Easy courses on the main functions of PowerPoint

Easy PDF courses on the main functions of PowerPoint

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What is Powerpoint?

In this post, we are going to answer questions beyond what is Powerpoint. Further, we will deal with what exactly you should have in your PowerPoint presentation ecosystem. As was said in our last post, we are not trying to lock you into a particular style of presentation. We discovered many years ago, presentations are as unique as the individual however; the issue becomes diverse people trying to lump themselves all together with one PowerPoint presentation style.

With that said, the presentation ecosystem consists mainly of three over-arching disciplines

• Messaging
• Delivery
• visual story

First we are going to deal with messaging. Too often, a presenter will isolate themselves into a tiny room whether it be a physical or a mental room, and take on the belief that this is my presentation and I have to do it alone. As you can see, there is no team and a lot of me! I will not argue that there is a place for isolationism within creating power points however, what I will argue against, is that a whole presentation doesn’t have to be brainstorm, created and delivered by one person. The beautiful thing about Powerpoint, although rarely spoken of, is that they or a part of the Web 2.0 environment. This allows the presenter to take on a collaborative mindset as they prepare for their grand presentation! Although we do not believe in clichés, the word ‘collaborative environment’ is here to stay! As messaging is concerned, there are some things to consider.

Those things are, but may not be limited to;

• audience
• ideas
• writing
• critique

To deliver an effective message that your audience will hold on to long after they leave, these components, in a chronological manner anyway, must be taken into consideration. A great example is a presentation we made to the AGRM in San Diego California not long ago. This audience’s need, being all nonprofits, was fund raising. The question that each attendee was: how can I raise more funds to feed the homeless and poor? How much is this going to cost? How can I fund raise more efficiently with the resources we already have? Truthfully, all of these organizational leaders, being from all over the country, were locked into a mindset of “what we are doing NOW is fine.”

This conference presentation seemed particularly difficult for the following reasons;

• Everyone in the room was in their mid-50s - this wasn't a problem in itself however, trying to communicate something, no matter how effective the PowerPoint, to people who refuse to see the future presents a whole other level of challenges.
• Most refuse to see beyond Microsoft Outlook e-mail program - what we discovered was that none of these organizational leaders were preparing their organizations for the next generation.
• The social media paradigm extended no further than Facebook - except for setting up a Facebook profile, most had no idea that there were huge implications for the future of their organizations, beyond that!

Having gathered intelligence on the demographics of the room before arrival, it was understood that we had to present a PowerPoint that dealt with such a limited mindset. The way we did this, was from an old-school, Yellow Pages paradigm. This generation was born into the Yellow Pages so we approached search engine marketing from this very paradigm. Having not done so, this presentation would've flopped! Remember, your audiences needs have to be addressed in a way they understand so gather intelligence before you ever arrive.

The second part of this presentation was delivery. We understood instinctively, that a rhythmic delivery was important. Knowing that anything beyond Microsoft Outlook and setting up a Facebook profile overwhelmed these attendees, the delivery had to be at its most basic. Last but certainly not least, is the visual story. We thought it wise to create a presentation that was very image intense as opposed to text intense.

The bulk of our presentation expressed images in chronological flow that provided the Nexus, or ‘meeting point’, to bring the entire story of fundraising from search engine marketing perspective, together. All we are trying to point out is that you have to focus on message, delivery and the visual story. This is going to take collaboration. If you are a one woman or a one-man operation, seek the advice of friends, relatives, colleagues, or other small business owners. To forsake this, is to prepare for disastrous results.

Over the years, we have watched the progress of an organization called Feed the Children. This organization fund raises to feed starving children all over the world. What we've noticed about the way they present a message is that over the years, it hasn't changed! Amazingly, with the advent of 3-D graphics, interactive television commercials, HD video and other, this message has remained remarkably consistent. They hammer home five key points, no matter how long they commercial:

• Children are sick and dying
• They don't have enough food to survive
• Parents are unable to care for them
• The viewer has enough money to help
• Good people do good deeds

This message was so effective that one of our employees, who lived in Australia, heard a local bragging about giving $10 a month to feed a hungry child! What this has to do with presentation and the creating them is this: it doesn't take world class technology or graphics to communicate an effective message. Feed the Children has gotten fund raising by communicating an effective message largely images and call to action, down to an exact science. Why don't you? I can just hear the tons of excuses from some of our readers right now. When you take the necessary time in creating great slides, what you will find is creating a cohesive message may not necessarily have to be changed over time.

