Dear PowerPointers,
I hope you are
constantly thinking of ways to improve the effectiveness of your PowerPoints, just as I am.
It’s a battle because it’s so time intensive, but the rewards to your students or
audience are worth it. They receive the benefits in their engagement,
attention, learning, and memory of your message.
CHOOSING A TEMPLATE
My latest PowerPoint
illustration is derived from one of my keynotes on the Net Generation. The
issue is using a basic template throughout your presentation. There are
thousands of FREE templates available, so none of this involves a nickel out of
your pocket.
The artistic configuration of your template can be a boon and bane
to your presentation. It provides an attractive image for text, bullet points, visuals,
graphics, and media, but it can also restrict the placement of that content in
the available space. Only you can weigh the pluses and minuses. You don’t want
the template to pull the focus of your audience away from the key content. It
should not distract.
WHAT'S THE POINT?
With that notion in
mind, once you have drafted the text, how can you add transitions, animations,
music, and videos to increase the impact of your message?
My RULE OF THUMB:
Keep asking yourself, “What’s the point of this slide? How does it contribute
to my message?”
Every element should have a purpose and contribute something UNIQUE to the effect of the slide. If you don’t know the
point of the slide, how’s your audience supposed to know? What should they
remember from what you say about each slide? Does the material on the slide
support your point?
ADDING MEDIA
This PowerPoint
(converted to video) contains only a few opening slides from a presentation. Consider
how the music, especially lyrics, animation, and video clip are used to make
several points about the Net Generation:
Click this link: "POWERPOINT GOES TO BROADWAY"
You can do this with your PowerPoint software and free templates. There are no tricks involved. This entire process can be done by YOU cost-free. Consider your templates without any animation or media; just dead words. Media can create the difference between an unforgettable and forgettable PowerPoint.
Let me know your reaction and thoughts.
COPYRIGHT © 2011 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
DISCLAIMER:
My suggestions in these blogs will blow the traditional PowerPoint recommendations to smithereens. Will I violate the rules? You bet. They will be shredded, ground into pulp, and smashed into PowerPoint road kill. (Note: I apologize for the violence in this disclaimer. Sometimes I get carried away.) For example, I tried the recommended traditional, one color slide-same font approaches. Guess what? The slides were as boring as the content on them. (Sidebar: As a former freelance photographer, I learned early on that if a picture doesn’t elicit some feeling [positive or negative] by the viewer, then it should be discarded as ineffective.)
NEW RULE FOR POWERPOINT: That rule should apply to our PowerPoint slides. Our audience should be emotionally involved in our presentation. That begins with the slides. A spiritless, unemotional reaction to our slides is totally unacceptable. If my strategy is making you nervous or you already started throwing up in this 1st paragraph, you might want to get a vomit bag or close this blog.
BERK'S GOAL: To arm you with the tools to create break-the-mold presentations, not create a moldy audience as they drift into a coma.
BERK'S AUDIENCE ASSUMPTIONS: I assume every audience to whom I present has better things to do with its valuable time than attend my session. The cynics and know-it-alls are thinking: “Tell me something I DON’T already know.” The students probably have the attention span of goat cheese and mentally operate at “twitch speed.”
THE CHALLENGE: Open the presentation with a bang and sustain that bang or you’ll lose them. It’s opening night on Broadway!
8. LETTER AND WORD MOVEMENT
Once your slide has landed from the transition above, below, sideways, diagonally, etc., the next step is to pump some life into the dead words. Custom Animation is the REEEAAL PowerPoint defibrillator.
a. Click Slide Show dropdown on top of screen.
b. Click Custom Animation.
c. With your slide in “normal view,” click the slide and your ready to go. The title and content are already typed on the slide.
d. In the right margin, Slide Effect will appear.
e. Be super-careful now. Once you click Slide Effect, you will enter a whole new world.
YIIIKES!! There it is: a dropdown with Entrance, Emphasis, Exit, and Motion Paths. The animation can be used with opening and closing slides, titles, bullet or numbered lists, and jokes. This blog will address the 1st two applications, the next blog will cover the last 2.
