m62 took a short visual presentation of medium complexity and playtested three software packages that convert presentations into Flash™ animations (that can be integrated into a webpage or blog, or distributed without fear of versioning issues on different machines). Here’s what happened.

Articulate Presenter ‘09 – Compatible with Windows XP, Vista, Windows7, tested with PowerPoint 2003 and PowerPoint 2007

Articulate’s offering markets itself as an e-learning material creation tool. It offers a range of publishing options; Flash presentation for Web, a Word document of slide snapshots and speaker notes, self-running CD, or an audio-only podcast. Since we’re in the visual communications business, we have foregone the podcast and handout functionality here.

Installation is simple, embedding an Articulate submenu right into the PowerPoint window (easier to navigate in PPT 2007 which creates a new ribbon of buttons,  than in 2003 which drops down a list, but it’s still pretty intuitive to see what’s on offer). Before converting you can record narrative onto the slides (in a separate preview window), and then afterwards tweak the timings if you’re not happy with them. If you’ve ever used PowerPoint’s own narrative recorder this new interface takes a bit of getting used to. Narration is recorded a slide at a time, and requires clicking on separate buttons to advance the animations and slides rather than just clicking the mouse or keyboard continuously to proceed, as comes naturally.

Audio/video quality options are not available at this stage and are instead confined to a separate submenu, which makes creating or amending a voiceover quick to get into. More confident users (actually, perhaps that should be ‘less confident’…) can even open up an impressive audio wave editor that allows you to trim out all those pauses, coughs, ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’.

Also available is the ‘Add Annotations’ process that offers the interesting option to draw on your slides ‘telestrator-style’, by adding arrows, boxes, highlights, check marks etc. If you haven’t incorporated this kind of thing into your slides at the design stage, and you don’t mind the preset graphics style, you might find this worth getting to grips with. It does take some practice: the interface runs the pre-timed slides while you choose your shapes and place them, so you have to be quick on the draw.

You can then preview your creation and opt to Publish once you’re happy. This brings up a tabbed menu screen with the various format options described above; we’ll focus on publishing for the Web. Some digging at this stage reveals extensive calibration submenus, including specifications for rendering quality, navigation restrictions, and tweaks to change the appearance of the embedded Player (you can also add a presenter photo, bio and email address). There are only a couple of preset layouts for the player however, so if you want less conspicuous play controls you have to build up the design yourself.

Once you’re done calibrating to your heart’s content, hit Publish. Our modest ten slides took around thirty seconds to convert, and then gave options to view the presentation in a browser, upload it via FTP, or email it to someone. The final option generates a friendly email with instructions on what to do with the files inside the attachment in order to get it to work.

Quality of the output file with the default settings is good, albeit slightly less sharp than the native PowerPoint show, and we noticed very little degradation of animation effects even with complex, multi-layered combinations. Puzzlingly, we couldn’t find any way of publishing the presentation with the clicks preserved – viewers  must use the playback controls if the timings haven’t been set, which could be confusing.

The option to email the presentation with instructions is helpful, mostly because the output folder contains a huge number of flash files and construction files to hunt through. There are no options to save out the presentation in different formats (.exe, .swf etc.), the ‘go’ file is always a .html, which might be more or less useful depending what you plan to do with your package once it’s converted.

There’s probably more fun to be had by way of setting up user interaction (quizzes and games), but that reaches beyond the scope of this review. Even ignoring these features, you’re getting a good performer with a huge amount of functionality, but at what cost? Presenter ’09 standalone is currently on special at $699 (UP: $799).

iSpring Presenter / iSpring Pro- Compatible with Windows XP, Vista, Windows7, tested with PowerPoint 2003 and PowerPoint 2007

iSpring Solutions has three products on the market, iSpring Pro, iSpring Presenter and an SDK. We decided to test Presenter,which is a similar type of product to Articulate’s, and also the lighter iSpring Pro program since we’re not overly concerned in our arena with creating interactive content.

Like Articulate’s product, iSpring Presenter integrates easily and rapidly into the PowerPoint window, either as a toolbar and submenu (PPT03) or ribbon (PPT07).  Recording narration is even simpler than with Articulate’s product, providing the option to record audio continuously (just one button to click as the slides build and advance).  iSpring has a similarly friendly way to record video as well, just plug in your webcam and hit Record Video, and you’re taken to the same click-through interface featuring your talking head on screen. You can also sync the animations with the audio and/or video in the same window, which is a real timesaver if you need a few tries to get it perfect.

Elsewhere, like Articulate iSpring lets you add an existing Flash movie onto a slide, and is quite loud and proud about its YouTube button, which in exchange for a YouTube link will embed a clip and a player onto the slide. This is essentially the same ‘insert from link’ function that Articulate uses, but here there’s also an inbuilt video tutorial to guide novices through the process. Again, there’s a feature to insert a quiz, and again we’re not really interested in it. The in-window menu is clean and straightforward: record narration and/or video, sync the slides, make changes to the ‘presenter and company’ metadata if you want, throw in a YouTube clip, and then hit Publish.

A new, large, tabbed window now pops up containing all the various publishing options. iSpring have really put some effort into keeping this part of the process simple - it’s much easier to deal with these options all in one go rather than tinkering during the preparation process. The output can be saved to CD, to iSpring’s online sharing community SlideBoom, attached to an email or saved to hard disk. For increased flexibility, different output formats can be chosen via simple checkboxes: separate flash files for use with other animation packages, an .EXE file which is a completely self-contained single ‘go’ file, or a single .swf movie with an accompanying .html file.

There are nine preset player styles, ranging from the businesslike (with navigation pane, picture / video, and presenter information) to the inconspicuous (transparent player buttons in one corner), with other styles at various degrees of glossiness and functionality. One player allows viewers to types notes as they watch or scribble on the slides themselves.  Depending on the detail each style affords, the players can be customised with colour options and information or photos. Changes can be previewed in real time with the user’s actual slides, which makes it much easier to see how the final product will behave.

