YIN: Julie Terberg returns for her incredible makeover sessions, creating something wonderful from something…less than wonderful.
YANG: Sandra Johnson shows how to create complex shapes in PowerPoint, creating something from nothing.

YIN: Connie Malamed returns to discuss the significance and impact of visual communication.
YANG: Nick Morgan makes his debut to expose the hidden communication, the so-called “second conversation.”

YIN: Wayne Michael wants to talk to you about freshman orientation.
YANG: Nigel Holmes wants to talk to you about hot dogs and helium balloons.

YIN: Olivia Mitchell flies in from New Zealand to show you how to create a presentation in one hour.
YANG: Ric Bretschneider wants to show you how to give a presentation in six minutes and 40 seconds.

YIN: Ric will also go until nearly midnight in his traditional Guru session Monday night.
YANG: Garr Reynolds will start his keynote address right about then, from his home in Osaka Japan.

YIN: Troy Chollar will show you how to design for wide screens and large impacts.
YANG: Dave Paradi will show you how to reduce your environmental footprint.

YIN: You’ll learn amazing amounts all day long.
YANG: We’ll go out for amazing evenings in downtown Austin, including a fully-hosted private reception on the ultra-happening Sixth Street Tuesday night.

All of the components that have made our conference famous will be in place: The ever-accommodating Help Center, for free, drop-in technical support; the flexible scheduling that allows you to pick and choose seminars as you go; the delicious meals; and perhaps above all, the friendly and intimate atmosphere that we create for the presentation community, facilitating true relationship-building and bonding — unmatched at any other business conference you will attend.

We have about 30 seats left and we would enjoy nothing more than to see you reserve one of them.

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Now in its ninth season, the Presentation Summit has offered seminars and workshops on such far-reaching topics as software automation, simultaneous projection on multiple screens, presenting in non-native languages, and dealing with unfriendly audiences. Since its inception in 2003, however, no seminar topic has been more popular than the traditional makeover — where a member of the conference design team reviews and redesigns slide decks.

This year, there are three distinct before-and-after sessions: a template makeover and two design makeovers, all from work submitted by conference attendees.

“People love makeovers of all kinds,” notes Julie Terberg, who has starred in enough makeover sessions as to earn the unofficial title of Makeover Maven. “Turn on the TV and you’ll see an endless variety: home makeovers, room makeovers, garden makeovers, personal style makeovers, fitness and lifestyle makeovers. You usually can relate to something in the ‘before’ situations and so you want to see what the experts do with their transformation.

“The same applies with presentation design. How would another designer treat this concept? How will he or she transform the graphics or images? What can I learn to make my own work that much better?”

Conference attendees have several reasons to enjoy these sessions. As Julie notes, everyone can relate to the struggles and issues that are typically represented in the “before” slides and they love being inspired by the metamorphosis. Further, if your slides are chosen for one of these makeover sessions, you will be able to return home with the “after” slides, compliments of the designer. That translates into a takeaway that would typically cost a client several thousand dollars.

This is not to say that there is no reward for the designer, who can measure the return in warm-and-fuzzies. “I love when patrons say how much they learned from the makeovers,” says Terberg. “It warms my heart to hear from them about how they applied the ideas to their own work.”

You can view a snippet of one of Terberg’s makeovers at the conference’s [intlink id="1800" type="page"]video vault[/intlink].

Conference host Rick Altman also stages a makeover session, but he will be the first to tell you that he is not in Julie’s league. “I am not a professional designer,” he says, “and ironically, that is what makes it work. I focus on creating clean and consistent business design and I’m pretty good evaluating message and story. I’m not going to inspire anyone with my design brilliance as Julie does, but I can infuse confidence in people. My hope is that people come away from my sessions saying, ‘I see what he did, why he did it, and I could do it too.’”

Conference patrons pay nothing extra to have their work accepted for a makeover, and with three sessions on tap this year, late registrants can still get in on the action.

The Presentation Summit runs September 18-21 in Austin TX. You can read more about makeover sessions and  see the entire schedule, at http://www.PresentationSummit.com/schedule. Seating at the conference is limited to 200 patrons.

