I’ve just come across Alexei Kapterev’s 2007 slideshare presentation that has attracted over a million hits. Take a look:
Kapterev will be presenting on February 23, 2012 at the UK Speechwriters’ Guild London Spring Conference.
Dona M. Wong’s slim volume
is a beautifully printed guide to “The Do’s and Don’ts of Presenting Data, Facts, and Figures”. As a former graphics director at the WSJ she set standards that made sense of complex data for readers. As a student of well-known PowerPoint critic Edward Tufte she takes the theories of the author of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information out of the realm of academia and applies them in the world of modern finance and content-rich, data-intensive charts beloved of subject matter experts in the corporate world.
The book is a series of tutorials on all aspects of presenting data, from the choice of color and font to the correct way to align numbers and represent proportions in pie charts. It’s all deceptively simple – a simplicity which so often evades the grasp of the engineering or financial professional who is at a loss to communicate the essence of their data in a way people can understand and avoids burying the audience in detail:
Examples of confusing, misleading, and ineffective graphics are everywhere today. Many charts have sophisticated and intelligent underlying information , but the presentation fails to convey the intended message.
Each page of Wong’s book serves as a ready reference on the right way to communicate information.
Wong states that good graphics are built on three elements:
The basics on which the book is based are worth memorizing as an antidote to clients who feel a need to do a data dump on an audience. In summary:
Start with authoritative sources … identify your key message … filter and simplify the data … choose the right chart type to present the data … review the outcome against the sources … let the data speak for itself … create the right comparisons … supply a reference point to frame the data … follow basic rules of legibility.
The bulk of the book is a series of Do’s and Don’ts that examine each type of chart in turn. For example, with pie charts, Wong makes it clear why the largest segment should always be placed to the right of the 12 o’clock position:
It’s astonishing how often graphics designers ignore this simple rule and print counter-intuitive charts, as in this example published in the FT on Saturday December 17 (p. 12):
In fact, finding charts to improve is not a problem. Go browse the PowerPoint archives or visit the financial and engineering web pages in your organization. Armed with a copy of this book you’ll find lots of low-hanging watermelons to perform a makeover on, and score some brownie points with the VP of Communications in the process.
Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim kicked off the 2011 Gateway to the US program jointly hosted by ANZA Technology Network and CCICE at the Computer History Museum in Mt. View. His keynote reviewed the challenges and opportunities start-ups face in contrast to established companies.
He claims that the current uncertainties in the world economy favor start-ups. Andy shared his own experience starting Sun in the early 1980s when the economy was on the ropes. In 2001 economic hard times made Google’s paid search a viable alternative to expensive banner ads and the company took off.
Andy shared the five reasons new ideas fail and also listed the most promising areas for start-ups to invest in the I.T. space.
Hear him share his insights into why start-ups are more innovative than established companies by viewing the edited highlights from his keynote below.
I caught up with Alan Stevens at the National Speakers Association Influence ’11 Convention in Anaheim and asked him to demonstrate the hardware and software he carries with him on the road. He demonstrated the portable studio set-up he uses to create his web radio show.
Watch this brief video where Alan demonstrates the set-up and shared the tools he uses:
Laurie Brown has over two decades of experience as a trainer and speaker, helping her audience improve their customer service, sales and presentation skills. She started her career as a professional actor, performing in hundreds of training films, commercials and movies. This experience has provided her with the ability to engage and keep her audience’s attention. Laurie has written extensively on presentations skills. She is the author of The Teleprompter Manual and Brand-aid.
A tech primer in NetworkWorld, authored by Cisco Systems, presents startling evidence of the coming surge in business video:
Video traffic is expected to grow from 50% of all Internet traffic today to 90% by 2013. In volume that will be equal to transmitting the equivalent of 10 billion DVDs across the network every month.
Cisco, being the network engineering company they are, provide end-to-end solutions for important technological solutions that support the growth in video, from high-resolution TelePresence systems to media-ready network architectures that will support multimedia.
However, the missing piece of the puzzle is not the technology, it’s people’s comfort-level and effectiveness being on camera.
As video becomes pervasive, it challenges the abilities of executives, trainers and “virtual experts” to present themselves on camera with poise and authenticity.
