Power Point Presentations!

[StuKeith]

Anyone any good? I have to do a ppp for a job interview Thurs. And Ive never had to use PP before! :huh2: So I bedazzled a little bit! :blink:

And to top it off, I dont really have a clue on the subject matter lol!

"passion for service"
"Care for detail"
"Individual attitude"
"Deep Knowledge"

Ok some of these are straight forward enough! but others? :hmmm:

Bloody Power point! I also had to do a "Psychometric" test today as well!

[AlexJ]

Number one rule is don't write all your notes on the slides, and don't just read off the slides. There is nothing more boring than sitting watching someone read something you've already just read through. Think of the slides as a support to reinforce key points - limit yourself to a few bullet points/images per slide.

Use animation sparingly, I tend to use just a simple fade effect on my slides with no text flying in or anything. I also have all content on a slide come up at once, or just hold one-half back. Having to click the mouse for each bullet point gets tedious quickly. Avoid slide transition noises at all costs!

From a design point of view, keep fonts simple - one sans serif (e.g. Arial) should do for the whole presentation, using bold/italics where needed for emphasis. I know others on here are more familiar with design principles but I find if things are kept 'clean' and clutter free they tend to look good.

The first page should usually have the title of the presentation, your name and date, the second should be a contents and your last slide should be a summary slide.

Finally, if you're delivering it on someone else's machine make sure you take in at least two copies of the .ppt (e.g. USB pen drive and CD-R) just in case one fails to work. Oh and delete/hide any, erm, dodgy stuff that's on the pen drive!

The subject headings you give there just look like management speak bollocks to me, so can't really help you with the content.

[Harrison]

Agreed. Don't write everything you are going to say. That is the one thing you must not do. The best thing to do is to first work out what you want to say and break it down into sections. Then break these sections down into key points. And finally create a series of bullet points out of these.

The idea is that you can use these bullet points in the PPP to prompt yourself onwards and keep going.

Next designing the power point presentation. The most important thing to remember is to keep it simple.

There are a lot of designs pre-made in powerpoint, and a lot of word art styles. Don't use any of them! They have all been used before and they are all designed by programmers, not designers, and look horrible. Just pick a basic layout you like and stick to it. Only use a single font throughout the presentation, just changing the size for headings and making things bold for impact. Do not under any circumstances underline anything. This is one of the worst design errors ever. If you want a heading, make the font bigger and bold at most. Do not also underline it. It is not needed. Only use underlining to enforce a word within a sentence.

For the slides within the presentation, use a slide with just the title of each section, and follow this with slides of bullet points and key information you wish to display. If possible also find some images to add to the presentation to give it some interest. Don't try anything fancy with the images. Just headings and images with centred or to the left with a good inch margin on the left. Try anything else and it will end up looking rubbish.

Another layout tip is to make sure all your slides line up. There is nothing worse that the distance from the left to the bullet points and paragraphs changing on every slide.

Oh, and don't use transition effects between slides, unless it is a basic fade or cross fade. And then only do this if the slide is making the transition to one of a completely different colour. It has no context otherwise.

I hope that helps. Feel free to ask anything else. My job for 3 years was designing corporate presentations using Macromedia Director, for corporate marketing people to pitch their business plans to other blue chip companies, or to give to a customer to show them their product and how it worked. I therefore have quite a lot of experience making presentations.

[Buleste]

Good luck with the interview. Hope you get the job but leave the management speak at work else you'll be getting some "deep knowledge" of our "individual attitude" and some "passion for service" and "care for detail" on the whupping you'll receive.;)

[Tiago]

Good luck mate, tell us what happend

[Stephen Coates]

I agree about the ready made templates. I do think they look nice, but they have all been used many times before, so while they might not look boring to someone who has never seen it before, it looks boring to me.

I also find that black is a very good background colour, with coloured or white text on top (depending on what the presentation is about). Maybe even use different colours for different points on the same slide, so each one stands out, otherwise, several sentences which are seperate from each other might look like one hard to read paragraph, but usage of colour and layout does depend on the sudience, and what it is about.

Make the presentation, and look at it as if you were someone in the audience, and try to pick out things which look odd or hard to read, and change it. But do make sure you keep it simple.

