Category Archives: PowerPoint

My Interview with Indezine.com

My interview with Geetesh Bajaj of Indezine.com is up. 

While I only met Geetesh for the first time last year at Rick Altman’s Presentation Summit, I have long known him and his excellent site as the go-to resources for all things PowerPoint.

For years, you couldn’t hop on a PowerPoint message board or pose a challenging “how do I” question without Geetesh or Indezine.com making some sort of appearance. Additionally, Geetesh has authored or co-authored numerous books including Cutting Edge PowerPoint 2007 for Dummies and the PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit. 

So, definitely take a look at the site, and read the interview if you want to know what magicians and PowerPoint have in common…

 

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Categories: PowerPoint.

“A PowerPoint president would be bad for America.”

Ruth Marcus has a great criticism this week of Mitt Romney and his leadership style, explaining that “America does not need a PowerPoint president.” (Not addressed is whether New York State needs a PowerPoint Governor.)

Her feelings about political policy slideshows (and Romney) are fairly clear.

Check it out at The Washington Post.

And don’t forget to take a look at Romney’s healthcare PowerPoint presentation.

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Categories: PowerPoint.

InFocus “What Not to Present” Contest

InFocus, the projector people, is hosting a “What Not to Present” contest and is looking for the worst single presentation slide you’ve ever seen.

For more info and to enter via Twitter, go here. 

It didn’t take long for me to decide what my entry should be. No, it’s not the “How to Fix Afghanistan” monstrosity, or even one of Bill Gates’ old cringe-inducing slides.

For me, the worst slide is one that has led to more bad “PowerPoints” and bad presentation design than any other: Microsoft’s default template:

PowerPoint is the only software program that I know of that tells its user the type of content to insert in the default empty view. Word and Excel don’t tell you what kind of text or numbers to start with—they just give you blank pages. Photoshop doesn’t even specify the color of its blank page lest Adobe bias the user against using a hot pink background. But PowerPoint not so gently nudges you, exclaiming: Use a header and then bulleted text, dummy!

The reality is that PowerPoint is simply a container and a tool for almost any type of content, laid out in just about any way you like. If you wanted to, you could actually lay out the New York Times in PowerPoint. Sure, it would be difficult, but it’s possible. (Bonus points for anyone who knew that PowerPoint actually allows for columned paragraphs…) 

But this unfortunate default view has created “PowerPointThink” and a mindset of overly wordy slides with redundant or non-essential header bars and far, far too many slide-uments and PowerPoint train wrecks. By the way, if you think a slide needs a header bar, read this.

Of course, with a simple click, you can start with a completely blank template and let the world of possibilities await you. But simple clicks are time-consuming in the grand scheme of business. And the result has been decades of Death by Powerpoint. 

I’m anxious to see to the submissions InFocus receives!

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Categories: Design, PowerPoint, Reducing Text.

Video Editing with PowerPoint

 

Can PowerPoint be used as a video editor? Oh, yes…

Take a look at this great promo video by my friends at SOAP Presentations. Believe it or not, it was created 100% in PowerPoint…

Based in Brazil (but servicing clients world-wide), SOAP is one of the premiere presentation design firms. They have a large staff of writers, designers, producers—even a composer! They do great presentations in PowerPoint and also great video presentations. But for the latter, they’ve told me that at the end of the day, it’s just more time and cost-efficient to create their videos in PowerPoint. And I think the quality speaks for itself.

Glenn Millar at PowerPoint Workbench does a lot of video work in PowerPoint as well, really exploiting the program’s functionality. Take a look.

There have been a number of third party solutions for exporting PowerPoint to video, but PPT 2010 now exports directly to WMV format. Plus, the entire video handling has been overhauled in 2010, so if you’ve been frustrated in the past by broken links, flickering starts, limited control over playback and other issues, take a look at PPT 2010. It’s a huge leap forward.

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Categories: PowerPoint, Video.

Keep Your Presentations from Ending up on WikiLeaks

This past week brought news of another leaked PowerPoint presentation. The US Chamber of Commerce and Bank of America (the latter under threat of an embarrassing WikiLeak revelation about the company) hired private security firms to launch a counteroffensive against WikiLeaks and its supporters including sabotage, disinformation and general discredit the messenger type stuff. 

