FREE! E-Newsletter Presentations Points is a free short monthly bulletin sent out by Claudyne Wilder. Every bulletin discusses two ideas for presenters and one for designers. There's also a monthly challenge for presenters and designers. Subscribe Now August 2003 Your Presentation Success Is Our Passion Present It Right...The First Time! A QUICK SURVEY-please answer and I'll tell you the results next month. 1. How many PowerPoint Presentations do you do a month, on average? 2. How many total hours does it typically take you to develop, design and practice delivering one such PowerPoint presentation? 3. In hours, how much time do you spend for that one PowerPoint presentation: Developing the presentation: identifying the objective, planning what content to include, creating the story line. Designing the PowerPoint slides. Rehearsing out loud just like you plan on giving it. 4. What important tools could your company provide to help you save time preparing a presentation? 5. With improved tools how much time, in hours, do you think you could save in: Developing the presentation. Designing the PowerPoint slides. Rehearsing. WINNING PRESENTATIONS PUBLIC SEMINARS Goal: Learn how to develop, design, and deliver a persuasive, results-oriented presentation. Testimonials from the last seminar: "Claudyne customized her recommendations for each individual." "This is the best, absolute best training I have attended." Dates: September 24 and 25, 2003 Location: Boston by the Fleet Center Time: 9 to 5 Cost: $650, with a money-back guarantee For a seminar outline click here or e-mail me at claudyne@wilderpresentations.com When you refer someone who comes to my seminar, you'll receive a free book or CD. If you already have those, I'll give you some slide design ideas you can use. FOR THE AUDIENCE: RESPECT THE PRESENTER This month, rather than talking how to present, I'm going to talk about how to be an audience member. As those of you who present know, the audience can make a big difference in how you feel about your presentation and its success. Look interested: For those of us who are visually oriented, there is nothing worse than seeing someone in the audience stare into space rather than looking at you. When you are in the audience, look at the presenter. Nod your head if you agree. Give the presenter some sign that you are paying attention. Even if you raise your hand and disagree, that tells the presenter that you are engaged enough in the content to want to discuss a particular item. Managers-Don't interrupt: I hear so many stories about managers who feel it is their prerogative to interrupt an employee and add their own comments to what is being said. If it is not crucial to the topic, be quiet. Let your employee shine and make the points. Don't go up to the front of the room and start answering questions. Remain seated and let the presenter answer them. If you stand up and talk, you destroy that person's credibility with the audience and appear to be taking over the session. Colleagues-Don't Contradict: Judy was presenting at a customer conference. As she was talking about a particular system, a colleague stood up and said, "That is wrong." Unless it is absolutely crucial, don't put down a colleague in front of an audience. If someone is rude enough to contradict you, you might want to say, "Sounds like we have different information. Let's talk after this session." Then turn to the audience and say, "For now, let's go with the data I gave you. If it is different I'll get back to all of you." You keep your credibility. You don't put down the person rude enough to make you look incompetent in front of an audience. You establish that you will decide which data is correct. Let the person present: So many people start asking questions just as the presenter starts. Give the person time to make his or her points before you ask. Don't be impatient and ruin the flow of someone's talk. What is most important as an audience member is that you support the presenter. Pay attention. Do not say something that will make the person look incompetent. And finally, ask intelligent questions. FOR PRESENTERS: IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM You want to share the problem that you believe is causing a situation. To identify a problem: State what you want to happen versus what is actually happening. Specify the items happening that are the same. Specify the items that changed about the time the problem started. Suggest the underlying problem. Present potential solutions. Recommend next steps. HERE'S A FUN EXAMPLE State what I want to happen versus what is actually happening. I want to be able to get my e-mail. At the moment I cannot. I can't get DSL or my dial-up. Specify the items happening that are the same. My phone works. My computer works. The air conditioner in my office works. My Palm connection works.   Specify the items that changed about the time the problem started. The electricity went out. The cat was wandering around behind my desk.   Suggest the underlying problem. May be a loose connection.   Present potential solutions. Check all the wires under my computer. Call DSL and ask if the system is down. Reboot my computer.   