visual aids - Pivotal

audiovisual, Public speaking, visual aids

Give your audience something to flip over

Give Participants Something to Flip Over

Let me start off by saying that I do NOT like toys or other distractions in training. I’m NOT one to provide little widgets to keep participants’ hands occupied or provide cutesy pens or such trinkets. I’ve always viewed them as distractions that shouldn’t be necessary if your training is engaging and relevant. I recently “discovered” a technique that simultaneously:

Provides motivational, upbeat phrases for participants
Reinforces key concepts
Ensures that everyone is paying attention and following along
Allows the instructor to tell whether each participant grasps the concept

http://bit.ly/9qWIw5

audiovisual, powerpoint, Public speaking, visual aids

Unforgettable Presentations: Using Prezi to Create Stand-Out Speeches

with Angelie Agarwal

At conferences, conventions and management/sales meetings, speaker after speaker shows PowerPoint or Keynote slides to illustrate their points. No matter how beautiful the backgrounds or images, they are pretty much same old/same old. Even the professional speakers’ visuals don’t stand out that much from the rest.

But there’s a new presentation tool in town and it’s blowing away the tried-and-true old slides. In fact, it’s a favorite tool of TED presenters who have entranced their audiences.

What is it? It’s Prezi — a new tool for creating presentation visuals that can lead you to a whole new way of thinking about your talks. It can help create better narratives and more persuasive presentations — what every professional presenter craves.

Angelie Agarwal, chief evangelist for Prezi, will show us how to integrate this new tool into our presentations to stand out among the other speakers on the program — or our competition. This special webinar will discuss how professional speakers, trainers and consultants can use this tool to create truly unforgettable presentations.

You’ll learn:
• how Prezi is very different from digital slide programs
• how you can use this tool to cement your uniqueness
• how Prezi helps you become a more persuasive presenter
• how to get started with the basics
• tips and tricks for advanced speakers on presenting in Prezi

Get more information here ...

powerpoint, Public speaking, visual aids

Putting the Power in your PowerPoint

This is a 13-Page eBook

The use of PowerPoint as a presentation tool is well acknowledged and accepted. However, Fripp and Prost believe it is frequently used as a crutch that often distracts your audience from the main messages of your presentation. If you are using PowerPoint®, why not learn the "inside secrets" of doing it the right way?

Get the eBook here

audiovisual, powerpoint, Public speaking, visual aids

What not to do with your PowerPoint

the team at m62 make some good points ...

Presenters are beginning to realise that their presentations don’t have to be boring, and it is inspiring to see that people are moving away from bullet points to more engaging visuals. Audiences are now demanding more, and presenters are rising to meet this.

Unfortunately however, a large number of presenters feel that the small improvements they have made to their slides are sufficient, failing to realise that there is so much more that can be done with them. And so we see the same mistakes made time and time again – without the presenters realising that they’re doing wrong.

and the article goes on to list 7 major mistakes made in powerpoint presentations and how to avoid them.

audiovisual, powerpoint, Public speaking, visual aids

What now … Death by Flickr Musak?

This great post from Olivia Mitchell

Are your slides ‘Visual Musak’?

I saw very few bullet-point presentations at the SXSW conference. Yay! But I did see a disturbing trend – the overuse of flickr photos and other interesting images. These photos sometimes feature stunning photography, they’re quirky and interesting. The problem is ...

.... http://bit.ly/beAIHa

audiovisual, powerpoint, Public speaking, visual aids

Using Computer Presentation Programs effectively

People are tired of worn-out power point presentations!

Does this mean we should jettison the technology and go back to the "stone age", as one person put it, in giving our presentations?

No more than we should ban television because of the likes of Jerry Springer and Temptation Island.

The medium itself is not to blame, it is how that medium is used that falls short. Too often, presenters rely solely on their software to provide every bit of their presentation's creativity. The problem with this approach is that the entertainment value of PowerPoint and other programs, leaves a lot to be desired.

When a speaker decides to use it as a crutch, instead of as an enhancement tool, it can give a presenter a false sense of security about a bad presentation. I've sat through many a bad presentation where the insecure presenter just hides behind a barrage of screen activity as a gratuitous gimmick rather than having good illustrations and attention-getting visual element to add in making their points. So how should this medium be best used?

Obviously, there are millions of reasons for a presentation, and therefore, millions of effective and creative ways to deliver it. Creativity can take several forms, from the spontaneous quip to the extravagant special effects of a Hollywood blockbuster. Keep in mind, though, that a crummy movie with very impressive special effects is still a crummy movie, and the same rule applies to presentations. Things that may work well in some presentations will not do so in others, but here are some general guidelines for successful use of electronic slides.

audiovisual, powerpoint, Public speaking, visual aids

Powerpoint alternatives – from Browsers to Blogs

PowerPoint Alternatives - From Browsers to Blogs, Part II
In Part I of PowerPoint Alternatives, I talked about presenters who use HTML to display the visual portion of their presentation. Now that blogs are popular, some speakers are using blogs as presentation tools, including Steven Cohen of Library Stuff fame. Here’s a presentation he created in a blog last February and his post on the Note that he used Blogger, a tool that is free and can get you up and running with a blog in just a few minutes. Downsides of using a blog instead of PowerPoint include a busier screen that you would find on most PowerPoint presentations. Also, a blog entry is not going to fill the screen the way a PowerPoint slide will, so it could be more difficult for the audience to read. From the presenter's standpoint, getting the slides in the proper order is cumbersome; you need to tweak the dates and times so as to get the blogs to display in the proper order, then remove the date from the blog template, since in this context, it’s irrelevant.As with HTML, the advantages of using a blog are greatest when you be presenting using a live Internet connection. You can include the links you want to visit in the blog/web page, and easily link out to web sites. The blog also makes a great "take-away."

audiovisual, powerpoint, visual aids

PowerPoint Presentation Skills Tips for Effective Presenting

How often have you switched off (even for a few seconds) when attending yet another PowerPoint Presentation at work?

Our experience is that this probably happens more than 9 times out of 10.

So that’s about 90% of PowerPoint presentations where the lack of PowerPoint presentation skills actually undermines the very presentations PowerPoint is supposed to enhance.

So why do people continue down this road to presentation anesthesia? And can we divert at least some of them to a more enlightened, creative approach?

Here are seven PowerPoint presentation skills tips to help you on your way.

http://www.presentation-skills.biz/presentation-delivery/powerpoint-presentation-skills-tips-for-effective-presenting.htm