Build a Better Handout

Hi all,

Last month, I had the pleasure of presenting a workshop at the American Society for Engineering Education’s annual conference. My workshop was sponsored by the Engineering Libraries Division and I thank them for inviting me to present.

Rather than give them a deck of slides to upload to the conference site, I created a separate document, based on my slides, but including additional information and resources. I used the “Notes Pages” format in PowerPoint, then converted it to PDF for ease-of-use. (In addition to being an example of good handout practice, if you’ve never been to one of my workshops, this will give you a good introduction to the three rules for better presentations.)

This is the kind of handout you want to give to your audience or make available to them after your presentation. Something that your audience members can read and study and ponder at their own pace.

Now, go forth and make good handouts!

Lee

Freshen up your colors

Photo (c) sundstrom, ID849660, www.sxc.hu. 

You can keep your presentations fresh by updating the colors you use on a regular basis. While the use of color should always support the message of your presentation, there’s no requirement that you have to use the same set of colors year in and year out.

Blue can still mean “business” and green can still evoke images of growth and success, just in slightly more up-to-date shades and tints. To find those new colors, visit Pantone’s website for their seasonal color forecasts.

Pantone is a company that standardizes color specifications for a wide variety of industries and applications from printing to fashion. Several times a year they release color forecast reports for upcoming seasons. The latest one I’ve looked at is the Fashion Color Report for Fall 2009.

Ten to twelve new colors are described in these short reports, and each color’s Pantone number and CMYK equivalents are provided. Unfortunately, PowerPoint only deals with RGB and HSL color schemes, so a bit of conversion is required. I found a simple one on the web created by Peter Forret and converted the CMYK values to RGB values that PowerPoint can understand.

Here is the table of CMYK to RGB values for the color trends listed in the Fall 2009 report. Note that the colors in the PDF will vary depending on the monitor/projector used. If you don’t like a particular color, try adjusting it within PowerPoint, or use an online tool such as Adobe’s kuler to help you select another shade (kuler can handle CMYK values and can convert them to RGB for you).

I’ve created a sample presentation using some of the new colors. Take a look and feel free to adapt for your own needs.

Peace,

Lee

Practical Tips for Using the Three Rules

Hi all,

Per a colleague’s suggestion (thanks, NB), I have combined into one document all of the practical tips I give during a live presentation.

PracticalApplicationOfTheRules2009

I hope you find it helpful, and if you do, please share with your colleagues.

Peace,

Lee

On Vacation…

Hi all,

The blog will be on hiatus for the rest of June. I’ll be back in July with a few new items for the site.

See you then, and have a great June!

Best,

Lee

Reply To Julie (Displaying B & W photos)

Note: This post is in response to a colleague’s comment on the blog:

“I have a question for you. I am planning to do a presentation in which I use primarily black & white photographs from old archives. What do you think would be the best background color to use, one that will set off the b&w pics well, without overwhelming them. The topic of my presentation is education.

Thanks!”

Hi Julie,

If they’re mostly black and white photos, I’d go with either a black or white background. The subject and themes of your presentation can help you make this decision.

A black background, for example, evokes for me memories of my grandmother’s photo albums which had black paper pages. This would work well, for example, with a local history project with lots of  “people pictures.”

A white background might suggest the walls of an art gallery–this could work for some presentation subjects that could benefit from a “documentary-style” approach to the imagery.

For either background, your photos need borders, so if they don’t already exist, add them in. In PPT 2007, there are several simple and professional-looking border effects that can be used. In the examples above, the image on the white background uses one of PowerPoint’s built-in border effects (simple frame) while the image on the black background already contained a suitable border (since this was a scanned photograph).

I hope these suggestions are helpful – please let me know!

Lee

New Options for Non-Linear Presentations

About a year ago, I found a link to, and some information on, a curious piece of presentation software called Prezi. It is a radical departure from the typical presentation software and has the potential to transform the way we create and deliver presentations.

Instead of a linear series of slides, you create one big giant slide, place your content, then you zoom in/out to move through your presentation.  Aside from the “cool” factor, Prezi now gives you an easy way to give a non-linear presentation.

You can move through a sequence of “frames” (think traditional slides) as you normally would, or, if you want to veer off to a related topic or answer a question with other information, you can easily move out of the sequence, present that content, then easily return to your place in the presentation.

You can see some examples in their Showcase (http://prezi.com/showcase/).  I’ll create a Prezi version of my Three Rules presentation (see here) and post it for you to check out in a few weeks.

Microsoft has a beta add-on for PowerPoint called pptPlex that provides similar functionality. I’ll be testing it out and posting about it some time this summer. 

Check them out and post your comments (especially if you’ve used either one of these programs for your own presentations).  Remember that you do not need to log in to post comments to this blog.

Good (Non-Linear) Presenting!

Lee

NPR Story Talks About Working Memory

Here’s the link:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104058044

to a story on training your brain to help ward off age-related mental declines.  The term “working memory” (which I talk about in my book and during my presentations) is clearly explained.

Peace,

Lee

Q&A from the Amigos 2009 Conference Presentation

Hi Everyone! Happy Friday! 

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of presenting to colleagues at the Amigos 2009 Member Conference in Dallas, TX. As always, there were some interesting questions asked.  Here are a few that came up along with some suggestions (and feel free to add more at the bottom as comments – you do NOT need to register to add comments):

More Information on Multimedia Learning

I mentioned Dr. Richard Mayer’s book, Multimedia Learning. It is an accessible explanation of multimedia learning and it provides the background to all of Mayer’s principles of multimedia learning.  I highly recommend it.

How Do You Handle Distractions When Presenting (loud noises, construction, etc.)?

