Austin Myers is a PowerPoint MVP (Most Valuable Professional) -- he is an expert in issues related to the use of multimedia in PowerPoint. Austin creates the PFCMedia and PFCPro add-ins for PowerPoint that have made life simple for many users -- he also maintains a detailed FAQ on multimedia issues within PowerPoint on his site. In this conversation, Austin discusses Calculate, a small free utility that he created for PowerPoint users who face a dilemma trying to figure out what their slide size should be to take up the entire screen.
Geetesh: How did Calculate evolve – and what is its purpose of existence?
Austin: As monitors, flat screens and projectors have changed from the NTSC standard 4:3 ratio for display, users needed a simple way to determine PowerPoint's slide size in order to fill the display completely without distorting their slides. Calculate is a small utility where the user simply provides the resolution (width and height) of their targeted screen in pixels and the utility will determine the correct slide size to meet the required screen ratio .
The user is presented with 3 different options for the slide size, all of which will produce the correct ratio for the targeted screen. I decided to provide 3 options as some users must also meet printing requirements. With Calculate all they need do is select one of the 3 options that best fits their printer.
Figure 1: The Calculate interface
Geetesh: What type of scenarios can benefit from Calculate?
Austin: Anyone that uses a standard (4:3 ratio) display to develop PowerPoint resolutions but must display the finished presentation on a display with a different ratio will benefit from Calculate. Laptop users that have a non-standard display resolution also can see a real benefit in determining the exact slide size for their display (no black bars along the sides or top & bottom of the screen).
I have many clients that prepare PowerPoint presentations on their PCs but must then display it in a conference room with large displays. This has been a real issue for them in the past as they were unable to use the entire display or their slides became badly distorted when "stretched" to fit the display. With Calculate all they need to know is the display's resolution and they can easily set up the correct slide size in advance and avoid the issue completely.
It is not everyday that an Indezine reader suggests a conversation with a presentation expert -- shares some thoughts with her, and then she comes back with such a well explained, balanced response -– when you see something of this quality in an email, you know it should reach a larger audience.
This thread was started by T. L. Sanders -- and the presentation expert here is Julie Terberg. As owner and principle designer at Terberg Design, Julie develops custom presentation solutions — unique for every client and purpose. Julie also conducts training sessions for those who want to expand their skills. To find out more about Terberg Design, visit her site...
T. L. Sanders: I’m curious about your thoughts as an MVP on a possible design shift in PowerPoint presentations. I’ve watched over the last few years as people like Cliff Atkinson, Guy Kawasaki, Masayoshi Takahashi, and Steve Jobs, to name just a few advocated that the speaker is the storyteller, not PowerPoint. After this de-emphasis of bullet points, complex slides, and animations, did you have to change your business model or skill set to compensate?
I believe there is still a need for well-designed (emphasis on the word designed not built) presentations (Flash or PowerPoint) for demos, kiosks, etc. However, I believe the current emphasis on solid visual design skills and crafting a story makes preparing presentations less about PowerPoint and more about content.
I work in an organization that unfortunately bought into the Microsoft model of preparing presentations. Presenters typically try to cram as much information on the slide as possible, use a single corporate template, and read from the actual text of the slide as a script. Absolutely horrible and boring.
Julie: The “shift” you write about has been happening for longer than a few years and is MOST welcome. Instead of “giving” presentations, deliver a presentation that the audience “gets”. The focus becomes the audience – not the presentation (what do you want the audience to understand, remember, and take-away from the talk?). An effective presentation takes all of this into consideration. It’s not enough to clean up poor content and make it look better.
My business model has not changed much over the last 10 years, as I’ve always specialized in custom developed presentations. I receive scripts, notes, images, etc. from clients on the presentation content and flow – and then I storyboard a presentation from there. I’ve always emphasized simplicity over complexity. Design is my passion (Industrial Design education and 23+ years of experience in computer graphics). I worked backstage in business theater, observing and learning all about the relationship between a powerful presenter, great visuals, and a grateful, receptive audience.
The key to change at your organization is education and awareness. If you’re responsible for cleaning up or formatting others presentations – you could be a catalyst for change. Share the knowledge you’ve learned from experts like Cliff Atkinson and Garr Reynolds (Presentation Zen). Get the book: Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte. The folks at your organization are simply unaware of what they’re doing wrong, and keeping things status quo because they don’t realize this method of presenting is ineffective.
Tip: Take one presentation and redesign a few key visuals for better audience communication. Strip out the text on the slide and move it to the speaker notes, design visual concepts to convey ideas. Share this with the presenter and show them how to use Presenter View so they have their notes visible while speaking. Yes this method requires more preparation and rehearsal for the presenter – the time is well spent and the results worthwhile.
