Watch Out When Using Excel Content!

I just read a blog post on Presentation Magazine where they asked several people for their best presentation tips.  There are 37 in total and number 25 is from Max McConnell, Division Director of Prompt Communications.   Max talks about embedding your excel spreadsheets into PowerPoint and the dangers of just cutting and pasting it.  Max suggests the following procedure.Edit->Paste Special and choose ‘Picture (Enhanced Metafile).  This places the excel data as a picture.  Failing to do this will transfer all the excel support files and you may be giving way too much information away.  It reminded me of a a true story. (more…)

Need an Elevator Speech . . . Going Up?

One of my recent posts, I discussed ways to use the introduction of the story format to be the basis for one’s elevator speech.  Being an member of LinkedIn, I thought I would pose the question, “In your opinion, what are the ingredients to a great elevator speech or 30 second info-mercial for a networking event?”

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Every story has three parts, a beginning, a middle and an end.  We can thank Aristotle for that concept.  As children we loved stories at bedtime and by the camp fire.  As adults, that love affair has not dwindled.  We love stories and it is an effective way of communication since humans have been using stories as a way of communicating for thousands of years.  Many people say that they can not tell good stories let alone write them.  This series of blogs on writing a script will be based on Cliff Atkinson’s “Beyond Bullet Points” book which I use with my work and think it is a very valuable tool for anyone who is serious about improving their presentation performance and effectiveness.  I strongly suggest you purchase the book and keep it close by as a reference tool. I will spend the next series of blog entries talking about the first part of the story telling process, the beginning.   The story script template can be found on Cliff’s blog.

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There is a relatively new presentation tool out there called Prezi.  It is a different way of organizing your thoughts for presentations and presenting them in an interactive format.  While Prezi is cool because it is different, it is not the solution for bad presentations as some have made it out to be.  I have read some blog posts saying it is impossible to be boring with Prezi.  My answer to that is never underestimate the human potential.

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What are the top three mistakes made when someone tries to raise venture capital?  I had a chance to sit in on a blog radio show hosted by Daisy Wright who is a career coach.  She had as her guest, Business Consultant & Venture Capital Expert Prerna Chandak of Lemonade Capital.

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PowerPoint is often used when making a presentation.  I have sat through hundreds of presentations at symposiums, meetings, forums and conferences and I see the same template themes come up.  I asked myself why people choose to use the standard templates offered by Microsoft and why wouldn’t they try to be a little more creative?  Is it due to lack of time, training or courage?

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This is an all-to-familiar scene in business today.  Mid level and upper management executives are being terminated.  Lets face it, it is not a pretty scenario out there.

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Conducting a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats) Analysis is a common marketing tool in business today.  A SWOT is often done annually during the planning exercises for the next fiscal year.

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You make several presentations to your department and to people in other departments of your company.  These type of presentations are difficult to prepare for because your meetings and presentations are often frequent, you do not have many resources for the preparation of your presentation and handouts and you don’t have a lot of time.  With time, money and assistance not available, how can you provide handouts of your presentation that will re-enforce your message?

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Many prophets of presentation design and skill speak about the horrors of adding text only to slides, word for word.  On top of that, there have been studies showing that reading the text off of a slide, word for word is not effective.  I tend to agree with this however every now and then someone comes along and breaks the rules with flair and brilliance.

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