On other tabs, a similarly open interface presents settings for video and audio quality, playback controls (this time you do have the option, among others, to advance the slides on a click), and the pixel size of the output video – very useful if you’re using a CMS to insert your presentation into a blog or webpage. Another tab lets you customise the image, video and audio compression.

On hitting Publish, iSpring Presenter converted our test slides in just under thirty seconds and immediately launched the file in a web browser. Using the default settings, the graphics and audio were crisp and the animation very sharp. Upon examining the output folder, there’s just one file in it – in this case a .swf file which opens by default in a web browser – very portable and easy to upload or share. Even simpler is the .exe format option (automatically zipped for security) which bundles the presentation and player with the latest flash launcher as well, again in a single file.

iSpring Pro works in exactly the same way as iSpring Presenter, but without the options to record video and insert quizzes, so it’s all about getting the slides narrated and self running with minimum hassle. The real attractions to these packages are the intuitive interface and low cost. iSpring Presenter downloads with a business licence at $399, and if you can live without the video recording and quizzes, iSpring Pro is just $249.

FlashPoint Professional –Compatible with XP, Vista, Windows 7, PowerPoint 2003 and PowerPoint 2007. Tested with PowerPoint 2007.

On offer from FlashDemo comes FlashPoint Pro, a straightforward PowerPoint to flash conversion tool. This is the lighter of the three and installs cleanly and easy, embedding a single button into the PowerPoint interface. This immediately launches a Wizard, starting with three options for encoding the final file: a single Flash movie (.swf) with an option to generate an .exe (useful), as separate Flash movies by slide (probably useful), or as a screensaver.

The next stage offers two player options (a row of navigation buttons, or nothing), and sets up some very basic options around the way the slides run and the render quality. An Advanced tab lets you redirect the viewer to a website after the movie has finished playing, which might be a good idea but can be done more easily by adding hyperlinks into the presentation yourself.

The next two stages allow you to import audio files into the presentation, and record a narration for each slide. FlashPoint Pro appears to use PowerPoint’s own Rehearse Timings feature to accurately sync the animations with your voiceover, which is actually a much simpler way than the more sophisticated packages: you get the slides running full screen, and click to advance the builds and slide transitions, rather than working with buttons in a separate window.

Once that’s done, FlashPoint Pro begins the conversion, which takes about the same time as the other two packages. Opening the output file however is disappointing. The converted file is noticeably degraded in image quality, even with the ‘Improved’ image conversion box checked, and many of the PowerPoint shapes that feature gradient fills or transparent fills were not displaying correctly. There were also several graphical artefacts remaining on screen after their objects had disappeared. Several animation effects suffered, with fades building in very slowly and wipes running jerkily, although motion paths and grow/shrink effects were very smooth.

The quality of the voiceover was rather good; FlashPoint provided the same recording quality options as the inbuilt PowerPoint tool, so the narration sounded clear. Unfortunately due to the visual stuttering caused by the conversion of some animation effects, the audio did not always run in sync with the visuals.

Overall, with conversion performance at the bottom-end and a complete lack of customisation, FlashPoint Pro does not live up to its claim of creating “professional-look Flash presentations and e-learning courses”. With a price tag of $59, it’s probably suited only to PowerPoint hobbyists and bullet-pointers. If that’s you, there are much more useful things you could be reading on this website before you start spending on additional software.

Which is best?

Except as an entry level solution for presentations with very basic graphics and low-end animation, FlashPoint Pro is hard to recommend. The last thing you want to do after producing a deck of slides is to then retro-engineer the graphics and animation because of poor conversion quality. It’s very easy to use, has good flexibility in the output options and is inexpensive, but sadly can’t cut it when dealing with graphics and motion of any degree of sophistication. If you’re still working with flat backgrounds and bullet-points, this will probably do what you need, but it’s hard for us to gauge the value of the tool if that’s your desired type of output.

iSpring Presenter and Articulate Presenter ’09 do very similar things in very different ways, the only major gaps in functionality being that iSpring lets you record the video narration, while Articulate gives you the slide annotation feature and audio editor. Each of these features may be more or less useful and would probably balance out the two products (since the rendering times and output quality are pretty much the same). But the big differences are in cost and ease of use.

Articulate Presenter may offer huge flexibility in customising the Player specifications and calibrating the viewer experience, but its extensive menus are not easy to find and navigate. A better range of output formats and settings, and a more thoughtful structure to the submenus would have made for a less bewildering experience. That said, the output quality is first-class, and those looking to produce interactive learning tools or e-brochures will probably find value here once they get up the learning curve and perhaps invest a few hours watching the online tutorials. For publishing a presentation for web or soft/hard copy distribution, we have to wonder whether it’s worth the hefty price tag as well as the effort required to learn where everything is.

iSpring Presenter is far and away more pleasant and intuitive, and a few hundred dollars cheaper. The viewer experience is slightly less customisable than with Articulate’s package, but iSpring delivers flexibility where it’s needed most, and without any hunting around.  Powerful as they are, both iSpring programs feel completely unintimidating at the publishing stage and make it very easy to set up the exact format, size and quality that you need.

As stated, we’re more concerned with presentations than E-learning tools, but in both cases the option to record video narration seems like a more desirable option than the ability to add arrows and boxes (something that really should be thought about at the slide design stage). Even better, if you don’t need the video and quizzes, the lighter iSpring Pro retains all of Presenter’s output quality and flexibility at just $249, so whatever you’re planning to do with your Flash-based presentation, iSpring’s solutions convert to better value all round.

