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Do not be used by PowerPoint, Use PowerPoint to Present!
By: Billy Gee

If you remember Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey, " you might recall when the space ship's HAL 9000 computer says to Dave the astronaut, "I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen." Is that what you feel like without your PowerPoint file when giving a presentation? That's a bit disturbing, yes? If this is so, your PowerPoint file has taken over!

In order to recover your dignity as a presenter and prowess using PowerPoint, we must get back to the basics. First, we will cover what it means to give a good presentation. Second, we can look at the purpose and value of using PowerPoint. Finally, we will consider how you can overcome common tendencies of presenters with some hints and tricks to engage your audience with your presentation.

You engage the audience, not the prop! It is perfectly understandable that in this rapid paced world, we all want to press a button, plug in, or clap on-clap off for results. When you do this with an audience of live people, you start sounding and behaving like a HAL 9000 and I am sure many of us did not make it through that movie for the monotonous voice of the main character! You must remember that you engage the audience, not the prop! A good presenter is like a good jazz musician. You must know the song: your main point. You must know the melody: the points you expect to cover. Finally, you must know your audience so that you can wow and amaze them with what they might be surprised to hear. Start with writing a thesis that includes your interest to inform in terms of their interest to learn. Next, block out basic points and consider props you can use to describe your points with that audience in mind. Finally, consider your arsenal of presentation tools and how you can align them with the introduction, supporting points and call to action or conclusion.

Uh...Hello! Step away from your PC or Mac and consider your list of presenter tools! We know that PowerPoint can give visuals to reinforce points with pictures, bullets, charts and even movies. Now, remember that a good presenter uses body movement, the dynamics of his voice, topic related props and my favorite of all, the audience themselves with questions, games or demonstrations! The people in your audience retain information differently, therefore it is critical that you use a variety of tactics to engage their senses and make the presentation memorable for all. If you simply click F5 to slide show, you can be replaced with a HAL 9001! Besides, most people do not want to get a break from their computer screen to sit back and follow along with a projected version of yours.

PowerPoint is a modernized overhead- not cue cards! Ah, PowerPoint? How lovely art thou! Already one year past our legal drinking age, PowerPoint was derived from a product called Presenter developed by Forethought and sold to Microsoft before they created the Windows platform. As the story goes, this application was designed to replace the expense of making and sending high-quality 35mm slides between companies. Do you remember these slides? These projectors? And not to mention editing these when we made a mistake! PowerPoint today is a multimedia software application that can be used to present, make handouts/signage and even create self-running and interactive shows on the internet or via CD ROM. This is why presenters love this tool but some have mistaken PowerPoint for box of cue cards with taped on pictures. That is not exciting! During your presentation, it is fine to use PowerPoint to reinforce your point and objectives. Maybe you have the freedom to become Carrot Top but most of us are expected to use a PowerPoint throughout the presentation using either a linear or a pictorial wheel style to articulate and reinforce our information.

Do I use a Linear or Pictorial Wheel style? First, one must think outside of the application and discern which style best suits your audience. A linear presentation guides your presentation on screen with your main point, supporting bullets in multilevel fashion. This is the traditional style you may find yourself editing passed on from others. Ensure that you have no more than 6 bullets per slide, use no fonts smaller than 24 points, and no more than 2 font styles and font colors (if you can help it) per slide. Vary and simplify your slides by avoiding paragraphs or using bullet lists on every slide. Be frugal, consistent and creative with animations, slide transitions and especially sounds. Take advantage of movie clips, charts, tables and diagrams one slide at a time. You may also incorporate links to hidden slides, applications or websites to objects or sentences so that you can elaborate further on a topic according to your audience. A Pictorial Wheel style gets the audience away from just following a slide show. Using this style, you would make many slides that express only one point using pictures, movies or specific complex animations. Next, you would need to use slide sorter view, to create thumbnail buttons you can place on the first slide. During the presentation, you can simply click one of these thumbnail pictures that are cleverly linked to a matching hidden slide in your presentation and conveniently linked back to your first page of thumbnail buttons. You choose how to reinforce your points and can easily elaborate on others as it interests the audience. As you can see, this design could be very useful for sales people who do not always impress with "we will get to that." All presentation styles benefit from giving an outline handout but do not mistake this with a duplicate of the presentation. That's a complete spoiler! In either scenario, the idea is that you maintain your flexibility to give your presentation in an indispensable, memorable and flexible way that caters to your ever changing and diverse audiences.

Finding Confidence outside the ppt. file: Some final tips So why do we ever let the machine dominate us? Maybe we feel the need to get it right consistently, or over with swiftly, or pack in everything we thought our audience ever wanted to know. How many stars, how many reason, right? I repeat, step away from the PowerPoint and back away slowly! You need an outline, 2 lists, a PowerPoint and then, Practice! That is a real presentation. First phase, start in Word or on paper to make your points as noted above. Your presentation is about your audience, not you. Next phase, create 2 vital lists and then, your PowerPoint file. First list what Presentation tools can we use to reinforce the points to be covered? Consider time and group dynamics. Second list will include what will be needed to successfully deliver the overall presentation (ie. props, presentation space, printouts and projector/white boards, schedule of guest speaker, microphone, flash drive, laptop, etc.). Only if you have created this outline and these lists, may you now safely approach the red PowerPoint icon to discern which style will use to make a template or tweak the file you are given. Alas, you are preparing a real presentation and not just a PowerPoint ppt. file. Good job ...but you are not finished yet! For the final phase, there is no avoiding the need for live rehearsal, assembling of your props, running through your games or questions as well as having your associated handouts and demonstrations updated for that new audience. We can package this up in a folder but if we have not reviewed and updated our presentation, we will deliver like an out- of- date HAL 9000 and the audience will wonder where to trade us in!

So 'Dave', are you ready for your Presentation Odyssey? Astronauts have to be a bit smarter than gerbils to figure their way back to earth when the space flight has issues. Therefore remember that you are in charge and you need to get to know the mechanics of your PowerPoint software so that you can apply some of the tips mentioned here as well as reinforce your points by knowing your outline. Take a course on presentation skills and also take note of genius strategies you see used to engage a professional audience elsewhere. Be indispensable, flexible and memorable. That's good jazz. Have a nice flight!

Article Source: http://www.makeiteasymoneyonline.com/articles

Billy Gee is a Presentation and PowerPoint trainer at Training Connection - Los Angeles. Training Connection delivers business skills and computer training courses. Details on classes can be found at www.trainingconnection.com.

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