May 28 2009

Seven Tips for Using Analogies in PowerPoint Presentations

I used this baseball analogy in Japan. Go Ichiro!

I used this baseball analogy in Japan. Go Ichiro!

When you’re presenting a complex or unfamiliar concept, an analogy can be a very effective communication tool. An analogy draws connections between something unfamiliar and something well-known – e.g., web governance (complex / unfamiliar) and baseball (straightforward / familiar). Continue reading “Seven Tips for Using Analogies in PowerPoint Presentations”

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May 16 2009

PowerPoint 2007: Recent Documents and Push Pins

Push pins in PowerPoint 2007 can be time savers

Push pins in PowerPoint 2007 can be time savers (c) iStockPhoto/Talaj

If you work with multiple PowerPoint presentations each week, it can be difficult to quickly find key presentations when you need them at a moment’s notice. I’m frequently reviewing other people’s PowerPoint slides and going back and forth between several of my own presentations. There are a couple of new features in PowerPoint 2007 that can benefit heavy PowerPoint users and save you time. Continue reading “PowerPoint 2007: Recent Documents and Push Pins”

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May 09 2009

Password Protect Your PowerPoint Slides

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The Dharma Initiative might want to mix up their passwords for their top secret PPT presentations.

If you share your PowerPoint slides with other people inside or outside your organization, you may want to control or lock your slides so that they can only be viewed or edited by select people.

Nothing can be more painful than seeing your carefully designed PowerPoint presentation being butchered by random individuals within your company. PowerPoint provides a couple of options to control what happens to your slides after you’ve built them. Continue reading “Password Protect Your PowerPoint Slides”

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May 02 2009

How to Reduce and Simplify Bullet Points in PowerPoint

Bullet points illogical?

Long bullet points illogical?

How many times have you been cramming to prepare a PowerPoint presentation and it dawns on you that the bullet points in your slides are way too text heavy? It is very common for people to “brain dump” all of their ideas or thoughts into “stream of consciousness” bullet points as they create slides.

However, this creative technique becomes a problem when you fail to revisit your bullet points and simplify them so that your audience isn’t staring at a wall of text. It can be challenging to reduce and simplify what you wrote — but it needs to be done. Continue reading “How to Reduce and Simplify Bullet Points in PowerPoint”

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