SlideShare

Animation – SlideShare was the weakest site in terms of enabling animation. In fact – it doesn’t. Each slide is presented as a static image – presumably it is meant to display the final build of each slide, but it couldn’t even host certain graphics on our test presentation.

Audio – PowerPoint has the easy option of recording narration as you present, saving directly as your PowerPoint file. Unfortunately, SlideShare does not enable this, and thus does not recognise narration, or slide timings. To add audio, the user has to record the narration as a separate sound, save it to an mp3 file (which could involve having to convert the original file), upload it to SlideShare, and then go through the whole presentation and adjust the timing for each slide change, so that the narration corresponds to the visual. The whole process is long, slow and tedious. 

Ease of Use – The site is cluttered, with many advertisements dotted around the page. That said, the site is fairly straightforward to use – except for the hassle in uploading audio. For this reason, for ease of use SlideShare scores two stars. 

Control – There are several different privacy settings to choose from: public; private (enabling those the user follows to see); and private (only the user can see). There is also the option to allow viewers to download, or to send the presentation via email to a recipient of the user’s choosing. 

Suitability – There are some random presentations placed next to our animation test, such as ‘PowerPoint Animals’ and ‘Animal Testing’. Mostly, however, the selection is relevant, with PowerPoint tests displayed in the ‘related presentations’ box.

Overall – SlideShare’s strong points are in the control over privacy options. Unfortunately, its lack of technical capabilities let it down when actually viewing slides. Adding audio is difficult and time consuming, and the lack of animation, combined with substandard graphics, give the effect that the viewer is looking at a series of badly-designed posters. 

authorSTREAM

Animation – authorSTREAM supports more animations than SlideShare, but still misses most – and those that it does enable are largely incorrect. For the basic animations it permits, authorSTREAM is awarded two stars.

Audio – Audio is uploaded automatically with the PowerPoint file, saving a lot of time and effort. Lack of control over audio once uploaded, (and no volume control) means that authorSTREAM scores three stars.

Ease of Use – AuthorSTREAM is a little complicated to use, and seems to lack some of the basic functions; I am still unable to find a ‘replay’ button after a presentation has been watched. With the fact that it is not immediately clear how to edit your presentation either, for ease of use authorSTREAM scores one and a half stars.

Control – authorSTREAM had perhaps the best options for privacy control. The user is given the option to keep the presentation private or public, and to enable download if wished. An email can be sent with a link to those you wish to share it with, and the premium version of the site allows the user to create a pass code for access to the slides. The fact that this pass code is not available for free means that authorSTREAM scores four and a half stars.

Suitability – There were a couple of files in ‘Related Presentations’ that were actually related, but most were random.

Overall – authorSTREAM has potential, but it is let down by its lack of simplicity, and the inadequate nature of its animations. 

SlideBoom

Animation – SlideBoom allows more complicated animation than the two sites reviewed above. The site managed to animate everything except the headlines and the live graphs, and graphics were of a good standard. 

Audio – If a narration of the slides has been made in PowerPoint, this is uploaded with the slides in the file, and automatically plays. Once uploaded however, there is nothing that can be done with the audio. Still, the ease of uploading and the fact that SlideBoom allows volume control score SlideBoom four stars.

Ease of use – SlideBoom is straightforward to use, and features a handy toolbar on the viewing screen enabling the remote audience to do things such as view as full screen, or jump to a particular slide. The options are easily accessible and the page layout is clear and uncluttered.

Control – SlideBoom allows the user to control whether everyone can see the presentation, or whether just the user has access. Sharing via email is allowed. Control over embedding in other websites is also given, as is control over downloads. More detailed control over who has access directly on the site (rather than just everyone or no one) would score SlideBoom higher.

Suitability – SlideBoom doesn’t place the presentation next to a completely unrelated one – but it doesn’t give many relevant options. Even with the tags removed, our ‘PowerPoint Animation Test’ only had one set of slides in ‘Related Presentations’. It was definitely related, but lack of choice means that for suitability SlideBoom scores two stars.

Overall – SlideBoom has all the makings of a quality slide sharing site, with good animation and a pleasant, uncluttered screen layout. Having more control over viewing would score higher, as would enabling more options once the presentation is uploaded, such as the ability to add or edit audio. SlideBoom is a good site for most basic needs, for which it scores four stars.

myBrainshark

Animation – myBrainshark has the potential to be very good at animation, and is better than most. It was the only site reviewed that managed to correctly animate the headlines, although it failed to enable the motion path and live graph, and the colour change was there, but not correct. With these adjustments made myBrainshark would score higher, but for the present animation capabilities the site is awarded three and a half stars.

Audio – myBrainshark was the strongest site in the audio category. As with the other sites that score highly in this section, myBrainshark allowed slide narration to be uploaded easily in the PowerPoint file. However, myBrainshark surpassed this in enabling many options in terms of audio once the file was uploaded. A narration can be recorded directly onto the site via a telephone call; a background audio (such as music) can be uploaded from an mp3 file; and audio can be downloaded by viewers as a podcast. If volume control was included in the viewing window, myBrainshark would score five stars; as it is, the site is awarded four and a half stars.

Ease of use – myBrainshark is simple, ad-free, and straightforward to use. Drop down options on the ‘Edit Presentation’ page enable the user to clearly choose from available functions, and ‘helpful hints’ and ‘stages to follow’ throughout cumulate to award myBrainshark five stars.

Control – All slides are publicly available when active. Content can be made inactive, which means that it cannot be found on the site, but users to whom the slides are sent by the user will still be able to view them. More options to users as to who can interact with the file on the website would score myBrainshark higher, but the present control capabilites award the site three stars.

Suitability – The ‘Related Presentations’ box offers the viewer a large number of slides to view, and the majority are directly related. Those that are not directly related are not far off the mark, and there are no random presentations recommended.

