PowerPoint Blog
Labels: case_studies, interviews, powerpoint, second_life
Lisa Lindgren has brought solid presentation advice to hundreds of thousands of people during her professional career. For nearly a decade she published the critically acclaimed Presenters University Web site and its monthly Presentation Pointers newsletter. Now a member of the Steering Committee for InfoComm's Presentations Council, she continues to work to enrich the industry and advocates for improved presentation techniques and standards.
Geetesh: Tell us about Second Life, and how it can be a platform to deliver and share PowerPoint presentations.
Lisa: Second Life is a 3-D virtual world where you navigate “inworld” using your own, personalized avatar. It claims to have millions of participants and many companies and universities have built presences there with the hopes of capitalizing on it. The reviews are mixed, although I did hear a presentation given by Sarah Robbins from Ball State University about her experience in running her class lab in Second Life. She said that one of the challenges was that her students got so engrossed that they forget to go to their next class! This is precisely why I think that there may be some potential for giving presentations there when you can’t physically be in front of your audience. Unlike a Webinar, or a podcast, it’s a very rich and consuming experience, one that your audience is not likely to listen to half-heartedly while they check their e-mail.
I should make it clear that I am not an expert on Second Life, but I have had the opportunity to visit the Virtualis Convention and Learning Center located in Second Life. There may be other presentation-oriented locations (called islands) there, but this was the one that I got to visit; or, more precisely, that my avatar visited.
Geetesh: Tell us about your experiences. And what sort of potential do you foresee for something of this sort?
Lisa: I watched a basic presentation, without any animation or fancy bells and whistles. But that didn’t really matter, at least to me. I was so engrossed in the total experience that perhaps it was best that the visual slides were simple.
Because it is a virtual world, the possibilities are literally endless. There were a variety of pre-set rooms and seating arrangements, such as a large theater-style room and small classrooms. The classrooms were equipped with individual workstations, where streaming video could be displayed. There were even break areas where your avatar could enjoy a coffee break, and a ballroom complete with a dance floor and disco lights.
Just like a Webinar or Webcast, your audience logs on from wherever they happen to be. Then they direct their avatars to the pre-determined location and have them gather to watch the event. They can sit in chairs, or since the avatars don’t get tired that really isn’t necessary. They could position themselves wherever it was easiest to see. You could even have them fly and hover around the presentation screen. Although in his Tips for Second Life Presentations, Gary Barber suggests you seat the avatars “very close together in almost a tiered traditional speaking pit of amphitheater arrangement…” He offers some other common sense suggestions for the would-be Second Life presenter.
One of the strengths of using Second Life is that the audience members are likely to pay more attention since they are actively participating in controlling their avatars. Of course if it is a boring and truly awful presentation, they are still likely to tune out, just like they do during Webinars or in person. So the responsibility is still on the presenter to provide engaging content.
Second Life has some advantages over traditional in-person presentations too. Instead of simply showing photos of a new product in a sales presentation, one that you couldn’t easily bring to a physical venue, you can literally create a working model of it inworld. And the physical limitations disappear. Need to teach your technicians how to repair your latest copier, for example? Build one 50 times to scale and take their avatars “inside” to see the mechanisms. It’s really pretty amazing when you think of it in these terms.
Geetesh: What does one need to get started with using PowerPoint as a content source within Second Life?
Lisa: The obvious requirement is that you need a presentation forum in Second Life. Similar to presenting on the Web, you can either build/buy your own or use a service. Virtualis is one option for using a service and there may be others. Building your own may not be as daunting as it sounds. Many large companies of course already have islands in Second Life, but Andrew Burton in Giving a PowerPoint Presentation in Second Life, and the ensuing commentary below his article makes it sound like it would be a pretty doable endeavor, assuming that you were already competent in building simple structures in Second Life and didn’t need a lot of fancy extras for your audience.
After you have a place to present your slides, you then need to import them. They must be imported one slide at a time as GIF, JPEG, or PNG files. So no animation or transitions, but because it is such a visually rich environment, you want to keep them simple so that they don’t compete with the experience. Finally you have to pay in Linden dollars to import your images. You purchase Linden dollars with real money, so there is a real expense in this virtual world.
The final “cost” of presenting in Second Life is both you and your audience need to create avatars and learn how to operate inworld. It’s really not very difficult, but I’ll admit I was a bit intimidated at first. My friend, and presentation consultant, Ellen Finkelstein, offered to accompany me at first, and it was reassuring to have her there with a helpful tip or two as I learned the basics. But Second Life really does make it pretty easy. There are standard avatars from which you select, which can be customized later. And you start your inworld experience on a beginner’s island, where everyone is learning. There are tutorials to walk you through what you really need to know and host and hostess avatars available to answer your questions. Only newbies are around you at first, so you are less likely to be embarrassed.