We’re good with either hypothesis — just as long as we get to discover new talent. This year’s find comes to us from the state of Michigan: Meet Tany Nagy, our 2011 winner. Her clean and crisp work blends modern slide design with Texas authenticity.

Our contest is not an easy assignment. To win, your design needs to be professional, attractive, speak well of both your and our sensibilities, yet above all, must wear well and remain understated. It will be the backdrop across four days and over 50 sessions — it can’t be too loud. Furthermore, in many cases, its purpose is to tee up the work of our own designers and stay in the background as their work is showcased. Lots of potential cross purposes there!

Tany Nagy, Design Contest winner

“I approached my entry from a research standpoint,” explains Tany. “Never having been to Texas or to the conference, I invested a good part in gathering information, typography, images that I felt lent themselves to being strong foundational design elements. Textures, rich deep earthly colors, branding, seals/crests, weathered materials, rough edges, patterns — I felt ‘sensory’ elements would capture the spirit of the conference and of Austin.

“For the conference identity, I incorporated the triangle [in the Summit logo], a silhouette of the state of Texas, and a star as a symbolic reference to Texas. Designing with the elements I choose was wonderful, as working with them during the design process opened my eyes to different techniques and styles. I love learning new things and challenging myself as a designer, and this opportunity combined those things together for me perfectly!”

Tany was born and raised in Detroit, MI and now resides in Waterford Township, MI. She graduated from Lawrence Technological University and earned degrees in Architecture and Digital Imaging. For over 10 years, Tany developed her core skills as a designer and visual communicator before, in 2009, launching Pulse Design Studio (http://www.pulsearchdesign.com).

For her creativity and effort, Tany receives VIP access to the conference, Sep 18-21, with the $1,095 fee waived in its entirety.

What if a law were passed prohibiting bullets from exceeding three words in length? Could you abide by it? Perhaps not, but humor me on this one, because it stands as one of the best exercises you can do, whether you are the presenter, the content creator, or both. The value of this is so high thanks to two universal axioms for presentation professionals:

1. If a slide contains complete sentences, it is practically impossible for even the most accomplished presenters to avoid reading them word for word.
2. And when you read your slides word for word, you sound like an idiot.

Here is a classic culprit, taken straight from my client files—in this case, a major pharmaceutical company. Somebody simply did an idea dump right into his or her slides, and anyone who tries to speak to this slide is doomed to become a drone and guaranteed to turn the audience members into zombies.

The fourth bullet is quite different than the first three, suggesting that it shouldn’t be a bullet at all. But set that aside for the moment — before you read on, I want you to clean up this slide by mentally reducing each bullet point down to three words. Ditch the adjectives, jettison the pronouns, eliminate the flotsam.

Even with your sharpest knife, you might not be able to cut all the way down to three words, but the reward is in the effort. Here is my attempt at what I refer to as the Three-Word Challenge.

You can see that I failed to get within three words in most cases, but the result of my losing effort is an unqualified victory. The slide is much stronger now, and even though I have no familiarity with the subject, having gone through this process, I feel as if I could almost present on it now.

Several important things take place when you make an earnest attempt to get within three words:

• Your slides are friendlier: With just that one task, you create slides that are much easier on the eyes of your audience. Eye fatigue is the silent killer of presentations. When you ask your audience to sit in a dimly-lit room for 30 or 60 minutes, their eyes are going to be the first to go. The more words each slide contains, the quicker the onset of fatigue. Fewer words, less fatigue. Your bullets might not be as descriptive, but that’s okay—it’s your job to do the describing.
• Your pace improves. Something almost magical happens when you reduce the amount of words on a slide. Everything seems snappier. The slide draws more quickly, audience members absorb the information more efficiently, and you most likely project more energy.
• You create intrigue: In three words, you are not going to be able to fully explain your points. But that’s not bad; it’s good. In fact, it’s terrific! Without having to ask them, you invite audience members to use their imaginations. Once you get good at the three-word rule, you will become a better writer of bullets. You will begin to write with color and humor; you could become coy, even mysterious. These literary techniques serve to command attention. They help to engage your audience on an emotional level. And that, dear reader, is the holy grail of presenting.
• You learn your material better: Of the many bad things associated with dumping complete sentences onto slides, perhaps the worst is how lazy it makes the presenter, whether it is you or someone for whom you create slides. Excess verbiage sends a subtle but powerful message that you don’t need to prepare as much, because everything you want to say is already there. Parsing the words increases your burden as a presenter, but once again, this is a noble burden. Adhering to the three-word rule forces you to learn your content at a level you otherwise might not have reached.