Overall – While improvements could be made on myBrainshark’s animation capabilities, the range of functions offered for uploaded content (particularly audio) and its simple interface score the site well. On top of this, myBrainshark hosts a wide range of extra functions, from detailed viewing reports (including location and percentage watched) to the ability to ask viewers questions.

Disclosure: m62 uses Brainshark’s enterprise-level platform, and recommends it to clients. m62 also makes use of iSpring software, which is the PowerPoint to Flash conversion tool used by SlideBoom.

Fast-forward ten years to business school, and almost without fail, every lecturer used slides. PowerPoint had become ubiquitous. Most slides were made up of lines of text, with font sizes as low as six points. Some lecturers used the university template, others plain white or blue. Clip art was widely abused. Nearly all lecturers spent hours either reading sides aloud, or attempting not to read slides aloud by saying the same stuff that was written on the slides in a much less efficient way.

My fellow students and I were reduced to being spoon-fed, and long parts of each lecture became enormously boring and unhelpful. Worse, everybody knew that this would be the case well in advance. Teachers weren’t teaching effectively, students weren’t learning effectively, and everybody knew it. Strength in numbers ensured that lecturers all felt safe continuing to read their bullet points aloud.

One of our team was invited to present at Surrey University recently, as part of a programme of enrichment activities. Shortly afterwards, we received the following message from a student who attended the session:

I recently attended a “killer presentations” session taken by Alex Hardy at the University of Surrey. I would just like to say thank you for the advice and tips given to me during that time. I learnt a tremendous amount during the one hour that Alex presented and after having a brief look around your website, I can safely say that I will learn a great deal more in the future. This sort of information and advice should be provided to universities up and down the country. In the two lectures I sat in today, I could not believe the lack of effort put into the slides. A brief look at this website (or indeed a training session) would ensure lecturers transformed the learning experience to facilitate a better transfer of knowledge.

This got us to thinking: Why do educated people present in such a thoughtless way? What mistakes are made in the use of PowerPoint in university, and what should lecturers do instead?

Most lecturers (in our completely unscientific study based on asking recent graduates in the office to ask their friends) use slides for nearly all of their material, make these slides full of bullet points, and then distribute these text-heavy slides as handouts. This creates three fundamental problems:

1. If slides make sense without the presenter, then during the session the lecturer is redundant. Many presenters try to get around this problem by adding additional material or attempting to explain the material on the slides – but students will tend to disengage, feeling they can already see the key information. Besides, it is impossible to read and listen at the same time, so audience members simply ‘block out’ the lecturer in order to focus on reading the slides. It’s really hard to present self-explanatory slides well.
2. An opportunity to use genuine visual aids is missed, and a chance to actually teach goes missing. If students come to lectures to read abbreviated text books, then those lectures are a waste of time.
3. As any student will tell you, if the handouts contain the information that will be presented in a self-explanatory and unembellished form, there’s really not much point attending the lecture. Pick up or download the slides, and then go do something else instead.

If reading slides aloud is so ineffective in teaching, how has the technique become so widespread? Why have lecturers everywhere adopted a technique that students recognise as ineffective? Why copy an approach that doesn’t work? After all, most lecturers have attended presentations given by others, and been utterly bored. We would postulate that there are a few factors:

1. Using the latest technology makes presenters seem up-to-date and avoiding it risks giving the impression of being old-fashioned;
2. Everybody else is doing it. For those teaching who aren’t experts in pedagogy it is easy to just copy what everyone else is doing;
3. Using visual aids that can be re-used year after year reduces overall effort;
4. Delivering a lecture by reading slides seems easy – the lecturer doesn’t need to think too hard about what to say;
5. When expected to produce handouts, using text-heavy slides reduces overall effort;
6. Anybody can do it. Typing into PowerPoint is extremely easy.

The accessibility of PowerPoint has caused problems. Most people can draw diagrams – however messy – onto acetate or a blackboard. Switch to PowerPoint and these same people – experts in something other than graphic design or software – no longer have the ability to create diagrams. PowerPoint certainly doesn’t force people to use bullet points (check out these PowerPoint slides), but doing something else does requires an investment of time and effort.

So, what should a university lecturer interested in teaching effectively actually do, given that they are unlikely to have time or inclination to master presentation software? With no budget, but a vague wish to stop being hated by students, what is the best way to use visual aids?

1. Visuals should help students to understand material. Find helpful visual concepts – a timeline, process, map, matrix or graph – and create simple PowerPoint diagrams. If a visual aid doesn’t help the audience to understand material, what is it for?
2. Don’t worry about slide count. Be prepared to use more slides, but with less content on each slide. Remember because the slides won’t be printed as handouts, they won’t waste paper.
3. Use simple graphs and charts. Graphs for projection should be clean, and build. Check out our tutorials on creating PowerPoint graphs.
4. Show photographs. Not just stock photography, but photos taken specifically to demonstrate a point or illustrate issues.
5. Use video clips. Shooting video is relatively easy nowadays, and interviewing people can demonstrate points forcibly (e.g. Google ask what is a browser?)
6. Show quotes and definitions as slides, but present them by saying nothing and letting the audience read for themselves. Don’t read aloud when the audience are reading for themselves.
7. Don’t feel it’s necessary to use visual aids for all material. Prioritise the areas where visuals will most help – definitions of concepts, relationships, presentation structure and comparisons, examples, and for summary. Better to have a few helpful slides than dozens of pointless slides.
8. Use the whiteboard. Not everything needs to be prepared in PowerPoint in advance, and drawing “live” on a whiteboard can be engaging for students.
9. Use a tool like Papershow to annotate slides in real-time.
10. Produce handouts in Word, not PowerPoint. Because slides shouldn’t make sense without a presenter, but handouts should, the same material can’t be reused effectively. Consider recording narration if distributing slides to students.