Is Second Life for everyone? Certainly not. You need an open mind and a business culture that will support it. If management or your client base perceives it as just a game, they are not going to be receptive. But for the right companies and markets, I think it’s a powerful option.
Categories: case_studies, interviews, powerpoint, second_life
Labels: case_studies, powerpoint 
I meet Denise Then at PowerPoint Live each year, and we talk about "snow" -- the fact that she sees snow all around her in Canada, and that I have never seen snow ever -- yes, it does snow in parts of India where I live -- just that I've never seen it yet.
This year, Denise created a simple and personal holiday card using PowerPoint, and she emailed it to me. The card shows all the snow scenes that she can see all the time -- and I requested her permission to share it with all of you. Thanks Denise!
Uploaded on authorSTREAM by indezine_powerpoint
Categories: case_studies, powerpoint
Labels: case_studies, delivery, interviews, powerpoint 
Andre Vlcek (pictured to the left) is an Australia-based sales consultant and Managing Director of Sales Psychology Australia. He specializes in designing and building advanced selling strategies for sales teams.
In this discussion, Andre discusses the Visual Selling with PowerPoint concept that he evolved with Robert Lane.
Geetesh: Tell us more about your concept of visual selling with PowerPoint, and how this evolved from your everyday work.
Andre: About 2 years ago, I arrived for a ‘typical’ one-hour meeting with the human resources manager at one of Australia’s major petroleum companies. This was my first meaningful contact with them, the proverbial foot in the door. The plan was to discuss the firm’s sales recruitment process. Certainly I had my detailed linear PowerPoint show in hand, for what was supposed to be an informal meeting with only this person—and I had thought a lot about what he needed to hear. As soon as I walked into his office, though, I sensed trouble brewing.
The room contained five people, instead of one, and my HR manager contact proceeded to enthusiastically introduce me to his ‘unexpected’ guests, including the general manager of sales, a psychologist HR consultant, the firm’s call center manager, and of all people … the CEO! His guests happened to hear about the meeting just that morning and were curious about individual issues related to their job responsibilities. All of a sudden, my simple, casual talk turned into a full-blown sales demonstration, addressing multiple competing interests and perspectives. Those careful, late-night preparations for this meeting subsequently evaporated into thin air.
Five minutes into the talk, the psychologist interjected that another meeting was coming up and he had just a few quick questions to ask. Of course, my canned slide show didn’t contain appropriate answers to his issues, or, in some cases, slides sat somewhere 30 transitions away. Other attendees soon asked questions, as well, and a discussion ensued. The GM of sales wanted to know to what extent previous projects had increased sales revenues. The HR manager hoped to explore the candidate testing process; and the call center lady was wondering how all this related to her call center environment.
Over the next hour, most of my PowerPoint content sat worthless and unused before me because I couldn’t properly adjust it to the rapidly changing situation.
Annoyance with PowerPoint’s linear design eventually led me to look for alternative ways of presenting information. It was unacceptable that my reputation hinged upon how well I could foretell the future by lining up perfect slide sequences in advance. Surely I needed something other than PowerPoint, I thought, and then I happened across Robert Lane’s Relational Presentation approach while reading another article. That was the solution I needed and eventually Robert and I teamed up to develop the interactive PowerPoint-based selling process featured in this article, called Visual Selling. The Visual Selling Whitepaper published by Microsoft is now available as a free download from the Aspire website.
Geetesh: How do you believe this can benefit end-users -- and is this approach restricted to sales presentations?
Andre: I recommend anyone using PowerPoint apply the innovative organizational and navigational structure called Topical Navigation developed by Robert Lane – CEO and Founder of Aspire Communciations. Doing that will provide powerful flexibility to respond to your audience and overcome the constraints of PowerPoints traditional linearity.
In my case, with my branding, it turned out like the example in Figure 1. Categories of information appear along the left side of slides and individual topics within those categories display in the menu at bottom-left. While working with customers, I now can move seamlessly between hundreds of slide options, in any order, at any time.
Figure 1: Modified version of the title slide with navigational hyperlinks on the left side
Having that kind of flexibility has been a lifesaver several times already. The other day, I scheduled another hour-long meeting with a major bank, to discuss improving prospecting skills for their nearly 200 mobile business bankers. I don’t know. Maybe I attract these things, but upon arriving at the establishment, I could see the buying team was visibly distracted and anxious. The Vice President of Sales then informed me that some kind of technical glitch had occurred within their operations and that he could spare only fifteen minutes for our meeting. My timeslot promptly diminished in size by 75% before my eyes! I had to cut right to the point and hit the highlights of my proposal, without appearing frazzled or disorganized in the process.
