Category Archives: Showing Data

Financial Slides: The Presentation Podcast Episode #15

The Presentation Podcast

 

Episode #15, Financial Slides is live.

Sandy is off this week and pinch hitting for her is fellow PowerPoint MVP and good friend Dave Paradi of Think Outside the Slide. Dave trains companies all over the world on how to present better with an emphasis on financial and business data and numbers. The kind of thing you would expect from a presentation expert with an MBA. Dave has written numerous books on the subject, and publishes an annual survey on the greatest frustrations people have with financial presentations. (Spoiler alert: the two most mentioned words are “Confusing” and “Boring.”) Take a listen as we talk about financial decks.

Don’t forget to give us a rating on iTunes if you like the Podcast and want to help spread the word!

Subscribe on iTunes and check out the show notes for more info.

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Categories: PowerPoint, Showing Data.

Microsoft Wants Your Input on New Charts

 

As a Microsoft MVP, I’m often given access to pre-release feature and information about where software is headed, but as I’ve written about before, Microsoft legitimately wants the input of its users in shaping the direction of PowerPoint and Excel. If you have new feature requests, they are genuinely all ears via powerpoint.uservoice.com.

Charts Are Getting Overhauled

If you’re on Office 365, you hopefully have noticed the addition of 6 brand new charts such as Waterfall, Tree Map and Histogram. These charts are built on a brand new engine which you also may have noticed can cause some compatibility issues.

As Microsoft starts migrating ALL charts to this new engine (which will bring with it new technical and design features), there will come a day when backwards compatibility with earlier versions of Office gets sticky. But, Microsoft WANTS YOUR OPINION on how to handle this transition and some other things.

Now’s the time to let Microsoft know exactly how these developments will affect you and to let them know what decisions they should make through a 5-10 minute survey. If you work with charts all the time, I would definitely encourage you to take part!

START THE SURVEY HERE

And here’s the official Microsoft Privacy Statement regarding the survey.

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Categories: PowerPoint, Showing Data.

Consumer Reports and Y-Axis Shenanigans

There are many data visualization sins, but the one that makes my blood boil is manipulating the Y-axis. Fox News is the master at this, so often just deleting the Y-axis entirely to invent the data story that syncs with the network’s political narratives.

While Fox News generally is creating a story that isn’t there, usually when I see Y-axis shenanigans, it is to exaggerate a legitimate story. And generally, the story is a good one to begin with that doesn’t need exaggeration.

I was not been a big fan of the Consumer Reports redesign from a graphic design perspective, but it has slowly gotten a bit better. But the really need a stronger editor (and backbone) when it comes to data visualization. Your data tells a good story to begin with—there is no need to visually lie to your readers, as they did recently with these charts showing secondary market ticket prices. Because the length of the bars indicate value, distorting them is essentially telling an untruth to your audiences. (No, $22.58 is not one quarter as much as $36…)

ticket-prices1

Just being visually truthful doesn’t make your story less impactful. And if it does, then you need to get a better story! This would be a far more truthful design:

ticket-prices2

 

Or, since it is a trend, I would probably suggest a line chart:

ticket-prices3

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Categories: Information Design, Printed Information, Showing Data, Visual Thinking.

Upcoming Presentation Webinars

Upcoming Webinars

While most of my training continues to be onsite at clients, you can occasionally catch me online. And I have two upcoming webinars.

American Management Association – April 7, 2016

American Management Association

 

This Thursday, April 7, I will again be giving Creating Visual Presentations for the AMA.

This 90-minute session is an overview on how to become a better visual storyteller. We’ll cover proven strategies for reducing text, how to avoid the bullet point trap by using the “chunking” technique, how to harness the picture  superiority effect and basic graphic design layout principles to make your presentations look more professional.

For more information and to sign up, click here.

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Presentationxpert – April 13, 2016

The next is foPresentationxpertr my friends at Presentationxpert.com where this time I will be giving a free 1-hour session on Creating an Effective Presentation Story. Much of my training revolves around what to do after you have created a clear and compelling story, but now I’ll take some time to dive into all the things you need to do before you start burying your head in PowerPoint.

In the webinar, I’ll guide you through creating your own persuasive presentation structure step by step, and reveal each question that needs to be answered along the way. From the very first and most important determining piece of information (it’s not what you think…) to identifying your audience, creating singular messaging, calls to action, simple ideation techniques and easy outlining.

You’ll learn how to define your “Point A” and your “Point B,” how to write your presentation bumper sticker and how to use certain PowerPoint tools to your advantage to stay organized.

I’ll even discuss what makes good a header and how to avoid jargon and business-speak.

Sign up for free here!

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Categories: Design, Showing Data, Storytelling, Visual Thinking.
visual training presentation