Recommend next steps. Check the wires going into my box. I did, and they were loose. Either they came loose or my cat did it. DESIGNERS POWERPOINT 2002 SLIDE MASTER One of the best features in 2002 is that you can have more than one slide background look in a single presentation. When do you need more than one slide look? Charts look better on a simple background. Tables show off better on a clear background. First, be sure you like the slide master you have. Then, create a couple of other background looks. In your original slide master, go to Format to Font to change the text box color, font, and size. Whatever is in this box will be the default for the A text box in the draw toolbar. Second, decide what other slide master looks you want. Go to View>Slide Master. Then go to Insert>Duplicate Slide Master. When you duplicate the slide master, you don't have to start from scratch to create all the fonts and titles that were set in the original slide master. Don't do Insert New Slide Master: you will have to format it all over again to match your original slide master. Every title master is paired with an existing slide master. Preserve Master means that the slide master won't automatically be deleted if no slides in that file are in that master look. This is an important step to do. PowerPoint 2002 is a wonderful book by Ellen Finkelstein.Go to http://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/about.html MONTHLY CHALLENGE AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Be a wonderful, interested audience member. DESIGNERS: Check out PowerPoint 2002. NEW SERVICES: CRISP AND FOCUSED SLIDES WITH IMPACT! Captivate your audience! Whether your presentation slides need critique, design, or a makeover, Wilder Presentations can now offer you all these services. To see our new services click here. DRESS COMMENTS FROM OUR READERS My July column on dressing the part generated a lot of responses. Here are two of them. When All Presenters Dress the Same... I couldn't help but remember a very funny presentation experience when reading your "Dress the Part" column. At a large company I used to work for, the Vice President was a Stanford man, and known to commonly dress in Dockers (always freshly pressed), button-down blue-and-white-striped shirt (again freshly pressed), and Italian leather loafers. At a division meeting, he stood up and gave his presentation, then I watched with GREAT amusement as the next THREE presenters (all men, working directly under this individual) proceeded to present wearing EXACTLY the same thing. The colors of the Dockers were slightly varied, as were the size of the strips on the shirt; the footwear was hidden from my view, but I have no doubt the leather loafers were not far behind. At first I thought this was a planned joke, but upon mentioning it to one of the junior presenters he blanched in horror. For some reason, what is considered a sin with women (wearing the same clothes as someone else) is just what the boys do naturally! -Cathy Belleville PS: Within two years, two of the three juniors were promoted to VP level. www.bitbetter.com How Students Dress: From Bad to Worse Great stuff, but you didn't go far enough. I teach engineering undergraduates to do technical presentations, and you would not believe some of the things I have seen (things have gotten worse in the past year or so, but I don't know why). I do tell them that it is so important to "dress for success" and that people do judge them-rightly or wrongly-by they way they look. But I still get this: A young woman doing a presentation stepped in front of the screen and each time she opened her mouth, her tongue stud reflected the light right back at the audience. I don't think anyone heard what she said. Several young women spent a great deal of time during their presentations pulling their jeans up, futilely trying to cover their midriffs. Another bent over to demonstrate something and we all got to see her purple thong underwear. None of the men in the audience heard anything she said. Another woman presented with her naval and most of her breasts exposed. A young man wore pants and a shirt that were so badly wrinkled he looked like a rhino. Others wear "high-fashion" jeans that have big holes in the knees, thighs, or ass. One wore these huge baggy jeans that hung so low that 4-5 inches of his undershorts were showing and the cuffs were entirely worn away. Another young man wore a baseball cap that was so old, dirty, and torn that, when I asked him to remove it, he told me he couldn't because it would surely fall apart if he did. I've had others who took off their baseball caps and their hair was so dirty and disheveled that I wished they'd kept them on. Finally, I had a student who had so many piercings showing that I couldn't look at him. I am one of those people who get a bit queasy when I see sharp objects penetrating flesh. So, I talked to him all semester long with my hand shielding my eyes. I have decided that I have had enough of this and that I am not doing them any favors by letting them dress this way. I believe in an individual's right to look and dress as he or she chooses, but these young people need to know that they have to look like professionals if they want people to take them seriously. I intend to add a dress code-probably based on business casual-to the requirements for a successful presentation this fall, and I will reduce the grade of any student who doesn't look like a professional. I still use your Presentations Kit as the text for my course after 11 years of teaching; even though I have written my own supplement on technical presentations, it's still the best one out there. Steven B. Zwickel EPD College of Engineering University of Wisconsin-Madison Senior Lecturer: Technical Communication Program BEFORE AND AFTER EXAMPLES from my interactive CD-ROM "SLIDES THAT WIN!" Presentation Points may be forwarded via e-mail, printed for circulation, and quoted FREE of charge. No permission is required, but please mention where you got this information. It’s also perfectly acceptable to post Presentation Points on your company’s Intranet. To subscribe to Presentation Points or visit my home page, go to www.wilderpresentations.com.