This one is tough. The ultimate advice I can give is to be prepared for the unexpected.  But here are a few other suggestions:

• Change location. If you have a small (or flexible) group of people, can you quickly migrate to another area?
• Switch to small group or individual activities. You might be able to use a handout and conduct small group or individual activities instead of shouting over the din of a jackhammer.
• If the distractions/noises come from your audience (cell phone noises, the clickety-clack of a keyboard, etc.), you might begin your presentation by setting some ground rules (ex. “Laptop users please check with your neighbor to be sure that your use of a computer won’t be distracting.”).
• The literature on facilitation of meetings might also have some good ideas for handling this situation.

What Are Some Techniques That Can Be Used When Teaching Software/Web Resources?

Teaching software in a computer lab setting can be difficult because you can’t simply say the words, show the pictures and leave the text for take-away (as the computer screen usually has lots of text you can do nothing about).  Here are a few suggestions that might work for you:

• Break things up into small pieces and go over them one at a time.
• Start with a printed screenshot first and review the major components (ex. search box, limit options, results page, navigation, etc.)
• Show short tutorial videos first then allow students to practice.
• Use software that can help focus attention on particular parts of the screen (Pointer, by GenevaLogic, is my recommended choice)
• Two good books I recommend:
  • Efficiency in Learning, by Clark, Nguyen and Sweller. This book helps you understand cognitive load (mental effort) and how to minimize extraneous load and increase germane cognitive load (”germane” meaning appropriate mental effort). In plain language, Clark, Nguyen and Sweller show you how to help focus your audience’s attention on the important stuff and how to edit out the unnecessary stuff that gets in the way of learning.
  • Graphics for Learning, by Clark and Lyons. Superb book for understanding how graphics can help/hinder the learning process and how to design effective visuals (lots of pictures in this book!).

How Can We Make A Convincing Pitch For A Big-Budget Item?

I mentioned a blog post I had read last year about pitching to venture capitalists.  This has good advice for anyone wanting to convince someone else (their boss, their colleagues, a VC firm) to part with their $$. Here’s another thing I would mention from my own experience listening to sales folks give presentations — ditch the part of your presentation where you talk about how many people are in your company, the awards your company has received, or anything else about your company that really is only there to tell the audience how “great” your company is.  The audience is more interested in how your product or service can help them.  Get right to the point and don’t waste time on that fluff.

More Questions?

Got more questions? Submit a comment and let me know!  I’ll do my best to help find the answer!

Peace out!

Lee

From the Research Files…

Hi all,

I’ve just finished up a bunch of reading on presentations and related topics. Here’s a few items worth noting:

Gold, Rich. “Reading PowerPoint.” In: Working with Words and Images: New Steps in an Old Dance, Nancy Allen, Ed. Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing, 2002. ISBN: 1-56750-608-9. PP: 256-270.

I particularly liked this paragraph as it relates to the common practice of posting slide decks on the web:

“The obvious problem with reading PowerPoint slides sans presenter is…that it is the verbal gloss that contains the critical information to make the slides meaningful. The slides are often intentionally obscure (or at least so distilled as to be not more than the essence of the talk) precisely so that the verbal gloss will illuminate them. Furthermore, to the reader, without being part of an audience in the process of group formation, the slides become dry and dusty historical artifacts, the interpretation of which becomes almost arbitrary. In other words, read alone, PowerPoint slides are missing both the crucial commentary and the mammalian pack-formation pheromones.” (P. 266)

You’ll have to read the chapter yourself to find out about “mammalian pack-formation pheromones.”

Greene, Jake and Scott Schwertly. Deck ‘Em! A Novel Approach to Presentation Design. Available for $4.99 as a PDF download from http://www.slidemagnet.com/content/deck-em.

An “Extreme Presentation Makeover” in short story format. Lots of good tips (though I wish there’d been some pictures).

Zoladz, Phillip R. and Bryan Raudenbush. “Cognitive Enhancement Through Stimulation of the Chemical Senses.” North American Journal of Psychology, 7(1): 125-140. 2005.

I’ve been researching the literature for a while now on the cognitive effects, if any, of chewing gum. There is no definitive answer yet (some of the studies reported improved memory function while chewing gum, but others were not able to replicate the findings) but I found this interesting article among a set of items from a recent search.

There is stronger evidence for cognitive effects for odors (mint, jasmin, citrus, etc.) – that is, pleasant odors, while emotionally pleasing, may also help improve cognition. In their experiments, Zoladz and Raudenbush found significant improvements in memory recall tests for participants who had been exposed to cinnamon odor either through the nose or the mouth by chewing cinnamon gum (hence the reason it popped up in my search, but I digress).

How is this even remotely applicable to presentations? Well, I’ve been thinking about providing my audience with cinnamon gum and candies at the beginning of my presentations to enhance cognitive activity.  It might help, it might not – I’d have to do some experiments to be sure, but it certainly can’t hurt as long as audience members don’t stick their used gum under their chairs.  An invigorating piece of gum or candy might be especially useful for audience members when you’re presenting after lunch, or at the end of a long day of presentations.

Update, 4/23/09:

Here’s a link to a CNN story about gum and grades.  Sure, the research is sponsored by the Wrigley company so you have to keep your skepticism with you, but still, interesting stuff.

Enjoy!

Lee

Presentations Workshop (Princeton, NJ) – June 12th, 2009

Folks up in Princeton, NJ, have created Pres4Lib (no connection with me or this blog) a “camp for library speakers and trainers” to be held June 12, 2009. Visit http://pres4lib.pbwiki.com/ for more info.

Peace,

Lee