These days I can do that, and it’s not nearly as difficult as I once thought.
That same kind of powerful flexibility and adaptability is available to anyone who needs to communicate, persuade, or sell their ideas using Microsoft PowerPoint. In conclusion the power of flexibility is one of the best kept secrets within Microsoft PowerPoint!
Categories: case_studies, delivery, interviews, powerpoint
Labels: case_studies, powerpoint
The Sydney Morning Herald reports an issue raised in the Australian parliament that will allow "MPs to use PowerPoint presentations during their speeches, saying Parliament should move from "Dickens's days" into the 21st century" It adds that "Mr Harris said PowerPoint presentations could allow MPs to better present their arguments. "The use of such material in presentations adds another dimension to the ability to convey ideas and messages," he said".
Categories: case_studies, powerpoint
Labels: case_studies, powerpoint, presentation_samples
Almost everyday someone is criticizing PowerPoint because they believe it makes people dumb -- and that's not even the larger problem. The larger problem is that it's so much easy to mention a problem without providing a solution!
It is not everyday that someone actually does provide detailed solutions -- Tom Taulli is a noted financial blogger -- and he provides a wealth of knowledge on how you can create a better investor slide deck by creating something "that tells a story, clearly showing the company's path to success". Tom looks at the "framework every investor deck should include" on the BusinessWeek site. This is a must read.
Categories: case_studies, powerpoint, presentation_samples
Labels: case_studies, inspiration
Life moves on to a full circle -- and so does technology. I was just reading this blog post on 8 Ways to Use a Whiteboard in Your Home Office -- and it struck me how often I like to use a whiteboard (or even a piece of white paper) to sketch out my ideas for a slide.
We have a large whiteboard in the office here at Indezine.com that's always running out of white space! We add our list of things to do, our workflows, contact info that we may need very often, and then we need to find some white space to create a visual representation of a slide (or a set of slides). Maybe there's something about whiteboards (or white paper) and a pen that no computer peripheral or software can match. Not even a Tablet PC! And as they say, when some things work so well, let them remain the way there are.
Categories: case_studies, inspiration
Labels: case_studies, powerpoint
It's true that there are several amazing examples of PowerPoint usage that up the ante on what you can do with slideware -- and it is equally true that the slides that most presenters come up with do almost nothing to help their presentations since these slides tend to confuse rather than help an audience.
That's the reason why Jean-luc Doumont's podcast on Creating Effective Presentations provides you with several interesting observations. Although Doumont has not come up with something I haven't heard before, the fact that he explains this so well, and in such a small podcast is something I'll call awesome.
Hear and download the podcast here...
Categories: case_studies, powerpoint
Labels: case_studies, delivery, powerpoint
I just read this inspiring article by Max Kalehoff on how conferences can be made better. It doesn't look like you to need to do much to make attendees happy; and yet many conference organizers won't even do that much!
And yes, I did observe Max's comment on halting PowerPoint abuse: "I’m shocked at how many conferences will charge thousands of dollars for a ticket and then subject attendees to boring presentations made excruciating by PowerPoint abuse".
Read more on Max's blog here...
Categories: case_studies, delivery, powerpoint
Labels: case_studies, powerpoint
This is among the most interesting and original uses for PowerPoint that I have read about.
Jill White, who has finished 10 years of teaching with Memphis City Schools uses PowerPoint with first graders so that they can add their poetry to PowerPoint slides with a picture. This works great because it's the first time the children use PowerPoint -- so it's nice to start with simple stuff. These poetry slides then make great presentations to show at Open Houses, parent meetings, school meetings, and even district-wide meetings.
Read more on the Scholastic site...
Categories: case_studies, powerpoint
Labels: books, case_studies, opinion, powerpoint
Ric Bretschneider is Senior Program Manager for PowerPoint at Microsoft, and he just had his 15th anniversary working on the project! Ric's put up a great podcast on the new Presentations Roundtable site -- this podcast is just first of the many more podcasts you can look forward to hearing and downloading from this site.
The premiere episode of the Presentations Roundtable podcast brings together:
The discussion is in an easy conversation style -- the role of books in learning good design is investigated, along with some easy to follow hints on creating excellence in your own presentations.
Check out the podcast here...
Thank you, Ric.
Categories: books, case_studies, powerpoint, opinion
Labels: case_studies, education, powerpoint
Mike Pearce teaches social studies at Ellison High School in the Killeen Independent School District in Texas, USA. But Mike is not just another teacher -- he uses PowerPoint presentations to deliver a successful teaching system that has shown a phenomenal improvement in the results and passing rates.