Remember, PowerPoint is not the enemy – but nor should it be abused. Use the whiteboard, use acetates, use video clips and use PowerPoint. But do not present self-explanatory slides.

Want to see how academic slides could be improved? Submit some lecture slides to our PowerPoint clinic, and we’ll transform a selection of those we receive, free of charge. We’ll emphasise approaches and techniques that are accessible for those without a studio of PowerPoint designers to rely on. This one is for lecturers only – no class assessments please. (We’ve tried that before, and most lecturers mark presentations down if they don’t have enough text. Honestly.)

Each existing member of a team has a wide range of experience and expertise, which can be invaluable to the company. If new recruits are trained using the best of these, a high level of competence can be encouraged from the beginning, so that first practice for new recruits becomes best practice.

Download Best Practice slides

At every conference, your audience will want to know when to expect a lunch or coffee break, and what better way to do this than by using these stylish PowerPoint slides? Include them in your introductory presentation, or simply display them in the background during a break.

These easily-editable slides provide an appetising background for displaying your break times.

Find these slides useful? Have ideas for PowerPoint resources you would like to see? Let us know in the comments.

Download the Conference Slides

This PowerPoint timer looks like a digital countdown timer (from a famous Fox TV show); we also have a more retro PowerPoint countdown timer for those who prefer that look.

Simply download the PowerPoint slides, set the timer by starting on the correct slide, hit F5, and off you go. Have a great event – remember, your slides will be more effective if you don’t use bullet points.

Download Digital Clock Countdown

This PowerPoint countdown timer can be displayed on screen at your event, making it absolutely clear to everybody when the next session should start. Build anticipation, ensure the room is settled on time, and keep things running smoothly.

This countdown timer is twenty minutes long, with one minute per slide.

This timer is produced in PowerPoint – please download the file for your own use. It can be placed onto your own template or background. Choose how much time to run the countdown for by starting on the appropriate slide.

Download PowerPoint Countdown Timer

How can PowerPoint presentations be made interactive? We list some ideas for you to try.

Questions

Ask questions. It sounds obvious, but a lot of presenters will have a fixed set of information they want to present, and deliver this information almost regardless of circumstance. Yet, not all audiences are interested in the same material, and often too little time is spent on the things the audience care about.

When presenting to a small group, make sure to gain an insight into what the audience want to hear about. The easiest way to do this is through good old-fashioned dialogue, initiated by the presenter asking questions. Then, from within a larger deck of slides, simply hide those you don’t need to present, or skip to those you do. Anticipate by preparing slides that answer the most frequently asked questions.

Hyperlinks

Use hyperlinks. Typically, a presentation will be delivered from the first slide to the last slide in a linear fashion. An interactive presentation allows flexibility – slides can be presented in any order, without having to exit show mode, find the next slide, and then hit F5. The best way to create flexibility in presentation structure is to create index slides – for different products, services, features, or benefits. Hyperlink from each item to a sequence of slides, and end the section with a hyperlinked repeat of the index slide.

If hyperlinks are too complex for your PowerPoint skills, this effect can be hacked by remembering that when in show mode, entering a slide number then hitting enter goes direct to that slide. Put your first sequence of slides at slide 10, your second at slide 20, and so on. Not elegant – but easy.

Annotation

Sketch and annotate. Don’t just present your slides – write and draw all over them. For pre-planned additions, it might make sense to just use animation to introduce new elements to a slide. But, for real spontaneity, and to respond to unexpected audience questions and comments, draw on your slides. This can be done easily in PowerPoint using a mouse (in show mode with PowerPoint 2003, right-click on the slide, select pointer options, then select a pen type), or use a tool such as Papershow if you want to use a real (Bluetooth) pen and paper (covered in tiny dots).

Audience Response Tools

Use an audience response tool such as TurningPoint (when face-to-face), or use the voting functionality built into most online meeting software. Audience response systems provide a great opportunity to guage opinion at conferences, or to check understanding in training presentations. Combine audience response with hyperlinks so that different material is presented on the responses the audience gives (for example, extra training material if the audience don’t answer questions correctly).

Challenges

Set a challenge. Trade Extensions sell software that finds the best solution to (sometimes complex) business problems. One difficulty the company faced when writing a new presentation with m62 was in showing prospects that often they thought problems were easy to solve when in fact they weren’t. Trade Extensions worked with m62 to design a simple puzzle with which to start their presentation. Sometimes, they even offer cash prizes in return for a correct solution – which draws the audience in to engage with the subject matter.

Live graphs

Collect and display audience data. Ask the audience a question, and use a graph to display the responses. Prepare a PowerPoint graph built around dummy data, and then enter real data into the spreadsheet used to build the graph when face-to-face with the audience. This technique can be used to show how an audience compares to average, and can generate useful insight, as well as serve as a starting point for further discussion.

Back channels

For Silicon Valley, or for those with audiences who just can’t concentrate on one thing at a time… Consider opening a “back channel” for your audience members to communicate with each other and comment on your presentation in real time. Use a hash tag (#) with Twitter, and project tweets with that tag in real time on a screen alongside your slides. This technique will mean giving up any control over what your audience pays attention to (phone, slides, presenter, Twitter feed), and so should be used with extreme caution. We really wouldn’t recommend it if you want your messages to be remembered. In addition, if your presentation goes wrong, remember that all the negative comments will be projected behind you, which may not be everyone’s idea of fun.

This article has listed seven ways to make a presentation interactive. Do you have any other ideas? Please share in the comments below.

WebEx

URL: http://www.webex.com

Functions

• Presentation upload
• Screen sharing
• Application sharing
• Remote control
• Annotations
• Teleconferencing
• Web chat
• Recording

Overview

WebEx has almost become a commoditised term, like Google and Kleenex, for online meetings. It is one of the most widely used online meeting software applications and boasts all of the features that online presenters could want. WebEx requires a small download and install of the meeting application, but this is often relatively easy to complete except for those behind the toughest firewalls.

