{"id":2951,"date":"2012-04-26T09:08:48","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T08:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=2951"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:37:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:37:30","slug":"powerpoint-hints-and-tips-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2012\/04\/26\/powerpoint-hints-and-tips-2\/","title":{"rendered":"PowerPoint hints and tips #2"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote before<\/a> about my angle on presentation techniques. As I spend a lot of my time in front of an audience, I have given a lot of thought to how PowerPoint can be used as an effective tool for communication, instead of an instrument of torture.<\/p>\n

I would like to share some more of those ideas with you today …<\/p>\n

I have 3 tips to pass on in this posting. The first 2 are about starting the presentation and the third is concerned with answering questions.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned in my last posting, I feel very strongly that the presenter should always be in complete control of what is displayed on the screen, as any spurious display will only be a distraction and you want your audience’s complete attention. So, tip #1 is: do not turn on the projector [or, at least, do not connect the laptop to the projector] until you have your first slide on display. This might take place long before you plan to start talking. A useful, informative title slide on the screen is welcoming and reassuring [“I am in the right room!”] to attendees as they arrive.<\/p>\n

In order to get to this point efficiently, you need to be able to easily access your presentation. A good way to do that is to remember the 3 golden rules of successful presentation: prepare, prepare, prepare. In this case, the simplest preparation is to apply tip #2: put a shortcut to the presentation file [or a copy of the file, if you prefer] on the desktop, where you can get to it instantly after booting up. To make a shortcut, just open the folder where your PPT file is stored and drag the file to the desktop using the right<\/strong> mouse button. When you drop the file on the desktop, you will get a menu and one of the options is to create a shortcut. You can use a tip from my last posting<\/a> – right click and choose “Show” – to have your slides on display in no time.<\/p>\n

Many presenters are nervous about getting questions from the audience, as they are afraid that they will not have the answer. This is a reasonable fear, up to a point, as it is an opportunity for you, as the presenter, to lose control, which is not good. This can generally be avoided in a simple way by just saying “I am sorry. I do not know.” and moving on. I actually fear not<\/em> getting questions, as audience interaction is almost always wholly beneficial. It is important to think about how you are going to behave while answering a question.<\/p>\n

Remember, slides are just an aid to conveying a message. They can also be a distraction, if the content is not relevant to what you are saying, as may be the case during a Q&A interlude. This can also happen if you go “off piste” and discuss a side issue for which you do not have supporting slides. To avoid a distracting backdrop to your question answering, you could just turn off the projector [or break the connection], but there is a much simpler way, which is to apply tip #3: hit the B<\/strong> or W<\/strong> key. This will cause the screen to be blanked to black or white respectively. Hitting any key restores the slide display. Black is the best choice, as a bright white screen is rather distracting, but, in a badly lit room, white may be better.<\/p>\n

Hopefully these tips will be helpful in your next presentation. There will be more …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote before about my angle on presentation techniques. As I spend a lot of my time in front of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[302,451],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-off-topic","tag-powerpoint"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2951"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10060,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2951\/revisions\/10060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2951"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=2951"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=2951"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}