Communicating with PowerPoint

So what are some of the top tips for communicating effectively using PowerPoint? A lot of people don't like PowerPoint. They trash PowerPoint. Talk about death by PowerPoint. The truth is, PowerPoint is a tool like any other tool. It's like television. Some television is awful. A lot of television is great. PowerPoint can be an effective medium if you follow a few basic tips. And by the way, if you want more in depth tips, I have an entire podcast series, a weekly series, podcast presentations, tips. It's every single week. You can sign up for that on itunes. But here are the basics if you want to Communicate effectively with PowerPoint. Focus on one idea per slide. Don't use text on your slide. You have a whole bunch of text, complicated columns, charts, numbers. Put it in a PDF, put it in a PowerPoint document that you email to people or hand out. Don't project it when you are speaking. Don't have any slides showing. If you put up a slide, stop talking. Realize that when you're giving a PowerPoint presentation, it's still a presentation. And you still need to follow the basics of figuring out in advance what is it you want your audience to do. And now what are literally the handful, no more than five ideas that are going to motivate your audience to do what you want them to do. You have to figure that out in advance. If you start your PowerPoint presentation preparation by just writing a bunch of slides, gathering data, putting bullet points, you're guaranteed failure. The slides are for your audience, they're never for you. If you're using the PowerPoint as your own teleprompter, you are guaranteed to fail and fail miserably. If you need notes for yourself, use a good old fashioned piece of paper. Follow These tips and PowerPoint can be an effective tool for your audience and you can give good presentations using PowerPoint.