One of my favorite quotes about presenting comes from Mark Twain:

“If you want me to speak for an hour, I am ready today. If you want me to speak for just a few minutes, it will take me a few weeks to prepare.”

The three-word challenge is a microcosm of the wonderful dynamic that Twain articulated. In order to get down to three words, you really need to study the text. You need to truly understand what you intend to communicate and you need to pick three words that create the perfect backdrop for your ideas. Getting down to three words requires that you practically get intimate with your text.

While the second of these two slides is certainly a better place for your audience to be in than the first, the most significant point to make is the potential that the second slide creates. Now, perhaps for the first time ever, you, the content creator, have an opportunity to think like a slide designer. With all of that flotsam on the slide, what chance did you have previously to create an attractive slide? How could you be evocative? How could you stir emotion? You couldn’t!

But now you have a canvas; you have white space. And it doesn’t require an advanced degree in visual communications to find a stock photo or company image that might support your message. In this particular exercise, it took my pharma clients barely a half-hour to reach this point:

In our workshop that day, we had already discussed the value of creating semi-transparent shapes to better blend imagery with text and this was a perfect opportunity to use that technique: the text lower-left is in a rounded rectangle, filled black with 50% transparency, allowing the photo to show through but still ensuring good contrast. You only see one rounded corner because the rectangle is hanging over the edge of the slide. Margin controls on the shape ensure that the text appears centered in the visible space. There is also the question of the fourth point, the “Who owns the decision?” question. Changing it to italic and separating it with a simple white rule serves to reinforce its role as the summarizer of the ideas. Having eliminated the bullet character from these bullets helps, too.

This slide becomes a completely different experience for everyone involved in the equation—the content creator, the presenter, the audience member. The content creator gets to think creatively (perhaps for the first time); the brevity of the text allows the presenter (again, perhaps for the first time) to get out from under the slide and truly communicate directly to the audience; the audience member is more likely to feel the weight of the message. Photos help that cause, just because of the way that our brain receives and processes visual information, but the most important part of the equation is the presenter being able to tell a more impactful story, delivered from the burden of all of that text on screen.

So why doesn’t every organization create slides this way? Why doesn’t every boss see its value? At the Presentation Summit this October,  I will devote an entire keynote address to this question. Here is the digest:

• Bad handouts: The revised slide will not function well at all as a leave-behind document. Good. Great! You should never try to create one slide for these two purposes. See my post, [intlink id="1161" type="post"]The Lunacy of the Leave Behind[/intlink] for my rant on this topic.
• Won’t work as an emailed presentation: Same problem, same response—you shouldn’t try to have it both ways. Bite the bullet and create a second version.
• The boss refuses: This, of course, is the far greater challenge and victory here is a marathon, not a sprint. Changing company culture is never easy, and we will devote a post to just this topic later in the year, after the Summit. In short, be patient, be persistent, seek allies, and be ready to conduct an intervention.

In the case of idea slides, less is so much more. Taking the three-word challenge is one of the best devices to get you to less. It took four passes and over 45 minutes to create the distilled version of the slide above. Mark Twain would have been proud.

Free eight-week series showcases
a who’s who in the industry

What’s the next best thing to a live conference? A free webinar series that features the best of the best. Get your questions answered from top presentation, PowerPoint, and speaking experts by joining on to the Outstanding Presentations Workshop webinars, hosted and organized by Ellen Finkelstein, presentation specialist, author, and Microsoft MVP.

The workshop begins next Wednesday, Sep 15, with a 60-minute webinar by yours truly, and continues with seven more, each covering a different topic on the presentation landscape. Here is the complete schedule (all webinars begin at 1:00PT / 4:00ET):

The webinars are completely free, but they do require advance registration. For complete details and to sign up, visit

www.outstandingpresentationsworkshop.com

My daughter Jamie is a capable and confident softball player, having just completed a third consecutive all-star season. This fall, she tried out for a competitive traveling team, comprised of highly-skilled eighth- and ninth-graders, and in her own words, “I used to be one of the best players on my team—now I suck.”