Looking into the camera in a brightly lit studio is an environment which most of us must be trained to be effective in. As challenging as it is to emote with a fish-eye lens, it is something to get over. Practice makes perfect, so invest in a personal video device and practice until you are natural.
Here are some areas to focus on.
Communication is about more than the words you use. On a phone call, tone of voice, emotional intensity and volume all “color” the way communication is received. In person, add in facial expression, stance, angle relative to the listener. How you look is as important as what you say. You cannot help but leave a visual impression. Studies have shown that people are influenced more by the non-verbal clues we present when we communicate than by content alone.
So pay attention to clothes and grooming. Invest in make-up or at least a powder to remove shine (yes, guys, you too) and avoid fabrics with busy patterns, narrow stripes or herringbone tweeds.
Body language is a crucial factor to consider when you are on camera. Your posture and body language are crucially important. In fact, good posture is even more important in virtual communications than in person. It is best to try and deliver video messages when standing, feet apart. When seated, you should sit on the first third of the chair with your legs at a 90 degree angle and your feet flat on the floor. Sitting this way, keeps your diaphragm free so that you can breathe properly and speak dynamically. It also gives you a firm base, thereby reducing any unnecessary movement.
Movement on camera can be very distracting. Watch newscasters or actors and you will see that for the most part their bodies and heads are very still. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use gestures — you should, but do so intentionally. Be careful to avoid movement that doesn’t have purpose.
All movement is exaggerated on camera. If you want to lean forward to show interest, make it a slight move. Avoid frequently moving toward and away from the screen.
Gestures are a great way to add interest to your communication. Be aware of the range and framing of your position in the studio. Never move any part of your body that is not in the shot. It will seem like disconnected movement. Also, how much of your body that is visible on-screen will impact how much movement can be used. Remember that unlike with in-person communication, less of your body can be seen by the other person. The less of your body that is visible, the smaller your gestures need to be. It helps if you imagine your viewer seated no more than a foot away from you. In “real” life, you would naturally make your gestures smaller so you don’t overwhelm the person to whom you are speaking.
When you speak to the camera, maintain eye contact. If you are on a panel and not speaking, make sure that you are looking at whoever is speaking.
So, how are you finding the move to video? Is it something you are involved with? How’s it working out for you? If you have any comments, suggestions or questions please share them below.
In this third and final ‘how to’ segment I’ll cover the final step of importing images into PowerPoint 2007 and some of the options you can use to manipulate them.
Step 1 – Import: It’s really very simple. Choose [Insert] [Picture] from the main menu and choose the image file you want. It will be dropped into the slide in whatever size it was saved in. You can then drag and reposition it as necessary. Here’s the picture I took at the market in Laos imported into a blank slide:
Step 2 – Manipulate: Once the image is in the slide your options are endless. As an example, I can take the fabric photo and fill the screen then add a rectangle with [Insert] [Shape] and then right-click and [Format Shape] and assign a [Transparency] of 51% with a light gray color. Onto this, I [Insert] [Text Box] and put my title for the presentation.
Another use for the photo would be to add another rectangle with no transparency, leaving a small border, and then right click and [Format Picture] [Recolor] to give a muted border for an Agenda slide and a template for other slides in the presentation.
I mentioned in the first posting in this series about the risk that very large high-res pictures will make your PowerPoint file too bulky. I’ve seen slide decks that exceed 20MB – impossible to share via email. You can reduce the size of the PowerPoint file, often by over 70%, by using the ‘Compress’ menu option. This is difficult to locate. Follow these steps:
Step 1 – Once you’ve added all your pictures, click on any picture in your presentation.
Step 2 – Look for the menu bar on the top right to change to [Picture Tools]. Click on [Format] [Compress Pictures] and be sure to check out the [Options] in the pop-up window:
If you want the smallest possible file size, choose the [Target Output] [Email]. Otherwise [Screen] will be best, and significantly reduce the size of a PowerPoint file with high-res images.
I’m embarrassed to show any more of my lame examples of how to manipulate pictures in PowerPoint. Now you understand the basics, I suggest reading books which deal with the purpose and aesthetics of creating visually compelling slides written by professionals in the field. The two best books that I know of are Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds and slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations by Nancy Duarte. Both books are jam-packed with practical ideas and many examples to help you create beautiful, well-designed presentations.
