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FOR PRESENTERS:

Step 4: CREATE AND USE VISUALS

This is the last installment of visuals and their effectiveness. Take this short quiz and see how much information you remember from the last several Presentation Point bulletins. The answers are at the end of this bulletin. This is part of the quiz I use in my Creating Slides That Get Your Point Across seminar.

   Circle one or more depending on the correct answer(s).

1. The font size for bullet phrases on a slide should generally be no smaller than:

a. 24
b. 20
c. 18

2. When displaying numbers in charts and tables, the numbers should be in which font:

a. Arial
b. Times New Roman
c. Tahoma

3. An effective presentation has several slides with the same title:

a. Yes
b. No
c. Doesn't matter

4. For a dark blue background, the most appropriate color for the text is:

a. White
b. Gold
c. Green
d. Red

5. An appropriate text item would read:

a. The project deadline is March 2000.
b. Project deadline: March 2000
c. Based on past projections, we anticipate the project finished March 2000.

6. The animation appropriate for bringing text phrases onto the slide would be:

a. Wipe Right: The text wipes to the right as it comes on the slide.
b. Fly From Right: The text flies in from the right side of the slide.
c. Zoom In: The text zooms in from the center of the screen, starting small and getting bigger.

7. An agenda/objective slide is:

a. Very important
b. Somewhat important
c. Not important

8. Putting the key point of a chart or table on the slide is:

a. Very important
b. Somewhat important
c. Not important

FOR PRESENTERS:

SET YOURSELF UP TO RELAX

Jim gets out of the taxi and runs into the client's office. He arrives just in time to give his client an update on the project. He finished the slides in the taxi and is trying to remember what order he put them in. He hopes there are no mistakes. Sally is with him. Jim created a couple slides he wants her to present. She saw them for the first time in the taxi.

In this situation the concept of relaxing is out of the question. Both presenters are nervous-and they should be. They have barely seen the slides, let alone practiced speaking through them. Think about how you set yourself up to give a talk. Do you prepare enough? Are you so used to being rushed that you can't relax? Audiences need presenters that are calmly energized, not frenetically harried.

FOR DESIGNERS:
CREATING A PRESENTATION WITHIN A PRESENTATION

Recently participants in my seminars have been asking me how to show just a selection of slides in their talk. Let's say you're a technical person who has to give presentations to managers as well as technical audiences. You do have overview slides for the managers as well as detailed technical information for the specialists. BUT you don't want to have two separate presentations for each group.

Use the Custom Shows Feature. Here's how:

Go to Slide Show>Custom Shows. Click New. Set up a Custom Show with slides just for the managers.

How do you play just that show? When you are about to start the talk, go to Slide Show>Custom Shows and click on the Show you want to deliver.

I'd love to hear how you use this feature in your talks-let me know! I'm going to create some custom shows with my Ten Steps to Effective Presentations. I will have a short talk with only the ten slides that introduce each step. That way, if time gets short during a one-day seminar, the participants can see an overview of all the steps.

MONTHLY CHALLENGE:

PRESENTERS

Prepare and give a presentation being calm and relaxed during the whole process, from start to finish.

DESIGNERS
Tell the people you create presentations for about the Custom Shows feature.

My NEW WEB SITE

My new Web site is up and running! Take a look at www.wilderpresentations.com

What's new that I like:
You can now purchase my products on line.
You can see all the past Presentation Points bulletins.
You can see some of my past Presentations Magazine columns.
You can easily find what you want on the site. See the site map.

This month I feature Slides That Win, a new CD-ROM that shows you how to create professional presentation slides. You can see several examples of the CD slides on my site.

ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ

1) a
2) a & c
3) b
4) a & b
5) b
6) a
7) a
8) a

Presentation Points, written by Claudyne Wilder, usually comes out the first business week of each month. For more information, call 617-524-7172, e-mail claudyne@quik.com, or visit my Web site, www.wilderpresentations.com.

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 me to post Presentation Points on your company intranet.

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Copyright 2001, Claudyne Wilder. All rights reserved.