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10 Presentation Seminar Tips for PowerPoint

Ah, PowerPoint. How did we ever manage without it? It's become such a fundamental part of business life that the thought of getting up in front of an audience and not using it seems practically heretical.

Yet such is the ubiquity of PPT that more often than not it is either overused (i.e. used when it isn't really necessary), underused (i.e. users are not taking advantage of its more interesting functions) or, most commonly, misused (i.e. used in such a bad way that it detracts from the message the presenter is trying to convey).

Obviously how you use PowerPoint depends on what you're presenting, but you should always remember that it's there to complement/reinforce what you're saying, and to graphically display information in a format that makes it easy and quick to understand. If your slides aren't doing this, you're better off without them.

So to ensure that your slides do their job and contribute to an effective, impressive and memorable presentation, here are my 10 tips for better slideshows...

1. Looks ARE Important!

The best presentation in the world can be undone by ugly, badly-designed slides, so make sure your slides are aesthetically pleasing. A clean, simple design is best, and don't be afraid to leave plenty of empty space. Don't use garish colors and take care to ensure the background and font colors work well together.

2. The 30pt Rule

Presentation guru Guy Kawasaki (http://blog.guykawasaki.com) came up with this great idea - never use a font smaller than 30pt. Why? To ensure that you don't commit the worst PowerPoint sin of all and fill your slides with text. Remember, your slides are there to complement your talk, not replicate it - if you're just going to read from the slides, you may as well just send them to your audience by email!

3. Choose your Font with Care

Don't limit yourself to boring fonts like Times New Roman, Arial or Verdana - there are millions of fonts out there. Look at the standard Windows selection or visit a site like http://www.1001freefonts.com to find something different. An original, less common font adds impact to your slideshow and shows you've taken a bit of care to put it together. Whatever you choose, a clean, modern, sans serif font works best.

4. You're not Walt Disney

...so don't use too much animation! Varied slide transitions, moving pictures and text flying in from all angles are annoying, distracting and unprofessional. As with every aspect of your presentation, be consistent.

5. Emphasize!

The Emphasis function (found in Custom Animation) is one of PowerPoint’s best-kept secrets and when used effectively it can turn an adequate slideshow into a slick and impressive one. Making an important point stand out by changing its color or shrinking the surrounding text is easier and has more impact than using a laser pointer. But of course, as with animation, don't overdo it!

6. Use professional images

There are so many good free photographs and images available on the internet that there's no longer any excuse for using cheesy clipart. Google Image Search is a goldmine, and there are also some excellent free stock photo sites around, such as the superb stock.xchng (www.sxc.hu).

7. Give Everyone a Break

Embedding relevant video and/or audio in your slideshow gives you a break from speaking and gives your audience a break from listening to you and looking at your slides. It can be used to illustrate a particular topic, to play in the background while you all take a coffee break, or as a bit of light comic relief. http://www.youtube.com is a great source of videos and using a free FLV downloader it's simple to embed YouTube clips in your slides.

8. Secret Slides

Every good presenter knows the value of a Q&A session at the end of the presentation, and one way to really make your Q&A memorable is to use 'secret' slides. Anticipate the sort of questions you are likely to be asked (or 'plant' some prepared questions in advance), prepare some slides to illustrate your answers, and put them after your closing slide. Then when you are asked a relevant question, simply type the slide number and PPT will take you there. The audience will be impressed at the thoroughness of your presentation and your anticipation of their questions.

9. Turn it Off!

Many presenters use PowerPoint as a comfort blanket and would be lost without it, but unless you're extraordinarily handsome or beautiful, or have the charisma of Dean Martin, chances are your audience will spend more time looking at your slides than looking at and listening to you. Turning off your slides (mute your projector or just hit the 'b' key on your laptop - 'w' turns them back on) is a brilliant attention-grabber and ensures that people's attention is 100% focused on YOU. It can also be used to bring an unruly audience back to order!

10. Follow Up

People have short attention spans and within minutes of you switching off your projector, most of your audience will have forgotten most of your presentation. Help refresh their memory by turning your slideshow into a great follow-up tool. Save it as a .pps file and email it to the attendees or add it to your website as a download, or even better, record your presentation (provided it's not a 3-hour epic) and turn it into a podcast.

These are all techniques that regularly work for me, but type "PowerPoint tips" into Google and you'll find thousands more - let me know if you find any real gems!

Source: Tim Russell link

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