I’m not sure if she was angling for sympathy, but if so, she didn’t get any from her dad. I think this is one of the best things that she could have possibly done. The humility, the wake-up call, and the realization that she now has to work harder will all serve her well. Perhaps we’ll look back and see that the comfortable little bubble of being the big fish in a small pond was holding her back.

We aren’t suggesting that you use the S word to describe your proficiency with presentation development, but we love to watch our patrons leave their own comfort zones. “I can’t believe I called myself advanced when I signed up,” one woman said last year. “There is so much I don’t know. Can I please change that to beginner?”

Oh, the parallels I can draw, watching Jamie bunt for the first time. She can’t just stick the bat out there any longer; now she has to read the motion of the shortstop to determine where to bunt the ball. Now she can’t just hit; she needs to know how to hit the ball to the right side of the infield to move a runner from second to third. Now she must know to hit the cutoff or throw through to a base. She had no clue about any of that before she was pushed.

Lest you think you have signed up for boot camp or something, we won’t bark at you as Jamie’s new coach does. We find that our patrons supply their own motivation to further their skills, and we consider it pure joy to be witnesses to it. We love watching you make your first custom show, identify an “audience-centric” message, post your slides online for sharing, and a couple hundred other pearls and nuggets that together we will uncover across these four days.

So many in the presentation community are content with the skillset they have now, comfortable knowing that they meet their deadlines and perform their tasks.

Comfort zones are overrated. Stepping outside the box is where the action is, and we are so incredibly pleased and grateful that you have chosen to take that journey with us.

We promise to make you dizzy with new ideas and to encourage you to rethink everything you took for granted about presentation design, creation, and delivery. And we promise to do it without once telling you that you suck or making you run the bases blindfolded.

1. INCREDIBLE LEARNAGE: You can’t possibly imagine how much you’ll learn at this conference, with dedicated tracks of seminars for PowerPoint technique, presentation design and delivery, and our Special Delivery track, focusing on all forms of presentation delivery. Check out the [intlink id="466" type="page"]schedule of seminars[/intlink].

2. UNPARALLELED EXPERTISE: It’s one thing to know PowerPoint; lots of people know that. It’s another thing to know about creating a compelling presentation; far fewer people know that. And it’s yet an altogether different thing to be able to teach these concepts; only a select few know how to do that. How few? Let’s see…Nancy Duarte, Garr Reynolds, Rick Altman, Julie Terberg, Carmen Taran…what a coincidence, they’re all on the conference team…

3. AWESOME HELP: The conference’s Help Center is quite simply the finest opportunity for support with presentation software and technology anywhere on the planet. It’s free, it’s drop-in, it’s all hands-on, and it’s open from morning ‘til night. Some come to the conference [intlink id="1533" type="page"]just for the Help Center.[/intlink]

4. BECOME PART OF A COMMUNITY: At the Presentation Summit, you do more than learn; you develop contacts within the presentation community that you’ll keep for the rest of your career. When you put 200 passionate people together under one roof, the bonds created go way beyond that of a webinar, a discussion forum, or a faceless trade show. People who have met at our conferences have gone into business together, hired one another, visited each other during trips, and have even married.

5. MEET THE DEVELOPERS: Microsoft’s PowerPoint development team never misses this event. They take copious notes, they schedule late-night schmooze sessions, and they attend all of the seminars. They know the value of having so many earnest users of their product together at once and they place extraordinary value on your input.

6. THE EXPO: You’ll be the kid in the candy store when you visit the Summit Expo on Tuesday of conference week. Over a dozen vendors, all of them offering goods and services dedicated to the presentation marketplace. Lots of show specials, lots of giveaways, lots of opportunity to meet the people who make the products that make your life easier as a presentation professional.

7. SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL: This is not a huge, faceless trade show — nobody enjoys attending those. The Summit limits enrollment to 225 so everyone is assured of receiving personal attention. Conference organizers are experts at hosting events of this size — they know exactly the type of programming and scheduling that fits.