Read more here...
Categories: case_studies, education, powerpoint
Labels: case_studies, education, powerpoint
Mike Pearce says the best history teachers in today's schools will tell stories, make students relate to the people and events and use technology in order to do both. Starting in 2001, when he was teaching eighth grade, Pearce began integrating his own lesson plans into a PowerPoint system. "It hits every learning style. We live in an electronic age and kids are now very impressed by instruction that is more contemporary," he said.
Read more on the Killeen Daily Herald site...
Categories: case_studies, education, powerpoint
Labels: case_studies, powerpoint
Carmine Gallo, author of 10 Simple Secrets of the World's Greatest Business Communicators wrote a nice feature for BusinessWeek recently. He sent me this link, and it makes great reading -- he's discussing Duarte Design, a design firm based out of Mountain View headed by Nancy Duarte.
As Carmine says:
"Former Vice-President Al Gore raised the bar on presentation skills with An Inconvenient Truth. But he didn't do it alone. I wrote a column about the movie when the DVD was released because it demonstrates some very good techniques that we all can apply to our own presentations. At the time, however, I was unaware of the firm behind the presentation: Duarte Design, based in Mountain View, Calif. I sat down recently with one of the firm's principals, Nancy Duarte, and a group of designers to learn how to turn any presentation into a multimedia powerhouse."
Read more on the BusinessWeek site...
Read Nancy's interview on Indezine here...
Categories: case_studies, powerpoint
Labels: case_studies, powerpoint
I came across this interesting article on creating a good PowerPoint presentation. Written by Jon Newsome, this short article explains how planning can help you create better PowerPoints.
Read the article on the Gwinnett Business Journal site...
Categories: case_studies, powerpoint
Labels: case_studies, interviews, powerpoint 
Stas Kravets (pictured to the right) is COO of worldwide markets at KsanLab, a multimedia design company. Stas has worked in IT since 1997, acting as a product engineer, project manager and marketer. He has an MA in Applied Mathematics, and writes for online marketing media and for KsanLab's E-xperiential blog.
Geetesh: Tell us more about yourself and your work.
Stas: I am COO of worldwide markets at KsanLab and responsible for defining and implementation of worldwide marketing and sales strategy of KsanLab's products and services. KsanLab is an international interactive agency with specialization in multimedia tools for marketing, PR, IR and HR communication. At the moment we work on US, German, and Russian markets and have many world famous clients. As a COO, I participate in planning, business development, negotiations with clients and partners and project management.
Geetesh: How do you decide if PowerPoint is not suitable for a particular job - and then, which program do you normally use?
Stas: Well, the first time I understood that I need something different was on my previous job, when we needed an introduction movie and a document shell for a corporate CD business card. The introduction had to be a movie -- not a video, but rather cartoon with music, animation and finally with an update-able guide of PowerPoint presentations written on the disc. PowerPoint's animation capabilities are well geared for slide presentations with schemes and diagrams, but not for movies or cartoons, so we made a request for a Flash reel with support of an external XML file that contained links and descriptions of files stored on the CD.
KsanLab started as a small web design studio and later, reacting to market demands switched from static design to interactive multimedia products. Macromedia Flash is a de facto standard for multimedia information tools -- it possesses all necessary capabilities for rich graphic design, animation, integration of various kinds of info (video, sound) and interactivity. Now it is used all around the world for development of product demos, internet games, banners, trainings, and so on. I want to highlight that it is not comparable with PowerPoint -- it is always a question of selecting the right tool for your task. In some cases, Flash is a pure excess that will eat the time and money and in some cases a PowerPoint presentation will be just boring, and give you a back eye.
My article for MarketingProfs contains several criteria when you should switch to Flash (or other technology such as Apple QuickTime, Java, etc) from PowerPoint. I've chosen them basing on our expertise from projects we've done for our clients in the past. Those projects are mature ones -- so we were able to analyze their impact and potential. In short, the cases when you need to consider multimedia are:
In all cases, a multimedia product delivers on several goals simultaneously. For example, a virtual tour not only conveys lots of information, but also creates a great impression and attracts attention of customers.
Categories: case_studies, interviews, powerpoint
"We've taught him how to move things around on a PowerPoint presentation and how to enlarge and emphasize certain things," said Steven Gardner, 21, one of two interns in Yeager's office early this summer. Gardner had learned about the software in school, he said. Gardner has also had some of the pictures he's taken appear in a Bronx weekly newspaper. Labels: case_studies, powerpoint
More on the Westchester County Business Journal site...
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Carmine Gallo is a communications coach for the world’s most admired brands. His client list includes Intel, Chase, Barclays, IBM, Nokia, and many others. 