OPENING or CLOSING SLIDE: Many of you have seen my Star Wars parody opening to one of my presentations. It’s all animation in the words already on the slides (except for my light saber dual, which is Ron animated). There is movement from the 1st slide onward. The most dramatic is the scrolling up of the script into outer space, just like the movie opening. “How do you do that?” Piece of animation, my friends.
a. Click Entrance
b. Click More Effects at bottom of list
c. Notice categories of Basic, Subtle, Moderate, and Exciting (By now, you probably guessed that I live in “Exciting World.”)
d. Under Exciting World” click Credits—your words should immediately start moving up the page; it’s like the end credits of a TV program or movie
Ah ha! Mystery solved. You now know how to create the Star Wars scroll. Sounds like a dance. You can also use the Credits animation at the end of your presentation. I did that with all of the credit lines for the music in my presentation, but I was always cut off by the next presenter, director of the conference, or audience questions. I gave up on the closing credits. At least, we both know how to do it if the opportunity arises.
TITLE ON SLIDE: After your “blank” slide enters the screen with a transition, the next step is to add the title with movement. My section slides contain only the title for each section of content, such as Research on Humor & Laughter. Most all of the other slides have a title at the top and content below.
You can see the wide range of Entrance options. I recommend trying them all to see which ones you like. The Preview box below allows you to keep playing with them indefinitely. Some of my FAVES are: fly in, faded zoom, zoom, color typewriter, magnify, swivel, light speed, pinwheel, and whip. You can set the speed for all of these entrances and, for some, the direction, like fly in. The speed adjustment allows you to precisely time the title entrance with a music clip.
Hope you’re getting some new ideas from these blogs. We’ll continue this topic in my next blog with adding animation to bullet or number lists and, you shouldn’t be surprised, jokes in multiple-choice or top 10 format. Stick around for more fun and, just maybe, a little dab of information thrown in hither and yon, to and fro, and click and clack.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
DISCLAIMER:
My suggestions in these blogs will blow the traditional PowerPoint recommendations to smithereens. Will I violate the rules? You bet. They will be shredded, ground into pulp, and smashed into PowerPoint road kill. (Note: I apologize for the violence in this disclaimer. Sometimes I get carried away.) For example, I tried the recommended traditional, one color slide-same font approaches. Guess what? The slides were as boring as the content on them. (Sidebar: As a former freelance photographer, I learned early on that if a picture doesn’t elicit some feeling [positive or negative] by the viewer, then it should be discarded as ineffective.)
NEW RULE FOR POWERPOINT: That rule should apply to our PowerPoint slides. Our audience should be emotionally involved in our presentation. That begins with the slides. A spiritless, unemotional reaction to our slides is totally unacceptable. If my strategy is making you nervous or you already started throwing up in this 1st paragraph, you might want to get a vomit bag or close this blog.
BERK'S GOAL: To arm you with the tools to create break-the-mold presentations, not create a moldy audience as they drift into a coma.
BERK'S AUDIENCE ASSUMPTIONS: I assume every audience to whom I present has better things to do with its valuable time than attend my session. The cynics and know-it-alls are thinking: “Tell me something I DON’T already know.” The students probably have the attention span of goat cheese and mentally operate at “twitch speed.”
THE CHALLENGE: Open the presentation with a bang and sustain that bang or you’ll lose them. It’s opening night on Broadway!
9. SLIDE MOVEMENT
Dead words projected on a screen are almost like seeing them on a piece of paper. They don’t move; they just lie there like a piece of salami. Our goal is to create movement. “Why?” you ask. Because movement stimulates our eyeballs and brain. We’re not sure where the movement is going. That anticipation engages us, keeps us interested, at least, temporarily until we figure out what’s happening.
The 1st technique to create movement is to use Slide Transitions. They’re listed under the Slide Show dropdown. The transitions allow you to have your slides enter from different directions and speeds, plus have accompanying sound effects if you like. The choices are based on your artistic preferences. Experiment with all of the different effects and pick the ones you like best. Think of the effect each transition will have on your audience. Don’t overdo it. Too many transitions can make you dizzy. Try out your picks on a few colleagues or students. They’ll usually be brutally frank about your slides. That brutality is useful feedback before trying the slides at a conference.
BERK’S TRANSITION PICKS: I frequently use cover and uncover choices from different directions on slow speed so my audience can see the movement. I want to create the sensation of constant movement on the screen and with me (I am a moving target). If you pick "fast," the transition just flies by too fast. I’m also planning on continuing the movement with the heading and content on the slide. That’s the main focus for my audience. (Note: This strategy removes your audience from the image of the stereotypic talking head glued to a lectern with print-infested, immobile slides.)
The next blog will continue with techniques to add movement to words and letters. Are you having fun yet? This is the best part. You know your content. Playing with all of these options permits you to put your indelible mark and unique style on your presentation. I love trying all of the custom features available.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