[toomanymikes]

My advice? Time it. If you know how long you have then do not go over it. Also dont make it too short because you will tend to talk faster than you normally do when presenting - a 15min presentation can be reduced into 5 mins before you know it and can leave you standing there twiddling your thumbs.

Powerpoint is a piece of piss when you know how to use it - the best way is to work thro the help menu tutorials - all you will need is a basic understanding to make a decent looking presentation. Do not over egg the background images or text animations or it will look like a kid has put it together and is using all the effects they can find. I use arial font as it is the easiest to read, black, no text fade effects and a simple background with a horizontal lines transition. The only time I animate text is if I am talking about main subjects i.e

Design Philosphy
* Environmental considerations - i will then talk about this then the next bullet point appears:
* Materials - i will then talk about this then the next bullet point appears:
* Micro and Macro scales - etc...

If you do this then you will probably end up with fewer slides than originally planned and that means less can go wrong.

Also, use the print handouts facility - if you pass this to the board they will spend more time looking at them and the presentation than they will at you so you will relax more. Look at everyone in the room rather than at your notes. I tend to look at the front row, the middle and the back then glance back to my notes and repeat - this way you will not seem like you staring at one person but talking to the whole room. If there are only a few interviewers look at each one in turn as you talk.

Talk slowly (but not like you have something wrong with you! ;)) Use hand guestures to express main points the way you see politicians do - they have been trained to do this and it works, as long as you dont start throwing your hands about like Hitler.

Most of all - relax!

Good luck!

[Harrison]

Some great points there. The hardest part of such a presentation is definitely the delivery and trying to relax while giving it, which is always hard. I never practice the actual presentation before I do one as I find that works best for me, as i don't get worried about it then and it is all new and fresh when I go ahead and give it, but some people find this very useful to get the subject and flow into their head. Practising in front of



I also find that black is a very good background colour, with coloured or white text on top (depending on what the presentation is about). Maybe even use different colours for different points on the same slide, so each one stands out, otherwise, several sentences which are seperate from each other might look like one hard to read paragraph, but usage of colour and layout does depend on the sudience, and what it is about.

:no::no: Never make a presentation on a black background, unless it is to show photographs. And coloured text on a black background is the worst thing ever! With any design, the maximum number of colours you should use is 4, and these should compliment each other. And those colours include the background colour.

[StuKeith]

OK, heres what ive come up with.

Presentation (http://www.4filehosting.com/file/88816/Comet-On-Call-ppt.html)

Is there a way to justify all lines of text? All I can do is align the text l/c/r. I want to select all points and align the left edges so they look right! :huh2:

[AlexJ]

OK, heres what ive come up with.

Presentation (http://www.4filehosting.com/file/88816/Comet-On-Call-ppt.html)

Is there a way to justify all lines of text? All I can do is align the text l/c/r. I want to select all points and align the left edges so they look right! :huh2:

I think to do that, all the bullets would need to be in the same text box. It looks mostly good, although personally, I found that there's slightly too much clicking - if they don't give you a wireless clicker you could find yourself bending down to hit a keyboard quite a lot.

[StuKeith]

ill take a mouse just in case lol!

[Harrison]

I just took a look at the presentation and it seems good enough to me.

Good luck.

[StuKeith]

So not too bad then for the 1st time using PP! :lol:

[Harrison]

Not at all. You kept it clean and simple, without any really horrible colours or backgrounds, and broke the content down into easily digestible pieces. Plus, the text transitions you used have given the bullet points impact as they come onto the screen.

I hope they like it.

[StuKeith]

Well I wasn't even home an hour when they rang and offered me the job! :D They said the PPP was pretty good for a 1st time!

As well as the car, I also get a laptop as well!:thumbs:

#In all the excitiment, I then cancled the other interview and was late leaving the house which ment I got a parking ticket for being 5mins other! :huh:

So Im going to appeal that, as was just on way out to put a permit in!

[Buleste]

Looks like you forgot about "Care for Detail" already.

[Harrison]

Congratulations mate. Well done and what a great Christmas present for you and your family. :thumbs:

[toomanymikes]

congratulations buddy! my consultants fee is in the post! ;)

[Buleste]

Well done oin your early Xmas present.

[StuKeith]

Cheers, the other chaps not leaving till Jan mind, so will be 2nd week ill start!