Lighten Up, Francis - Loosen Up That PowerPoint
Ok, the next post will be my Best Practice hints on everybody's favorite insomnia cure - Corporate Presentations! But first, something fun - because I got a really good reaction on my latest attempt at lightening up the boring PowerPoint routine.
Click on the picture for a full-size image!
In the presentation, this was my segue slide from slides to a live demonstration of some software. Everybody recognizes it in an instant, but I made some pretense to leave it up on the screen, so they could see the embedded wit (sic) in the text.
<aside> The green looks like heck on this image; but the actual slide looks great. It was surprisingly easy to put together, using standard fonts that came with Windows. I've stashed a copy of all of these slides on my source code page, and here's a link to the PPT file </aside>
Side note: I saw this post later in the week - same idea, no "source code", swear to goodness I came up with mine before I saw this ... still funny, tho ...
I don't like to go for the belly laugh, just something that makes folks know they should pay attention a bit when I'm presenting; I'm not just reading bullet points. Another element of my personal style is to put graphics up that have a multi-step, obtuse connection to the slide content.
- The agenda slide with the picture of a recycling bin (because I copied slides from other presentations)
- Making a point about the power of following process, with a picture of Archimedes (with a lever and the right place to stand ...)
- A long laundry list of ToDos, with a big bee in the background (a carpenter bee, of course ... Karen Carpenter ... We've Only Just Begun ...)
Ok, fine, that last one did get a groan - but only because my teams are used to this stuff, and they are asking about these offhand references I'm throwing out there. Which means, of course, that I'm succeeding - by keeping people engaged and paying attention!
I can also embed fairly subtle hints about areas of technology and current IT and business thinking - try throwing this little graphic on a slide, and see who reacts ...
Click on the picture for a full-size image!
Finally, a little fun with a new passion of mine - I wanted to indicate an opening and closing section for questions, comments, suggestions ...
Click on the picture for a full-size image!
Viva Chivas!
Labels: presentations
posted by James P. MacLennan at 9:13 PM
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