And, of course, with PowerPoint being the way businesses communicate, the group of security firms created a PowerPoint proposal to pitch their services.

There’s way more to the story including the fact that both the PowerPoint and thousands of emails from the security firms were hacked by Anonymous (doesn’t say much for the security firms’ security…), but the moral is that in the age of WikiLeaks and rapidly diminishing digital privacy, you probably want to think about securing your presentations. 

Here’s how:

#1 – Password Protect your PPT File

 

When you’re in the editing phase and need to keep your sensitive presentation in PowerPoint, add a password to the file—and, of course, do not distribute the password by email. 

  • In PPT 2010, go to File: Info: Protect Presentation: Encrypt with Password… and enter a password that will be needed for anyone to open and edit the presentation.
  • In PPT 2007, go to Windows Button: Prepare: Encrypt Document… 
  • On the Mac: Historically, Mac versions have provided no support for password security. PowerPoint 2011 allows you to open previously password-protected presentations, but currently the only way to implement security is the Microsoft Rights Management and restricting permissions.

#2 – Convert to PDF and Password Protect File

  • I always recommend converting PowerPoint files to PDFs before sending to clients or outside of their offices even if security is not an concern. But if the document is sensitive, Acrobat can also apply various levels of security requiring passwords for everything from opening to editing and printing. Unfortunately, adding this kind of security requires Acrobat Pro (not just Acrobat Reader). But if you’re working with sensitive files, you might want to drop a few bucks on Acrobat Pro… 

#3 – Encrypt via Zipped Folder 

  • If you’re still on Windows XP, you can apply password protection after you have zipped a presentation, but sadly, this functionality is gone in Windows 7. 
  • Turn to third party software such as SecureZip.

Of course, it goes without saying that any hacker group that can infiltrate governmental websites can probably also crack a Microsoft password, but if you’re not quite engaged in James Bond international intrigue, password protecting files is probably a smart thing to do to deal with the laptop left at a Starbucks…

Further PowerPoint Security Issues & Solutions

There are a few more ways that a PowerPoint file can get you into trouble. Here’s how to avoid them:

  • Remove Speaker Notes, Comments, Off-Slide Data: You might want to distribute your slides to others, but not your speaker notes or comments. You know, the ones that say “Client is being an idiot about this number. Just make them happy.” PowerPoint can wipe all of these (and a few other things) away for you with a few clicks. In PPT 2010, go to File: Info: Prepare For Sharing: Inspect Document… In PPT 2007, go to Windows Button: Prepare: Inspect Document… 
  • Avoid the Excel Data Surprise: When you copy and paste an excel chart into PowerPoint, you have options as to whether embed or link the data sheet or to paste as picture. In either of the first two cases, you might be surprised to learn that PowerPoint now has a connection not just to the chart data, but to the ENTIRE EXCEL FILE. What this means is that if you have a company salary data Excel file on your desktop (which you think is secure), but embed in PPT just a cumulative chart from that file, then anyone with access to the PPT file now has access to the entire salary data for your company. This has actually happened more than once, and it can be devastating. Imagine sending a client an embedded file with all of your markup information. The workaround is to paste as a picture (which I generally don’t like doing) or create a separate Excel file from which to link or embed.
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Categories: PDF, PowerPoint.

Governor PowerPoint

About 2pm yesterday afternoon I started getting emails… “Are you watching Cuomo? He’s using PowerPoint!”

Andrew Cuomo was inaugurated yesterday as the next Governor of New York, and he gave a State of the State address. His speech was certainly not on my radar, but I eventually watched it all (you can watch it here). And yes, he did indeed deliver a presentation filled with on screen slides.

It could very well be the first time PowerPoint was used for such an address.

So, how did he do? I give him a “B.”

I’m still not 100% decided as to whether PowerPoint was appropriate for the occasion, but what I do know is that from a purely presentational standpoint, he did a lot right. (And expect him to continue to get a lot of press on this one.)