The meeting environment has a large window for content, but a significant chunk of the screen is consumed with a variety of tabs down the right hand side of the screen. These tabs contain information such as attendee lists, web chat, web cam videos and, rather neatly, the speaker notes from your presentation (but remember, your audience can see these as well). On large monitors, this is fine, but users with smaller screen sizes may suffer a loss of detail on content, so be wary not to use text that is too small or graphics that are too fine.

Content can be uploaded to the meeting room by the presenter, although upload speeds are often slower than one might expect, so large presentations will need to be uploaded to the meeting room in advance.

Uploaded content does not display well when the content contains many graphics, including transparencies and colour gradients. Charts, particularly pie charts rarely display well and in some cases are completely obliterated, represented as just single blocks of colour. In some cases, small graphical objects can also become distorted and so overall, WebEx doesn’t do justice to more graphical presentations that have been uploaded into the system. Animations do not fare much better, with more complex animations failing to work properly, resulting in some fairly ‘funky’ slides.

The screen sharing or application sharing option is probably best for those with more graphical presentations. This allows presenters to essentially project their screen, or a specific application, onto the screens of their audience, without the need to upload content through the WebEx system. Whilst the graphics still aren’t perfect, they are more reasonable and within the expectations of a decent online meeting application. Animations are much smoother with more predictable results, rather than some of the effects generated by the uploaded content

Verdict

WebEx meetings are really let down by their lack of support for high end graphical presentations and a range of animations that many presentations today feature. If you present bullet points, then WebEx is fine, but it really doesn’t do justice to well-designed visual presentations. Screen sharing saves WebEx from being a total disappointment and is really the only option for those wanting to impress with their presentations.

Score: 3/5

GoToMeeting

URL: http://www.gotomeeting.com

Functions

• Screen sharing
• Application sharing
• Remote control
• Annotations
• Teleconferencing
• Web chat
• Recording

Overview

GoToMeeting is based on screen sharing or application sharing, giving meeting attendees the opportunity to see your screen as you see it or a specific application, such as PowerPoint. GoToMeeting requires a very small and quick set up process that is very simple for all attendees to follow.

The meeting environment is split into a viewing window, that can be re-sized by each individual attendee and a functions panel that offers various functions such as attendee lists, web chat and teleconferencing details. For presenters, this panel also provides options for screen sharing and attendee participation.

GoToMeeting gives presenters a greater level of control over what meeting attendees see during the meeting. Attendees can be given full view of the desktop environment of a PC, including any applications that are running, or a more basic version that strips out background graphics and icons, giving a much simpler, more focused view of content. Unlike all the other online meeting software reviewed here, GoToMeeting also supports multiple monitors, with choice available for share a primary monitor, secondary monitor or both together (although this option results in fairly small reproductions of both screens within the attendee viewing window).

The quality of the screen sharing is good. Graphics are reproduced well enough to provide reasonable viewing of content and for animations, refresh rates are sufficient to allow all but the most complex transitions and animations to be seen clearly. There is a latency of a second or so (this can be higher with slower connections), but unless the timing of narrative and animation is critical, this won’t really cause a problem for presenter or audience.

Verdict

GoToMeeting offers an excellent tool for quick online meetings, with excellent screen sharing capabilities. Let down slightly by not having upload capabilities which eliminate problems of latency and refresh rates, GoToMeeting is a tool that any presenter should be happy to use.

Score: 4/5

Microsoft Live Meeting

URL: https://www.livemeeting.com

Functions

• Presentation upload
• Screen sharing
• Application sharing
• Remote control
• Annotations
• Teleconferencing
• Web chat
• Recording

Overview

Microsoft Live Meeting provides users with every function normally required by presenters. Live Meeting requires a download and install of the Live Meeting application for both hosts and participants to meetings, which can take several minutes. As a result, initiating meetings often isn’t the quickest of processes, but once you have the application installed, further meetings are quick to set up. There is an alternative web-based version which is quicker to initiate, but this sacrifices presentation performance.

Once in the meeting, the environment is neat with very little in the way of the main content screen. Drop down menus give access to a range of useful functions including content, attendee lists, web chat and meeting invitation details.

Hosts and presenters can upload content to the meeting room at any time (as well as before the meeting starts). Upload times always appear reasonable, but clearly depend upon the speed of your web connection.

The quality of uploaded content is excellent. Live Meeting works well with PowerPoint and is probably the best online meeting software application available to faithfully replicate your PowerPoint slides and all their animations. It falls down slightly with some of the emphasis animations such as colour changes, but overall delivers a very credible performance. Graphics are of good quality and animations are smooth on all but the very slowest web connection speeds.

Curiously, uploaded content from PowerPoint 2007 can sometimes experience issues, with graphics sometimes failing to appear and some animations not working correctly.

Live Meeting also offers screen sharing and application sharing functionality, which eliminates upload times, but results in a presentation of lower graphical quality with more interruptions to animations, but neither is noticeably off-putting, unless you have particularly detailed slides with fine levels of animation (although arguably such subtle animation would be inappropriate in an online presentation as it can be lost on audiences without a presenter to physically point it out).

