How To Improve Your PowerPoint Presentations

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1. Step 1:

   Ok, let's get started. Hello and welcome to power points anonymous. I'm Doctor Don, your counselor and facilitator and remember there will be no last names, we are just here to support each other.

2. Step 2:

   Now everyday in the world, there are around three hundred million power point presentations given every day. Millions and millions of those are happening online just like this therapy session right here, and power point abuse is a horrible, horrible affliction that all of us in this session, right here, share. Now thanks to a tool like the WebEx meeting we can share desktops, we can chat and we can do some calling in order to support each other in having to beat our horrible, horrible power point addiction.

3. Step 3:

   Who would like to share first. I guess I'll go.Let me put up this slide first. Hi. I'm Peter and I'm a power point abuser. Anyway, I'm a CEO and i give many presentations. Here are some of my comments that I have received. Some people have said that I write everything on my slides and then I read my slides and I frequently turn away from the group and I show absolutely no personality.

4. Step 4:

   Peter, by any chance did you read that? I do not read my slides. This is my natural speaking voice and tempo. Besides, my staff says I'm an excellent speaker. Ok, well, thank you for sharing Peter.

5. Step 5:

   Group lets take a poll, when Peter speaks, who does he remind you of? A. George Bush. Stephen Hawking. Martin Luther King or a brick wall. I'm going to open up a poll. if you all enter your answers, A, B, C or d. Who does Peter remind you of. Here come the results. And, a brick wall! you've even voted for brick wall yourself, apparently you are not really familiar with how to use the device unless you really think you can speak like a brick wall. Really Peter, you don't want to read off your slides.

6. Step 6:

   I'm going to show you why we are going to close the poll and go back to my slides and I'll show you exactly what reading power points does. I'm going to inflict the same pain on you, that you have inflicted on others. Reading your power points. Many people tend to put every word they are going to say on their powerpoint slides. Although this eliminates the need to memorize your talk, ultimately this makes your slides crowded, wordy and boring. You will lose your audience's attention before you even reach the bottom of your first slide. We are killing people with this kind of stuff.

7. Step 7:

   Now Peter, does that seem clear to you? You can't speak without slides. can you Peter? Ok, that is so, so sad. Peter should use bullet points. I'm sorry. Who was that? Who spoke? Hi. I'm Bill and I'm a power point abuser. Hi Bill. Peter should use bullet points, that's what I do. That's an excellent point Bill. But there are some problems with bullet points. And let me show you, I have a slide showing this exact same thing. You should avoid excessive bullet-pointing. Only bullet key points. Too many bullet-points and your key messages will not stand out. In fact, the term "bullet-point" comes from people firing guns at annoying presenters. Do you see what I mean? That's a good point. Thank you.

8. Step 8:

   I'd like to go. Hi, my name is Stevie and I'm a power point abuser. Hi Stevie.I seem to have a problem with animations. Could you just calm it down, just a little bit, Stevie. Sorry. I can stop anytime I want to, really. I know what you are going through Stevie. You find yourself adding an animation or two, maybe a drop-down or a zoom in. Then another one, and you think wow this looks cool, and then you add another one and before you know it, it's 9 'o' clock at night and you've worked on the same slide all day long. You missed your family dinner, your kids are already in bed and you basically you have no life. Yes, this has happened to me as well. Been there, done that. It has happened to all of us, Stevie. The truth is, as this next chart will show, the animations really only help if you have a crowd that are visual learners, you are affecting this part well, but if you are easily distracted, people are not really paying attention to what you are saying, they are just watching the cool stuff flying around and there are regions by the way. There's the simple but effective, active but confusing region, effective but boring region, the active but ineffective, the dull but static, the busy but useless over there, the ADD region in the corner, the useful/amusing, the stupid/confusing, the dull triangle, the hyper triangle, the sleepy square, the dizzying pentagon and everything else we group into what we call pointless motion. Now the reason I shared this slide with this group is that this one slide took me two and a half weeks to make. See, I'm Don and I too am a power point abuser. Hi Don.Thank you group.

9. Step 9:

   It means a lot to me that you are there for me. I'd like to do a big WebEx group hug if he could right now. Thank you. I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today. Let's look at some final notes. We are going to meet at the same time next week, same WebEx meeting site. The topic next week will be, "the relationship between you, your mother and how that associates with slide transitions you choose". As always, go out, have a great day and remember if you are having problems with your powerpoint we are always here for you, you are not alone.

Thanks for watching our video How To Improve Your PowerPoint Presentations For more how to videos, expert advice, instructional tips, tricks, guides and tutorials on this subject, visit the topic Microsoft PowerPoint.