

 

05-Creating & constructing good solutions, 07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 99-Applying business intelligence

Five Easy Presentation Tricks

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I am sure  many of you have stumbled upon articles and lists of presentation tips. I have found the following list during my preparation for a recent client presentation. I always search for articles like this right before I present  in hopes that at least one thing will stick.

This Forbes articles mentions the following simple tips:

1. Ask for interaction– simply tell your audience that you want their participation and questions during your presentation (if it’s appropriate, of course).

2. Ask a great question early to get people talking– “if you suffer the silence for a couple of seconds- someone will answer you”.

3. Ask for your audience opinion– it can be a specific/random person if you’re presenting to a small group or just a general answer from the audience if the group is large. This will help you tailor the tone of your presentation.

4. Build in audience discussion and reporting– ask your audience to divide into small group and share their conclusion on a question. Mostly relevant to large-audience presentations.

5. Get moving– don’t be afraid to walk around and use hand gestures, it’s the easiest way to captivate your audience.

All of these tips involve some sort of interaction with your audience and I think that this is the biggest point. Make your audience believe like you care about the presentation and about their opinions and you will win their attention.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2014/01/28/five-easy-tricks-to-make-your-presentation-interactive/

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07d-Delivering a presentation, PowerPoint resources, PowerPoint tricks, slide-craft

Punt PowerPoint

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Like most people, I have always used Microsoft PowerPoint to create presentations. It’s quick, simple, and accessible by most users. However, it’s also these characteristics that have led to so many horrible presentations. Everyone can make a PowerPoint presentation, but it seems that only a few can make good PowerPoint presentations.

Obviously, the content, arrangement, and delivery of a PowerPoint presentation will ultimately determine whether the presentation is a dud or not. However, with the extremely high use rates of PowerPoint, maybe there are other software applications available that will help make a presentation standout against the crowd.

Here is a list of five alternative presentation applications that I came across in an article by Stu Robarts.

1. Prezi (prezi.com) – Instead of the linear progression of PowerPoint slides, Prezi presentations are designed on a large space (similar to a whiteboard) where the user can decide the path that the material should be presented in. Ultimately, the design is intended to help audiences understand how the ideas in the presentation are related to each other.

2. Keynote (https://www.apple.com/mac/keynote/) – Apple’s version of PowerPoint. In typical Apple style, it’s only compatible with Apple products.

3.  Google Slides (google.com) – A stripped-down version of PowerPoint; only the essential tools for creating a slide deck are available. However, the perk is that Slides are integrated into Google Docs. Changes to the presentations are auto-saved and multiple users can simultaneously edit a Slides presentation. The output can be downloaded into PowerPoint format.

4. ClearSlide (clearslide.com) – Designed for sales teams. The primary purpose is web-based presentations. It can be integrated with CRM systems for ease of data integration.

5. SlideDog (slidedog.com) – Every professor should be forced to use SlideDog. It’s not so much a presentation development software, as it is a presentation organizational software. It allows users to drag-and-drop all of their files that will be a part of their presentation (PowerPoint slides, Prezi presentation, web pages, PDFs, videos, etc.) into the SlideDog application and then arrange them into the desired order. When one file is completed, the subsequent file is launched. No more watching the presenter frantically search their desktop for the shortcut to the next element of their presentation.

03-Planning the work of a team, 04-Managing a project team, 07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07c-Telling stories, 99-Applying business intelligence, team dynamics, team roles

Are you a Leader or a Manager?

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I took a class in undergrad about “Servant Leadership” by Robert Greenleaf. I started questioning the difference between a manager and a leader, and have been intrigued by the concept ever since. As I was interviewing for my current position, I was questioned as to what type of leader I would be in the organization.

I pondered, and proceeded to explain the type of manager I would be and the skills that I would bring to the table. I described that I did not feel that someone could place me in the role of “leader”. It was a position that others saw me as based on how they felt about my abilities. They would make the decision to follow, I could not decide that for them.

I stumbled upon this article in the Wall Street Journal regarding this very topic. It discusses the importance of differentiating between a manager and a leader as the concept of the knowledge worker becomes more profound in our society.

“The leader originates, the leader challenges, the leader is an individual, the leader focuses on people.”

Take a look at the article and see how your natural characteristics fall into the spectrum. I believe that leadership is a way of life. It’s a characteristic that exudes from you, both in the professional world and your personal life. Leaders are the people that I select as mentors. The fact that I have placed them in that position in my life re-iterates how I feel about their ability to lead and challenge me.

My father is a mouthy, Italian businessman with salt and pepper hair. He has drowned me in the business world from a very young age. Along the way, I have gathered a few Tony-isms from him about this matter:

“You can promote people and make them managers, but you cannot make them leaders. That trait is who you are. When it comes out, people will know.”

“The person who knows how and why will always have a leg up on the person who only knows how or why.”

He’s a deep fellow.

Decide the type of position you want to hold in the lives of your co-workers, and work towards being looked at in that light. These abilities will alter the way you present, the way you communicate, and the way you analyze situations.

I leave you with one final Tony-ism: “Be cautious not to take too much advice.”

Christine

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07b-Using good information design, charts & graphs, creativity methods, deliverables, PowerPoint resources, storyline structure, tables

Data Visualization – Tableau

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For starters, check out this video

I sometimes struggle with conveying my analysis (say, in Excel) into a presentation (say, in PowerPoint). The best way to capture the attention of your audience and to deliver an effective presentation is through data visualization. No matter how sound and detailed your analysis, if it is not communicated well to your audience then all of your hard work in performing that analysis was wasted.

Presenting data in a visual format can often be the quickest and most effective ways to convey results of your analysis and capture the attention of your audience. This can communicate a message that may have taken hours to develop in a matter of seconds if done correctly.

One of my favorite new data visualization resources that I am learning to use is called Tableau. Tableau is a software company that was founded in 2003 and does nothing other than data visualization. The company had sales of $34.2 Million in 2010 which grew to an astonishing $232.44 Million in 2013 and the company went public. It is now traded on the NYSE (ticker: DATA). It is extremely intuitive and the product looks amazing. Here is a great video that gives you an overview of the capabilities of Tableau (also linked above).

There are some really revolutionary and interesting methods to communicate data visually that are becoming more and more accepted in business and is thought by many as a way for companies to distinguish themselves among their peers. Often times my company might be similarly positioned to perform work for a given client, and I have seen that a lot of the work we have “won” has come from an effective pitch that highlights the strengths of our organization in a visually compelling manner that engages the client and shows that we can “give meaning to numbers” which is a skill that is hard to quantify.

I would be curious to get any thoughts on your experience with data visualization software and any recommendations you might have.

 

Other helpful data visualization links:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-data-visualization-revolution/

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/04/the-quick-and-dirty-on-data-visualization/

http://fortune.com/2011/11/15/how-tableau-software-makes-business-data-beautiful/