Another idea: get an expert to speak at your company about this topic.
And another: Attend PowerPoint Live this September in San Diego.
I understand and appreciate your frustration. Best wishes to you!
Lee Potts has been blogging about visual communications and presentation-related issues since 2002. His current project, Breaking Murphy's Law (tagline: because when you're presenting, someone's always watching), launched in June. He serves on the steering committee of InfoComm's Presentation's Council and he was recently elected to the Health and Science Communications Association (HeSCA) Board of Directors.
Geetesh: Tell us more about yourself, and how you created the Breaking Murphy’s Law blog.
Lee: Most of my career has involved, in one way or another, helping people to do presentations. As a graphic designer, a AV tech or a tactical consultant I've worked on everything from basic one-on-one pitches to trade shows to large sales training meetings. Right now, I work for a major pharmaceutical company helping research teams to present their findings at FDA Advisory Committee meetings. These meetings represent one of the final, critical milestones in the drug approval process and they are very exciting to be part of because the stakes are so high.
When I started thinking about what would eventually become Breaking Murphy's Law, I knew that although I really wanted to get back into blogging, I didn't want to have another blog that was basically just a collection of annotated links to other websites.
It occurred to me that some of the most interesting moments in my career happened when things were going very wrong. Along the same lines, many of my best work memories involve hanging out during down time with the other meeting and staging professionals listening to their stories about when things went very wrong for them. I think that everyone would agree that there's something fascinating about the subject. These stories can provide a certain level of vicarious knowledge. They are an entertaining way to gain some experience without actually screwing up yourself. A trick, tip or technique learned while listening to these stories might be crucial to saving a meeting or even a career.
I created Breaking Murphy's Law hoping it would eventually grow into an ongoing conversation, a large-scale sharing of stories about what can go wrong when you're a presenter or when you're supporting someone else’s presentation. A place where everyone, whether you're an experienced professional or newbie, can learn how to break Murphy’s Law before Murphy’s Law breaks you.
Geetesh: What are the favorite topics you have covered in the blog? Give us a few thoughts and links.
Lee: Well, in Jedi Knights With Frickin' Laser Pointers we covered presenters with poor pointer control. The world's worst wet T-shirt contest deals with a last minute beverage and business presentation collision. Sticky Situation tells about the time we had problems with the AV tech's most basic of tools -- gaffer tape. The hotel had just put down new carpets that had been heavily treated with stain repellent. Who knew it would also repel tape adhesive. None of the cables we taped down stayed down. Needless to say, some of the meeting attendees took an unplanned trip without ever leaving the venue.
I try to stay away from stories that are mainly about bad presentation and PowerPoint skills. There are so many other really good blogs already covering that. However, I am interested in stories from all the different areas of expertise that go into making a presentation possible, including administrative support, meeting planners, AV techs, venue staff and, of course, the presenters themselves. And in nod to blogging tradition, I try to publish a weekly list of things I stumbled across online that my readers might be interested in that they might have missed. The most recent example is here.
I'd like to take this opportunity to ask your readers to submit any stories or anecdotes they have about presentation problems they experienced or witnessed. Stories about presentation disasters narrowly averted are also encouraged. You can take full credit for the story or remain safely anonymous, whichever you prefer. You can use the form on this page to submit your story. Please take a few minutes and add to the collective wisdom and experience of the presentation professional community.
ShowLogic, a presentation platform designed for sales and marketing professionals, was announced as a winner of the Meeting TechOnline Top Technology Suppliers 2008 Awards. The awards honor innovative technology suppliers in the meetings and events industry that have shown outstanding leadership and advancement in technology tools.
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".
The other day, I got a solid lesson in good screencasting from a most unexpected place.
Most Americans, at some point in their academic careers (could be high school, college, or in my case, both), have an English composition class foisted upon them by the local administration. This is done with the supposed motivation of churning out graduates who can express themselves succintly and coherently in written form. Persons armed with this knowlege will be able to master business reports, research studies, doctoral dissertations, you name it.
Or, at the very least, have the most eloquently written MacDonald's employment application on the block...
One text that's basically regarded as standard issue in these courses is The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White, and has been thus since its initial publication in 1959. I bought my first copy back in 1989, when the book was a mere pup at the tender age of 30. In its nearly 50 years on the shelves, this tiny grey paperback has prevented millions of grammatical foibles the world over, defusing everything from awkward sentence structure to the careless use of non-words like irregardless.