THE GOOD 

  • The slides supported the well-scripted message he was delivering; they were not the presentation itself (remember, nobody comes to see your slides)
  • Template-less slide design (and no State of NY seal in the corner!)
  • One message per slide
  • Limited text
  • Strong, full screen imagery (mostly)
  • Speaker as focus: Cuomo faced front and never read his slides; he began and ended without slides.
  • Well-rehearsed: Cuomo used a stage manager, and the slides followed him.
  • Humor: He committed 100% to a silly animated battleship slide that garnered laughs while illustrating Albany political problems. Goofy? Yes. Sticky? Absolutely. This was his memorable moment.
  • Pacing: Cuomo used humor, visuals and special guests to vary the pace and keep the audience engaged 

THE BAD

  • Too much text: Some slides still had too much text and asked to be read, taking attention away from the speaker
  • Too many slides: Normally I’m agnostic about number of slides, but using 82 slides forced too much focus on the screens, instead of the speaker. Additionally, many slides that just displayed a textual talking point seemed extraneous.
  • Animation: It wasn’t horrendous, but just because you can animate on individual elements of a slide doesn’t mean you always should; the subtle entrance animations made this feel more “PowerPoint-y” than it needed to be.
  • PowerPoint chops: Very few would notice, but many animations could have been created more elegantly if the designer just knew some tricks…

THE UNDECIDED 

  •  Credibility: Is the use of slides befitting the very serious nature of the situation, speaker and content? Did it feel like a pharmaceutical sales meeting? Your thoughts? 

*   *   *

And since we’re talking political PowerPoint, it’s a good time to remind everyone of what PowerPoint might have enabled at Gettysburg…


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Categories: PowerPoint, Presenting Live.

The Education of Bill Gates

I finally saw Social Network over the Holiday break and took special note of a scene in which Bill Gates returns to Harvard to deliver a talk to an audience that includes Mark Zuckerberg—”the next Bill Gates.” It reminded me that in my seminar on presentation design, I come down pretty hard on Bill Gates as a presenter. The theme of my seminar is creating a contemporary and new style of presentation, not dated-looking “PowerPoints.” And just as I use Steve Jobs as an exemplar of good presenting and design, I use Bill Gates often as an example of bad, dated presentation design.

The problem is that my Bill Gates examples are largely 5-15 years old. Are my comparisons fair…?

You see, Bill Gates used to deliver some horrendous looking and ineffective “PowerPoints” while running Microsoft. His slides often looked like this.

The list of sins is lengthy: Jargon, little negative space, decoration instead of communication, poor use of imagery, death by bullet points, etc.

But is condemning Gates for these slides like condemning me for wearing parachute pants in high school? (No emails on this, please.)

So, I decided to take another look at what Gates has been up to lately with regard to presentation. I watched again his last two TED talks: the 2009 Malaria presentation and the2010 Energy Innovating to Zero talk. The 2009 talk is (in)famous in that Gates created a coup de presentation in releasing a jarful of mosquitos in the auditorium. That’s what people remember, and he should be lauded for creating such a memorable moment (that garnered great press). But watching the talk again, I saw too much old thinking on the screen. These are some of the slides from 2009…

While there is progress for Gates here (some full-screen imagery, one message per slide), the presentation suffers from chart junk, unclear data messaging and tiny type. The mosquitos rocked; the slides did not. They barely looked designed. Not that everyone should need a presentation designer, but you think Gates might have afforded himself the luxury…

But then I watched the 2010 talk which included slides such as these:

It seems that in the span of a single year, Bill Gates found religion. His 2010 slides are downright gorgeous. They’re simple, elegant, well-designed graphically and above all: clear. They tell a visual story instead of obfuscating it. This time, Gates’ memorable moment (“releasing” fire flies) was kind of a dud. But his slides kicked ass.

Bill has got a lot of catching up to do, but I’m glad to see that he has turned a corner.

So, will I continue making fun of him? Yes. Until he calls over to Redmond and makes the PowerPoint team fix the page numbering glitches…

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Categories: PowerPoint, Presenting Live.
visual training presentation