Jul 112014
 
An introduction to making professional PowerPoint slides. It is well known that humans can only process around 5 to 7 pieces of information at a time. More than that and we start getting confused. (See, for example, Cowan, The magical number 4 in short-term memory) Let me make one thing clear. When it comes to presentations, we never ever want to make people confused. Look at a typical business ...
Jun 172014
 
What do you say when someone asks you what you do? What do you say when you need to sell something? What do you say when you want to tell someone about your great idea? Pitching and catching We give business pitches for any number of reasons: to increase our network, to get new customers, to generate investment in our products and companies. In baseball, every pitch is thrown to somebody: ...
May 192014
 
The message of a presentation is like water
The biggest presentation problem The biggest problem with most presentations isn’t that the slides are lackluster. It’s not that the message is missing (though, that’s a close second,) or that the presenter lacks confidence. No, the biggest problem with presentations is that, too often, they lack a clear structure.  You know the kind: someone walks in, starts talking, shows a bunch of slides, ...
Apr 292014
 
Why are some presentations great and others horribly boring? There are two presentation skills that separate great presenters from the rest of us: They always have a goal. They make certain that every presentation has a point. The goal could be a company goal, like more sales, generating investment, or making the working environment better. It could be personal, like being seen as ...