Verdict

Overall Microsoft Live Meeting is an excellent online meeting tool for delivering every type of online presentation. It provides the best graphical output and works well with animated PowerPoint slides, unlike many of its rivals. The main negative is the required download and install of the application before joining a meeting as this can be both confusing and time consuming. The work around to this, in the form of a web-based version does not display animations in uploaded content and so audiences are forced to view a static version of the content, or cope with lower quality graphics through screen sharing. Screen sharing is viable alternative with Live Meeting, albeit with a small sacrifice in graphics and animation. Mac users may also want to be wary of a Microsoft product that still doesn’t quite work as smoothly as it does on Windows machines

Score: 4.5/5

Glance

URL: http://www.glance.net

Functions

• Screen sharing
• Remote control
• Teleconferencing
• Web chat
• Recording

Overview

Glance, like GoToMeeting, is a screen-sharing-only online meeting tool. As a result, the software is much more basic and so correspondingly, accessing the meeting is much simpler. Whilst a download is required, it is very quick. Accessing the meeting is also very simple, with only a simple URL and four digit code to input, rather than the sometimes confusing URLs, usernames and password requirements of other systems.

The meeting environment is a full screen representation of the host’s desktop, which makes viewing easy, even for those with smaller screen sizes.

Graphical quality of shared content is good and being a sharing option, animations are always reproduced faithfully. However, Glance appears to use a scanning refresh format, much like TVs, which refreshes the screen line by line and can result in some animations looking rough and shuddering. More complex animations such as motion paths can suffer as a result, as can animations that have a specific purpose (such as arrows wiping in a certain direction to add emphasis).

Remember that this is a screen sharing tool, rather than an application sharing tool and so presenters need to be careful that sensitive information is not displayed and for a more professional appearance, email reminders that appear over presentations are turned off.

Verdict

The simplicity of accessing Glance meetings is a balance with a poorer quality delivery of animation heavy presentations. Graphics are displayed well and for presentations with low levels of animation the system works remarkably well. For a simple, no frills, yet easy to use application it provides very good results.

Score: 3/5

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1. Successful presentation optimisation (or optimization for our American cousins) starts by having clear objectives. Then, the presentation can be optimised in terms of those objectives. If a presentation isn’t aiming to do anything in particular, how can it be optimised to do it better?
2. Go through all the material in the presentation and eliminate everything that is interesting to you but not to your audience. Limit the amount of information in your presentation, and what remains has more impact. Many companies go overboard in proving that they are big and global and powerful – which has its place, but can usually be achieved in just a couple of slides.
3. Group content into coherent sections. When deciding what sections to create, ask What matters to the audience? What headings would they be interested in hearing you talk about? Five sections is optimal. Any more than seven is too many.
4. Eliminate bullet points. This doesn’t just mean cut down the number of words in your bullet points, or increase the font size in your bullet points. It means get rid of them. They don’t work. Slides that are going to be presented shouldn’t make sense without a presenter talking. If the audiences read your bullet points they think they have understood your point, and they disengage, sometimes without bothering to listen to what you are saying. Use visual cognitive dissonance instead.
5. Look for the visuals that help you get your point across. Presentation optimisation involves turning “visual aids” into something that actually helps the presenter. Does a slide show a series of dates? Then use a timeline. Does a slide explain the order in which something happens? Show a process map. Does a slide compare numbers? Find the right graph. Does a slide explain how something happens? Show this by moving photographs around on a slide. Can’t find the right visual? Use some photos to illustrate your point.
6. Presentation design matters. To optimise your presentation you will want it to look good. Find a tasteful PowerPoint template. Consolidate the number of colours and fonts that you use. Destroy all Clip-Art, and cut out the more tacky stock photography. Reconsider that Word-Art. Only use animation to guide attention or to convey meaning – never to make things look “interesting”.
7. A presentation is about a speaker and their slides. Presentation optimisation must, therefore, optimise the PowerPoint presentation and how the presentation is delivered. Practice delivering the presentation; often, using a camcorder to watch and review can give valuable and rapid feedback. Don’t say what you would say if you were presenting – actually present the presentation, even if only to an empty room. When delivering the presentation, remember that people rarely complain that a presentation was too quick. Don’t speak too quickly – but deliver your material in a concise and pithy way.

Keele University Maternity Centre are part of Keele University Hospital, providing maternity services for the North Staffordshire area.

This sequence of slides introduces some of the emergency equipment available in the maternity centre as well as examples of how to accurately diagnose specific types of maternity emergency events.

This slide can be used in your own technology and computing presentations. The template can be changed, and the slide will take on the colours of your new template.

Download and use these data verification slides in your own presentations.

In addition, because the entire business may need to be involved in winning new business, sales training for those on the operational side of a business may be useful. These employees can help farm for new business, and work with sales people to close deals.

Not everybody is comfortable hunting for new business, but those currently dealing with customers can work to bring in new business by identifying needs. This can be done by cross-selling services.

Existing customers are able to help identify portfolio gaps – areas where a business could successfully offer services to customers.

If you would like an editable copy of these PowerPoint slides for your own use, please leave a comment below. Make sure you give your email address so we can send you the slides – but don’t worry, it won’t be displayed or shared.

The last in a series of four episodes of the Killer Presentation Series, this edition focuses on how using the right visuals makes your presentation engaging and memorable.

First in a series of four episodes of the Killer Presentation Series, this edition looks at why you need to use a presentation.

This presentation may be of use to those presenting on mechanics, or in design technology. It may be useful in schools and colleges, but some business presentations might make use of this background.

Download this PowerPoint template for use in your own presentations. This file is in .pot format, and may take a short while to download.

West Herts College

m62 received the following feedback on this completed PowerPoint Clinic from the person who submitted them (used with permission):

“Having spent some time going through the slides I am really pleased with how they have been transformed and look forward to using them soon. A more visual approach is highly accessible and sits well with all learners. Presentations like these allow us to deliver outstanding teaching and learning with opportunities for visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners to access knowledge and build lifelong skills. My colleagues are impressed with the slides and are certainly interested in using PowerPoint more effectively.”

