PowerPoint Success: Ellen Finkelstein

Make PowerPoint Enhance Your Presentation Don't be a PowerPoint Fool

Episode 202 (Ellen is based in Iowa)

In this conversation with Ellen Finkelstein we explore:

• Common mistakes to avoid when presenting with PowerPoint
• How to take a more productive approach to your presentation
• How your words, slides and delivery contribute to your success
• Why text on your slides stop people from listening
• How non-designers can create attractive slides
• The importance of practicing your presentation
• Your secret helpers - Text Pane and Presenter View
• Guidelines and tests for effective slide design
• How to fix boring slides

About our Guest Ellen Finkelstein:

She's a PowerPoint MVP and has been one since 2010. That's a Microsoft award and it stands for Most Valuable Professional. There are only 18 in the United States.

Ellen has been training and writing about PowerPoint since before 1999, including several books (written quite a while ago) and her PowerPoint Tip blog.

She isn't a designer so she loves to help non-designers create great PowerPoint slides that communicate clearly, command attention, and help the audience understand and remember the message.

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The Techniques that Will Make Designing Your Slides EASY!"

https://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/pptblog/getstarted/

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And so that's what how you have to write the content. And I do recommend doing that outside of PowerPoint and it's thinking about what you're saying.

So number two, I'll just go really quickly on the slide poor but everybody knows what death by PowerPoint is there's just lots and lots of text on a slide, slide after slide of text.

There's a fair amount of research that shows that we can't listen and look at the same time. That research is why there are some states that have laws against even being on the phone while you're you're listening to someone and talking to somebody while you're driving.

Okay, because you can't really listen and see at the same time, probably what the person is saying on the phone is a lot more interesting than what's in front of you.

So when you put up a slide with a lot of text, people start to read it, we're more visual, the part of the brain that that takes in visual information is much bigger than the part that takes an auditory information.

People read it, but they can read faster than you could speak. So they read ahead of you, they're not listening. And then when they're finished, they go back to listening to you. And they see that, oh, I've already read that.

So why should I pay attention to the speaker?

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That image should help people understand and remember what you are saying.

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I mentioned that presenters screen which functions a little bit like a teleprompter, and so the audience doesn't see it, you see your notes that you've put in the Text Pane, but they just see the slides.

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Never make text move. So don't make text fly in or fly up.

It's almost always annoying to the audience. Because as the text is flying in, they see it and trying to read it, but it's moving.

It gives people a headache. It's not nice to the audience to do that. So I would say I almost always use either appear or fade, if I'm using it on text, you know, it doesn't move at all.

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Your Intended Message is the podcast about how you can boost your career and business success by honing your communication skills. We’ll examine the aspects of how we communicate one-to-one, one to few and one to many – plus that important conversation, one to self.

In these interviews we will explore presentation skills, public speaking, conversation, persuasion, negotiation, sales conversations, marketing, team meetings, social media, branding, self talk and more.

 

Your host is George Torok

George is a specialist in communication skills. Especially presentation. He’s fascinated by the links between communication and influencing behaviors. He delivers training and coaching programs to help leaders and promising professionals deliver the intended message for greater success.

 

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