Public Speaking for Geeks

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Here are two powerful tips for making more effective use of PowerPoint when you use it to support your presentations -

1. Presenter’s View – PowerPoint has had a Presenter’s View for several years. The PowerPoint Development team has improved this tool a great deal in PowerPoint 2007. Here is how this feature is described at Office Online

 

You can use thumbnails to select slides out of sequence and create a customized presentation for your audience.

Preview text shows you what your next click will add to the screen, such as a new slide or the next bullet in a list.

Speaker’s notes are shown in large, clear type so that you can use them as a script for your presentation.

You can darken or lighten the screen during your presentation and then resume where you left off. For example, you might not want to display the slide content during a break or a question and answer (Q and A) period.

 



 

This can be a very useful feature. Many speakers swear by this feature. Despite the ability to see your slides notes and upcoming slides, it is very important that you do not use this feature to increase your dependency on PowerPoint as a crutch.

 

2.  ZoomIt -Zoomit is a fantastic tool for use with slide presentation, especially when you need to zoom into visuals, screen shots, videos, or demos. The developer, Mark Russinovich (of Sysinternals fame for those in the computer industry) describes ZoomIt like this -

ZoomIt is screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations that include application demonstrations. ZoomIt runs unobtrusively in the tray and activates with customizable hotkeys to zoom in on an area of the screen, move around while zoomed, and draw on the zoomed image. I wrote ZoomIt to fit my specific needs and use it in all my presentations.

ZoomIt works on all versions of Windows and you can use pen input for ZoomIt drawing on tablet PCs.

I found a great ZoomIt overview video on YouTube. This video is made by Alik Levin at PracticeThis.

If you have any great power tips for PowerPoint, please post them in the comments or sent me an email form the Contact page above.

Chuck Frey over at the Mind Mapping Software Blog recently posted the "8 Best Ways to Improve Your Mind Maps".

 

1. Use a master map

2. Stick to one map, one purpose.

3. Use icons in your maps.

4. Optimize the content of your maps.

5. Avoid clutter and unnecessary detail in your maps.

6. Consistency is critical.

7. Leverage the power of images.

8. Consider creating a personal dashboard map.

 

 As I stated in the previous post of "The Secret to Creative Presentations", mind maps are a great way to create a more useful structure AND increase your creativity while creating content for a presentation.