For a book so full of footnotes and references, it is surprising that this book rests so fundamentally on a confusion between what is and what ought to be. Abela argues that there are two types of presentation – Ballroom style and Conference Room style. ‘Ballroom style presentations are… colourful, vibrant, attention-grabbing and noisy’… and ‘Conference Room style presentations are more understated: they have less colour, with more details on each page; they are more likely to be on printed handouts than projected slides’. From this he leaps to the conclusion that ‘Conference room style presentations are more suited to meetings for which the objective is to engage, persuade, come to some conclusion, and drive action’ [emphasis added], for example sales presentations.

Looking for justification for Abela’s assertion, one finds only an argument put forward by Tufte: ‘PowerPoint… reduces the analytical quality of serious presentation of evidence’. Abela then, argues that sales presentations should be given using only densely-typed printed sheets because this style allows better presentation of complex evidence. One wonders whether either Tufte or Abela has ever (a) sold anything (b) seen PowerPoint used to its full potential.

Advanced Presentations by Design is full of useful material; one just hopes that readers only actually follow its recommendations in limited ways and for limited purposes. Abela sets out a ten stage process for readers to follow when constructing their own presentations:

1. Identify the communication preferences of the most important audience members
2. Set clear objectives in terms of audience belief and audience action
3. Identify a problem the audience have to which this presentation will offer a solution
4. Collect evidence that will back up the arguments presented
5. Use stories to present some of this evidence
6. Order material by presenting a problem, a solution to that problem, an illustration of what the solution might mean, and then repeat with problems that are raised by the previous solution
7. Present evidence using charts
8. Lay out charts in fine detail on as few pages as is possible; layout the page in a way that conveys an overarching message
9. Identify stakeholders, including those who may not attend the presentation, and develop a plan for dealing with them
10. Identify metrics with which to measure the success of the presentation

Some of Abela’s advice is useful. It would be useful to know what the communication preferences of audience members are – and so, for example, whether it might make sense to leave extra time for Q&A, provide an overview up-front, or even to list all relevant facts and details in an appendix. Advancing this argument so strongly as to suggest finding out the Myers-Briggs type of audience members seems to be absurd though – particularly when in mixed groups (i.e. most audiences) one has to cater to everyone anyway.

The suggestion that material be gathered and messages crafted before opening design software is good, and advice shared by nearly all books on effective presentations. Setting objectives, and measuring success are two bits of uncontroversial advice, that many would benefit from. In particular, contextualising objectives in terms of both what we want the audience to think and what we want the audience to do as a result of our presentation makes a lot of sense – and is a useful distinction to keep in mind.

But all these recommendations, and the extensive review of relevant research, are very much secondary to the two most significant parts of Advanced Presentations by Design – how to structure a presentation, and how to use visual aids effectively.

Presentation Structure

Abela recommends a linear presentation structure – where, once the broad situation is set, the material should be set-out in the pattern:

Complication » Resolution » Example » Complication » Resolution » Example

Here, a complication is essentially the most significant problem that arises in the mind of the audience, the resolution is the recommended solution to that problem, and the example brings to life the proposed resolution. Then, the next complication is the problem that is posed by the audience in response to the previously advanced resolution, and so on.

The result of this linear approach is that the audience is directed down a very clear path, and their concerns as they proceed down this path are addressed. All of this is fine, unless an audience start off with two major concerns. Abela’s structure will address one of these initial major audience concerns in detail. But, what about the other concern? What about situations where half the audience are bothered by complication A, and the other by complication B? Abela recommends addressing one complication in depth – but ignoring the other complication entirely. Does this make sense? Arguably not – it will often make more sense to address complication A, then complication B, and only then to follow these lines of response in further detail.

Following Abela’s method works well where the audience all share a single major concern, and this can be identified and addressed. In other circumstances, pursuing a single line of enquiry can leave important audience concerns left unaddressed.

Visual Aids

For all but a few presentations that aim solely to entertain, Advanced Presentations by Design recommends using the printed page as visual aid. Material should be represented by one of a large number of graphs, and these graphs arranged together onto pages to illustrate the relationship between them. Printed handouts should communicate concisely – Conference Room style presentations ‘should look more like an architectural drawing than something you’d see on television. Good conference room style presentations should have lots of relevant detail and text, and should be handed out on paper, never projected… On paper, you can use font sizes as small as 9 point without difficulty.’

For internal meetings, with engaged audiences, and to facilitate detailed discussion, this approach has its place. But, in a sales setting, is this what the audience want? Do audiences want to read 9 point fonts because they agreed to meet a sales rep? Do presenters want to give away their arguments in advance on paper before they start presenting? Is the reason you failed to close your last appointment because you didn’t give the audience enough detail?

The printed page cannot utilise animation, or get a point across. Messages often involve change over time, or complex processes. Animating these changes on screen aids understanding. If a picture paints 1000 words, and an animated picture can paint 10,000 words, Abela would recommend the words instead – in a 9-point font.

Architectural drawings may be appropriate as leave-behinds, or to use to facilitate Q&A. As a visual aid to help a salesperson present a clear and persuasive message, the approach will be unsuitable more-often-than-not. No salesperson will want to hand out densely packed black-and-white pages, only to find the faces of the audience drop before they even begin to speak.

Conclusion

Advanced Presentations by Design is a useful reference, and contains a thorough and detailed review of the presentation literature. For certain types of presentation (e.g. internal discussions, classroom education) the approach Abela recommends may be appropriate. But, at heart, this is a book built upon the naturalistic fallacy – confusing what is (presentations can use projection or printed handouts) with what ought to be (using printed handouts is a good idea).

Sanofi Aventis

Sanofi-aventis totalled a full year sales of 27. 6 billion of euros in 2008.

Warner Results Coaching

This is a rework of slides sent to us by Warner Results Coaching detailing their world renowned Results Coaching system. We demonstrate the power of using a single visual model, consistently throughout a presentation to explain the message that we are trying to communicate.