The core of your presentation, being the heart of a great message, should rarely change and only adapt to penetrate growth market opportunities. What is most profound about Feed the Children is whoever the spokesperson, they use lots of words but it is the intensity of images showing starving children is what everyone remembers. Seriously, can any recall more than a few sentences Feed the Children spokespeople say? No! It is a sure bet that most who’ve seen these commercials, can describe how impactful they are.

Let images do the talking, presenting and call text can finish the call to action which began with pictures. As for-profit corporations go, someone who has built a strong company first based on great products, but also an image, is Apple. Never has the image of a piece of fruit communicated such a powerful brand message. Although very simple, Apple was able, and continues to be, the standard bearer for one of the oldest fruits on Earth. What image communicates your product, business or service and can be used to define your presentation? If you believe it’s your logo and have thus far failed to define your market with it, you might want to revisit the design. You don't have to be a great designer to have great design inspiration!

All it takes is spending the time meditating on what you’re trying to communicate. A great place to find how design is incorporated into a company or individuals value system is Slideshare.net. It's easy to tell by viewing multiple Powerpoints how seriously a company takes product design. Yes, we said product design! Great companies view presenting their message as seriously as designing the logo. Other design oriented firms like Target, Procter & Gamble or Dyson take seriously every facet of product presentation.

Awesome design packaging is just the end result of well thought out processes so it is easy to tell that imaging is a core value. In doing so, it becomes further obvious these company's value customer perception. When we think about design, at its core, it is about problem solving. Your presentation must solve a problem everyone who views it has. This problem can be one-time questions, purchase decisions or even a profound revelation sought. Whatever the problem turns out to be, from squeezing an orange to communicating more effectively with employees, the opportunity is great to immediately create trusting relationships. Part of succeeding as a presenter is simply thinking like a designer. When you get into the design mold and understand that text, shapes, diagrams and backgrounds must form a symbiosis to hammer home your message.

Gathering Assets for Powerpoint

We believe it is important to not just talk about hiring a Powerpoint designer, but also how to aggregate assets on their creation. With aggregating assets, the following questions need to be asked and answered:

• What will most thoroughly communicate the message I am trying to give?
• What design assets do currently have to contribute?
• Where are the assets located on the web? Where can I find images, audio or video for insert?

Although many more questions could be asked and hopefully answered, these are most important from a design perspective. This isn't to say design is more important than message but design and message must come together in to form a Nexus that puts forth a long-lasting and impacting message.

While looking at competitors business slides, we’ve noticed a popular website known to many. After inspecting their offerings, we would like to give them HUGE PROPS because there is one thing that they do well above any other. This company brings a new 3-D-based design style to a market starving for something new. With that said, one thing that we do not like and the reason we felt it necessary to take PowerPoint avatar design images to another level, is all assets they offer are too repetitive through all presentation offerings. There is a place within brand messaging when this is necessary. However, variety is also necessary when looking at slides from a customer based mindset. Are colors the key basis for variety? Can it be said that using the same shapes or other assets in different presentations brings variety?

The answer to both questions is an emphatic NO! Our greatest fear is that tens of thousands of potential customers arrive here and feel that they are FORCED, through like of PPT prowess, to choose something which is perfectly unique to their personal tastes. Such decisions are made when lack of variety is perceived. With billions of people on the planet and certainly as many different tastes in design, and although we can’t address every need, our goal is to bring enough variety that many of our customers don't purchase out of shear desperation. Any business owner can tell you when a customer feels as if they have to choose due to immediate need as opposed to genuine love of product or service, this is a recipe a high bounce rate.

Bounce rates are essentially customers that come to your website, scan it for no more than 8 to 15 seconds and decide whether or not to stay. Having scanned the website and decide their keyword need wasn’t properly met; they will leave and thereby, increase a site’s bounce rate.

As late as 2003 there was a monopoly on office applications and the dominant player with in that market was Microsoft Corporation. Around 2005, and although not a new movement, open source applications started to gain a foothold in the market. For those of you who don't know what open source software is, it is software which cost very little. Its code is open to public and/or cooperative development. The term ‘cooperative development’ is a better way of saying collaborative environment. A very real competitor and certainly anti-Microsoft product which is an open source application can be found at OpenOffice.org. When you go to this site, you will find compatible, Windows-based software for no charge.

For the small business owner and entrepreneur, this is a dream come true! If you are just starting your business and bootstrapping budget, would you choose to pay $199 (Microsoft Office) or download free, compatible software which meets the immediate need? We digress. Whatever software you choose, be it paid or free, understand that even the greatest software cannot overcome aggregating the wrong assets attempting to communicate your message. We will give an example of assets that are inappropriate for message communication. Imagine you were working for the organization known as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Knowing one of their organizational objectives is protecting against the slaughter of animals, you decided to use an image of a woman in a fur coat.