8. YOU RUN THE PLACE: You pick and choose which seminars to attend; you do not have to commit to any one track ahead of time and you can cross tracks at will. Furthermore, several of the sessions could feature you! Submit work that you are particularly proud of or believe needs work and you could find yourself being showcased or made over. Sign up for the Trivia Contest and you could be part of a team participating in a unique blend of Jeopardy and Family Feud. Sign up early and you could venture out for an exclusive digital photography field trip to a San Diego landmark.

9. YOU WILL BE WELL FED: You’ll get robust continental breakfasts each morning and a fully-catered sit-down lunch on Monday and Tuesday.

10. YOU’LL HAVE AN AMAZING TIME: The Presentation Summit is like summer camp for adults; you would not have thought it possible to have such a good time at an event where you also learn so much. With relaxing meals where you don’t have to scurry out to the restaurant, evening socials, and a fabulous resort hotel perfectly situated on San Diego’s Mission Bay, you will remember the four days that you spend with your colleagues probably for the rest of your life.

_________________________

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Official FAQ page

How to convince the boss to let you attend

Our quest is to create an image of a healthy woman working out. Despite scouring all of my standard stock photo houses, we were not able to find the perfect image. But we did find the perfect woman:

She is an object; she has no background. And once we imported her into our image-editing program of choice, with one click of the automatic selection tool, we had her being sent out as a PNG file, the format that supports transparent objects like this one. Then we searched through traditional photographs for a dance studio or a clean, well-lighted gym, and found a great one. And by marrying the two photos, we ended up with this:

We had succeeded…and we had failed. The woman came in transparently atop the studio, all right, but she appears to be floating, as if she doesn’t really belong.

This is a common problem when trying to integrate an object into a photo that it didn’t come from originally. The room is pretty well lit, but where are the shadows? They need to be added, and for that you would need to return to your image-editing software…or be using the current version of PowerPoint, 2007.

Version 2007’s upgraded graphics engine offers support for realistic shadowing of any image or object. By applying a soft shadow to the woman and then a slightly darker shadow where she would be touching the floor, we have done a much better job of faking this scene:

This effect can be produced in any version of PowerPoint that can import transparent PNG files, with the help of your image-editing program of choice. But this is an instance where the edge clearly goes to Version 2007 for its built-in ability to shadow an object.

Your eye is probably drawn right to the vulnerable parts of this photo (shadow underneath the ball is perhaps not dark enough) and that is always challenging when trying to create realism: you’re your own worst critic. Pretty good chance, however, if you didn’t know what to scrutinize, you wouldn’t notice anything wrong. Your goal is not accuracy but plausibility and realism.

Download the version 2007 PowerPoint file  to see how shadows are handled natively within the application.

Animation might be single-handedly responsible for more PowerPoint annoyance than all the other annoyances combined. Between Edward Tufte and Dilbert creator Scott Adams, PowerPoint animation is publicly flogged more often than our politicians are.

And at the same time, when done correctly, animation isn’t noticed at all. It’s not unlike being a major league baseball umpire, who gets no respect for doing a good job.

Indeed, good PowerPoint animation is so seamless that you are unaware of it. It reaches its zenith when it allows audience members to become lost in the story you are telling.

I approach this posting with the same fear and trepidation that I do our seminars on the topic at the Presentation Summit, our annual conference for the presentation industry. I know that your appetite for the subject is insatiable, and that your zeal could send you across the bounds of good taste a few times. And when that happens, it’s my fault. I’m helping you commit Death by PowerPoint. So please repeat after me:

• I will use custom animation wisely and appropriately.
• I vow not to offend the sensibilities of my audience.
• I promise not to use an animation technique simply because I just discovered it.
• I swear never to make stuff move on screen just because I like to watch my audience members’ heads bob and weave like zombies.

Wisely and Appropriately

Good animation promotes increased understanding and appreciation of a topic. It calls attention to the topic, not the tool. I sometimes wish that the function were called not animation, but “sequencing,” as that is more descriptive of the higher purpose of animation.

The image below shows a chart that can greatly benefit from well-conceived use of animation. This chart looks at the time requirements of an email campaign and the relative merits of doing it yourself or using an outside service to assist you.

This is a simple chart, but it is still too much data to give to your audience all at once.