Also, check out Garr’s Presentation Zen blog for exquisite examples of slides which use visuals in a compelling way.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this series of three blog postings on how to use images in PowerPoint and will be able to move away from relying on plain text and boring clip-art in your next presentation.
In my previous posting, I discussed how to save, crop and resize image files.
But where can you find images – photographs, logos, graphics – that illustrate your subject and match the theme of your presentation?
An obvious place to start is with a simple Google search and select ‘Images’ from the top menu bar. This is a fast way to find images on any topic. But the big danger is the copyright ownership of almost all images. Google warns:
The images displayed in a Google Image Search may be protected by copyright, so we can’t grant you the right to use them for any purpose other than viewing them on the web. If you’d like to use images from our image search, we suggest contacting the site’s webmaster to obtain permission.
So be aware, just saying “Picture copyright XYZ” does not cover you.
Assuming you needs images which are not just for your personal use, but for slides which will be shown to an audience, it’s not worth the risk grabbing one from Google or the trouble of asking the sites webmaster for permission.
Don’t overlook the obvious. Use pictures you’ve taken with your own digital camera or a still from a Flip video. Manipulate them by cropping, resizing and saving to your computer.
I took this picture in a market in Laos and I’m just waiting for the right moment to use it as a the background for a title slide.
Wikipedia has an extensive description of the copyright on uploaded images. This means that most of the images in the various articles have clearly labeled copyright terms of use. For example, the article on Ben Franklin has an image which is a photo of the painting by Duplessis hanging in the National Portrait Gallery. The information page on the image makes it clear that it is a Creative Commons image and “photographic reproduction is … considered to be in the public domain.”
Flickr is an awesome image hosting and video hosting website, now owned by Yahoo!. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media. In September 2010, it reported that it was hosting more than 5 billion images. It has very clear guidelines on copyright for the images. Many of images are made available under the Creative Commons license. To find these, choose [Advanced Search] and check box near the bottom of the screen ‘Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content’
The cleanest Creative Commons license is the simple ‘Attribution’ which gives express permission to use an image if you give attribution to the owner – usually by inserting their name from Flickr under the photo. It could also be included in a closing frame in a video. If you are planning to deliver in a business setting, be aware of the ‘Non-Commercial’ limitation.
Here’s a great photo of a statue of Benjamin Franklin which I’ve attributed to the photographer:
cc licensed flickr photo shared by tonythemisfit
Hint: Compfight is a great tool for speeding up your Flickr searches. Be sure to set ‘Creative Commons = only’ to the right of the search bar.
There’s a number of stock photography sites. istockphoto.com is my favorite. The images cost $1-2 each and include rights to reproduce for commercial or non-commercial purposes without attribution. There’s a wide range of photographs and graphic illustrations. This photo of Ben Franklin on the $100 bill came from istockphoto.
I make use of Lightboxes to save multiple pictures for a project, and email Lightbox contents for review by colleagues. While you are spec’ing out a project you can download a ‘Comp’ version – a low-res image with the istockphoto watermark embedded. These work as placeholders in your PowerPoint slides to see if they look right.
Once you decide to purchase simply buy some credits and then download the images you like. You’ll only need to download the smallest size available (the one with the minimum number of credits) which work fine for PowerPoint or blogs.
I’ve just given a couple of examples from the sources I use. Garr Reynolds has an extensive list of inexpensive and free sites, with many more suggestions in the comments to his original posting. Presentation magazine also lists sites. Some of the commercial stock photo sites like Getty can be quite expensive. Oliver at Rethink Presentations has a useful comparison table which includes pricing information.
At a recent Toastmasters Club meeting, Tevis encouraged us to appreciate the impact of adding pictures to PowerPoint presentations. Unlike plain text, a memorable photograph adds to a talk without distracting from the speaker.
It was obvious from the discussion that some Club members did not know the basics of how to find, save and manipulate images. Since this is part of my day job, I offered to write up a series of simple ‘how to’ guides for Windows XP users.
In the first of the series, I’ll show how you can start to build up a library of pictures for future presentations by learning how to save, crop and re-size image files. These can be used in PowerPoint presentations, posters, magazine and newsletter layouts, websites and blogs.