I recently pulled my dog-eared copy of the shelf in an attempt to decide the correctness between "None of us were there" and "None of us was there" (it's the latter, by the way), when I came across an essay at the back that I hadn't remembered. It was called "An Approach to Style," and moved away from the specific prescriptivist "grammar police" ruleset that comprised most of the book, and instead just offered up a list of basic guidelines to bear in mind when communicating with words.
I was astounded by how many of these suggestions were readily applicable to narrated visual media as well, despite the fact that it was written a good 45 years before Jon Udell ever coined the term "screencast." I wanted to share a few of these with you.
Place yourself in the background. "Write in a way that draws the reader's attention to the sense and substance of the writing, rather than the mood and temper of the author."
This is a particularly sticky one for marketing screencasters. When crafting a video advertisement or marketing spot, it's vitally important to focus on your audience. Their lives, their problems. With luck, you can be there to offer the solution. There are instances (such as this newsletter), where it's appropriate for the author to be more "present" within the content. But you can't ever lose sight of your users and the benefit to their lives that you're attempting to bring to the table. More on this next month.
Do not overwrite. And this goes hand-in-hand with two other basic tenets of theirs, Write in a way that comes naturally and Avoid fancy words. "Rich, ornate prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating."
As you write your narration script, you must take care to avoid the kind of thick, jumbled wordiness that makes your video impossible to penetrate without a dictionary in hand. Most people won't bother, so don't use a 75-cent word when a 10-cent one will do. This goes doubly for industry terms and other technical jargon. Only use a technical term when no other more common replacement exists, and when you're certain that at least 95% of your audience will understand it. Take a second in your narration to clarify the term if you're not sure.
Do not explain too much. "It is seldom advisable to tell all."
Amen, brothers. Amateur screencasters often make the classic rookie mistake of explaining every field and button. Even a comprehensive tutorial should exist to show completion of a given task or set of tasks. Clarify only those features and aspects of the application that are directly involved in getting the user from point A to point B. In screencasting, the hackneyed slang phrase "Too much information!" really does apply, so don't inundate your audience with a lot of extraneous info.
Revise and rewrite. "Revising is part of writing. Few writers are so expert that they can produce what they are after on the first try."
Revision is a necessity in the screencast production process. If possible, try to segment your revision as much as possible. What does this mean? Well, take a quick look at my workflow, which generally goes something like this:
Write narration > Craft storyboard > Record footage > Edit silent cut > Record and clean up narration > Produce final output
You should be giving the decision-makers (clients, managers, etc.) access to your work at nearly every point in this process. If there's an unnecessary paragraph in your narration, it's a lot easier to correct early on, when it's just words on paper. If something's destined to get the ax, you're wasting valuable time by coming up with visuals, recording clips, and cutting it all together.
Don't overstate. "When you overstate, readers will be instantly on guard, and everything that has preceded your overstatement as well as everything that follows will be suspect in their minds because they have lost confidence in your judgment or your poise."
Overstatements are dangerous territory, particularly for marketing screencasts. Yes, you want to convey the benefit of your product or service, and yes, those benefits should be as compelling as possible. Just don't promise them the moon. Or, promise them the moon, provided you're ready to deliver on that promise and you can provide good testimonials and other proof that you're not just full of hot air.
Good stuff. The advice of these two men from nearly a half century ago is as relevant as ever to those of us who create content for a living.
Besides good public speaking skills, visual aids are key to keeping your audience interested. This can include PowerPoint if you make it an accessory instead of a crutch to your speech. Fellow financial advisors share their eye-catching accessories below.
Designers worldwide are resurrecting the slideshow and trying to elevate it to a form of poetry in a new movement called Pecha Kucha, an open-mic night for creative types to show off their projects. And the business world is starting to pay attention.
Born in Japan, Pecha Kucha has two simple rules. First, a slideshow must consist of 20 slides that last 20 seconds each, for a total presentation time of six minutes and 40 seconds. No more, no less.
No one is born a great speaker. Period. Granted, people are blessed with certain strengths in the area of public speaking, but every great speaker has worked hard to become the influential person or legacy that we see.
Keep your message concise. Keep it clear. Keep it simple. And most importantly, be yourself. People will judge you. That is the fact of life. However, let them judge you for who you really are – not a poser, but an authentic voice.
It is not everyday that an Indezine reader suggests a conversation with a presentation expert -- shares some thoughts with her, and then she comes back with such a well explained, balanced response -– when you see something of this quality in an email, you know it should reach a larger audience.
This guest post is by 