Tag Archives: Presentation Skills

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07b-Using good information design, 99-Spreadsheet modeling, charts & graphs, Excel resources, PowerPoint resources, PowerPoint tricks, slide-craft, tables

Sharing a Helpful Resource

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If your job is anything like mine, you use Microsoft Excel and/or PowerPoint on a regular (if not daily) basis. If you use either of these applications in conjunction with each other (which I know all of us have in our prior MP presentations), I have a very helpful resource to share with you.

One of the biggest challenges that I have faced is effectively incorporating data (particularly from Excel) into a concise PowerPoint presentation. Given that Excel and PowerPoint are both made by Microsoft, you would think that using these two applications in conjunction with one another would be fairly seamless and potentially even synergistic (1 + 1 = 3, right?).  However, integrating Excel and PowerPoint is not always straight forward, and conveying key takeaways rather than “data dumping” an entire financial model into your presentation can be a challenge. Additionally, I think that most of us are typically better at one than the other which doesn’t make things any easier.  I certainly have found this to be the case for myself, and while I have a strong background in using Excel, I have a lot of “room to grow” in terms of incorporating financial data from huge bulky models into a clean and concise presentation that conveys the underlying data effectively.

As I have searched for tools, resources, and articles giving guidance on this very topic, I have come across a particularly helpful website that I wanted to share with our class and hope that you will find it to be as useful as I have. This website is called ‘Think Outside the Slide’ and is as close to a “one stop shop” as I have found for guidance on just about everything relating to creating powerful presentations, with literally thousands of articles neatly organized by topic, as well as video tutorials if you’re more of a visual person. If you use Excel or PowerPoint at all, there is likely a specific article with tips and guidance on how to more effectively use the applications in a context relevant to you.

These are just a few that I have begun to frequently reference to give you a snapshot:

  • Using Excel Data in Powerpoint Presentations
  • Slide Design, Creation, and Editing
  • Linking Excel Data (and other content) to PowerPoint so that data in slides automatically updates
  • Tips on effectively cleaning up and animating graphs
  • Creating powerful visuals using Excel Data (waterfall graphs, diverging stacked bar charts, treemap diagrams, proportional shape comparisons, etc…)

For many business professionals, myself included, Excel and PowerPoint are critical tools, and learning to use data effectively in PowerPoint presentations can take time but is versatile skill with application to countless professions that can help to distinguish yourself from your peers/co-workers, and add value to your clients. I hope you find this to be a helpful resource, please feel free to share any other resources that you frequently use and have found helpful in your career. Thanks!

Helpful links referenced in this post:

http://www.thinkoutsidetheslide.com/free-resources/

http://www.thinkoutsidetheslide.com/using-excel-data-in-a-powerpoint-presentation/

http://www.thinkoutsidetheslide.com/articles/

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

Less is More, Right?

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In the article titled “My Seven-Step Method for Creating a Presentation When the Stakes are High” by Carmine Gallo  http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2013/12/18/my-seven-step-method-for-creating-a-presentation-when-the-stakes-are-high/, Gallo accentuates one of the great points of creating a slide deck – less information and more pictures increases retention of the material. Specifically, Gallo identifies that only 10% of information conveyed verbally is retained by the audience, but this increases to 65% if the verbal concept is coupled with a relatable graphic or picture. This article also addresses a number of techniques for preparing to give the presentation, many of which have been covered in posts elsewhere.

I believe this concept extends far beyond the basics of slidecraft. We have seen other posts this semester about dealing with distracted audiences, so let’s evaluate this concept in that scope. Imagine that you are watching a presentation where the presenter is exploring a complex issue in detail. Suppose the slide looks something like this:

(from Gallo article)

How distracted will you be, specifically if the verbal presentation does not align with the visual? In my case, I would likely be even more confused if the presenter attempted to step through each part of this obviously overrun slide. By simplifying the presentation of the slide, the audience is allowed to focus on the information. I liken this idea to introducing the audience to the information in lieu of confronting them with it. The presentation and presenter will be far better received with a consumable amount of information on each slide and slide design that does not distract or alienate. If I can develop my skillset to always fall within the boundaries of this concept, I believe most of my battle is won. However, this is a difficult transition for me, as I am always most interested in the underlying data and information behind a presentation and always am yearning to dive deeper into what I have been presented with and what I am presenting. Therein lies my challenge: balancing the desire for information with the desire to be understood. Tricky for sure!

I think that we have seen fantastic examples in the first two semesters of MP of how to do this correctly, so we obviously have some classmates very strong in the area of slidecraft. Personally, I have had little previous need to develop me skills with Powerpoint or similar software, but I was fortunate to work with a great team in last fall’s semester of MP, from which I was able to begin to sharpen my skills. Again, thankfully, I was paired with a team during the spring that had excellent technical slide creators from whom I gained an even more detailed look into the mechanics of creating the slides. This is where I intend to focus the balance of my semester: the technical details of actually creating the slide deck and I look forward to seeing the resources that everyone is able to uncover.