Putting aside questions about where to find image files, copyright issues and how to insert image files into PowerPoint – which I’ll discuss in a later posting – the first practical step to understand is how to save an image file.
I’ll take as an example the photograph of the book cover I used in my last blog posting. It was sourced from a Google Image search for the title of Harold’s book: 4 Steps to Financial Security for Lesbian and Gay Couples. (I had permission from the author to include his book in the profile, so copyright was not an issue).
Step 1 – Save: Right-click on the first file from the Google Image search results and you’ll be given the opportunity to ‘Save As’. Choose .JPG or .PNG and a name for the file that makes sense.
Step 2 – Crop: The image as saved includes white space on either side of the book cover. Right click to ‘Open With’ Microsoft Office Picture Manager. Then choose [Picture] [Crop] and move the left and right handles in until the white space is removed
Click ‘OK’ and [File] [Save] and overwrite the existing file.
Step 3 – Re-size: You can re-size images inside PowerPoint so they’ll fit your slide. But for newsletters and, especially, web pages and blogs, it’s crucial to have a source file that’s the right size (width and height).There’s also the question of file size (in MB’s).While a small book-cover image is not a problem, other images, especially high definition photo’s, will make your presentation file size very large. So shrinking it down in Picture Manager can be useful. Select [File] [Resize] and choose from a number of pre-defined width and height settings or reduce by a percentage of the original width and click [OK] to save.
Experiment with different sizes and see what resolution you get when importing into PowerPoint.
Here’s an image I purchased from istockphoto.com of a railroad yard.
I used the [Crop] function to select a narrow band of tracks to insert in a title slide
Knowing these simple steps for manipulating image files is useful for building an image library for your future presentations.
In my next posting I’ll deal with various sources for photographs on the web and all-important copyright issues.
My recent post on representing large numbers in a speech coincided with preparing to publish the second part of Denna Jones’ guest posting on why she’s switching from PowerPoint to Prezi. Denna, an architect and speaker, references the 1977 film, Powers of Ten, by Charles and Ray Eames. The film
… has the capacity to expand the way we think and view our world. Over ten million people have seen the film, and it continues to be shown in classrooms, business meetings, festivals and retreats around the world. Starting with a sleeping man at a picnic, the film takes the viewer on a journey out to the edge of space and then back into a carbon atom in the hand of the man at the picnic, all in a single shot. It is an unforgettable experience.
This illustrates how, at the scale of the very large and the scale of the very small, all is light. As Adi Da Samraj has said:
All manifest things and beings appear within a universal cosmic theater of the physics of light.
Today’s newspapers carried the most recent image of the Planck telescope’s image of the ‘known universe’:
Better than any words or abstract mathematical formula, these pictures and the 9-minute Eames film brings home to viewers the scale of the universe we inhabit; consider how images such as this could be used in your next talk.
The annual Cisco Live! Conference was held June 27 – July 1, 2010.
The big Cisco event came in two flavors – Cisco Live in person at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. Cisco Live virtual offered those of us who could not travel a (greener) alternative to Vegas and an opportunity to attend numerous sessions online.
Attendees generated over 7,000 tweets under the hashtag #cllv10.
Twitter is ephemeral. It only maintains 10-14 days of content, so this information will soon disappear. However, here’s a useful permanent archive all of the tweets. It’s with deep gratitude to all the attendees who posted their messages that this content has been made available worldwide on Twitter. Thanks!
Building on an idea of listing of “top tweets” I first experimented with at the Detroit Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference at the GM Headquarters in May, and extended at the San Jose Ragan Social Media Summit held at Cisco in June, I’ve curated a list of 505 tweets I found most content-rich and interesting; adding links where appropriate for easy reference; consolidating others. Removing the re-tweets (RT’s) alone reduced the number of total tweets from 7,000 to 5,700.
Full disclosure: I am employed by Cisco as an executive communications manager. I’m not a network engineer, nor do I play one on TV.
I aimed for brevity and so none of the Twitter handles or attributions are listed below, so search the archive if you need sources.
Please share your own experiences of the event in the blog comments (or on Twitter!). I apologize in advance if I omitted your favorite tweet – please add it to the comments below.
Enjoy!
Click to enlarge – Image by Wordle.
