Stop Abusing PowerPoint! with Valary Oleinik

📷PowerPoint is one of the easiest applications to use. Start a new presentation and the program actually instructs you on how to make a “presentation.”

Join Valary Oleinik as we discuss how to stop abusing PowerPoint, what it takes to make a presentation pop and how to take your slide deck to another level (even if you have no design skills).

Speed Geeking: PowerPoint Edition with Alan Natachu

📷Speed Geeking (verb): Intense demonstrations of technology, software, ideas, etc; with demonstrations lasting 1 to 3 minutes.

PowerPoint (noun): Microsoft’s much loved or hated presentation program.

Alan Natachu will speed geek his way through a minimum of 30 tips and tricks of all things PowerPoint. Some tips will help you enhance your presentations. Some tricks will help you unlock the potential of PowerPoint. All these tips and tricks will make you look like a PowerPoint ninja!

Audiences Are People Too with Sandra Johnson

📷I “grew up” in the marketing and advertising world. For each project we carefully analyzed the target audience in an effort to create relevant and effective materials that connect with them emotionally and compel them to act. We leveraged information using market research, demographics and psychographies. That strategic approach to communications has served me well in my PowerPoint presentation design business.

And that’s why I always ask my clients to help me understand the audience(s) who will be receiving their presentation. Not surprisingly the audiences vary. They vary by age. They vary by profession. They vary by primary language. The differences are endless.

‘Good stuff to know — the differences.

But understanding what each member of your target audience(s) has in common with another, is what I believe makes for a better presentation. It’s understanding that each and every member of an audience is a human being (well, for the presentations I create, anyway). It’s understanding that human beings learn in very specific ways and that a 50-slide PowerPoint presentation stuffed full of paragraph-length bullet points and chart junk (God love ya, Mr.Tufte) does not facilitate learning.

Creating a memorable presentation facilitates learning. Now, I’m not talking about the goose-bumpy, aw-inspiring, keynote type of memorable (which is always a nice touch; right? but not everyone is capable of  delivering that sort of presentation). I mean, a presentation from which people, mere humans, can remember what was said.

The Powerpoint Playlist