There are two things that are noteworthy about this data: 1) If you use an outside service, the time required is the same, irrespective of whether you send out a handful or an ocean full of emails; and 2) the time required to send out 10,000 emails by yourself is literally off the charts—we created that bar outside of the graph to illustrate that.

Proper animation of this chart can make a world of difference to your audience’s appreciation of the point you are trying to make. Most content creators recognize that something should be done to charts like this, but they don’t think it through—so instead, they give the entire chart some weird animation, like a box in, or diamond out, or those Venetian blind thingies.

Calling attention to the chart is not necessary; it’s the only thing on the slide. What is needed here is to direct attention, and that requires more thought. If using an outside service requires 10 minutes irrespective of quantity, that becomes the baseline for the point to be made. Show all of those at once, instead of showing the data in pairs across the five quantities.

Once that point has been driven home, then you can turn the audience’s attention to the task of sending out the emails without outside assistance. Each of those five bars in the graph can be introduced on a click, the last one set on a long slow wipe from bottom to top for drama and comic relief.

Several good things happen when you use animation this way:

Your audience really gets it: I’m a big believer in separating form and content to promote understanding. Offering up the empty chart is a great way to prepare your audience for what they are about to see.

You control the pace: Charts are usually displayed too quickly, leaving audience members with the feeling that they’re drinking from a fire hose. If you suspect that members of your audience are not clear on what it is you’re about to show them, you can wait until they understand before continuing.

You become more confident: You have control of your audience in the palm of your hand (perhaps literally, if you use a wireless remote). Without being too crass about it, this position of advantage will likely manifest itself in a positive way.

You create trust: This is a great way for you to bond with them, by assuring them that you are not going to hurry them through data-heavy content. PowerPoint audiences are so often on guard in case a presenter does something ridiculous with animation or obnoxious with content, it’s amazing that they remember anything. Give them a soft landing with a heavy slide and they’ll remember it. They’ll relax and be more receptive to your ideas.

With that example under your belt, think about how you might animate the infographic below, a progression of prices based on level of service.

Can you use animation to better deliver this information?

If you throw it all out there at once, you jeopardize potential impact, understanding, and appreciation. Furthermore, you will have to play catch-up and will likely find yourself explaining the slide more than sharing your ideas.

Instead, show your audience the continuum of pricing first, without offering any specifics. They’ll get it right away: it’s going to be a comparison of services, based on price. Now bring in each price point, one by one, speaking to it as you go. This is the kind of pace that promotes understanding and appreciation.

Oh, and once you determine how best to sequence your data, don’t blow it by choosing some screwball animation choice. Pick Fade, Wipe, or maybe Ascend, but resist all temptation to pick one that causes objects to move across the slide. That commands attention to a degree that has you crying wolf. Just use Fade and call it a day.

“Must I?”

With any project that offers dense content, your use of animation must pass a litmus test of necessity. Is it needed, is it helpful, will there be benefit? If you can’t answer yes to these, the animation fails the litmus test and shouldn’t be used.

Even if it passes this litmus test, continue to scrutinize its use, asking yourself repeatedly what would be the best sequence, the best pace, and the best animation choice to create a blended and seamless presentation of an otherwise complicated topic.

You do that and you use animation in the best way. And if you do that, you distinguish your presentation visuals from just about all others out there today.

It was comforting to have found common ground with my northern European counterparts. When I began my introduction — remarking on how most people learn PowerPoint in about 30 minutes and then declare themselves proficient — many heads nodded with recognition, amid comments like "That's me" and "I know what you mean."

Too much text…slides doubling as printouts…templates too rigid…last-minute changes…misappropriation of animation — I felt right at home addressing the same issues that my clients in the States wrestle with. Having said that, many of the slides that I saw showed very good instincts for blending words and imagery. Those tasked with creating content for the government clearly feel as if there is more to life than title, bullet, bullet, bullet. If I'm being honest, this sense was more evolved here in Oslo than back home.

Then, a few moments later, I would enounter a slide with four full paragraphs and underlines and red type for emphasis and I would be snapped back to reality. <g>

All in all, I am enjoying my visit here very much — the people are gracious, accommodating, and full of life and spirit. They seem to know as much about American politics as we do, regularly wanting to engage in discussion about President Obama. And the seafood here is extraordinary.

I hope I'll be invited back…