Design and Deliver an Effective Presentation

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Design and Deliver an Effective Presentation

Most business continuity, emergency or risk managers have to give presentations, usually with PowerPoint. Using these resources can make your presentation stand out from the crowd and avoid the common 'death by PowerPoint' syndrome.

Retrieve the Audiences Attention

At times during a PowerPoint presentation, you need to redirect your audience's attention away from the screen and towards yourself. By pressing the B key, you temporarily black out the screen.

This allows you to control the flow of your talk and keep your audience's focus where it needs to be.

Just make sure you've got an alternate light source to illuminate you during these moments. You do not want to dilate your audience's pupils by darkening the room and then shock them when returning to the slide show.

Pressing B a second time restores the presentation to its previous display

Use a Laptop to Help with Notes and Timing

You can set up your laptop so your presentation doesn't appear on the laptop you're presenting from, while your slides display normally onscreen. That leaves the laptop for other uses, such as displaying your notes.

The trick is to use Windows' dual-monitor mode. To set this up, connect your projector normally through your laptop's VGA port. Right click on the desktop and select "Properties," then the "Settings" tab. Configure this tab so your laptop screen is Display 1, and the projector is Display 2. Click OK.

Now, open your PowerPoint presentation, and choose "Set Up Show" from the "Slide Show" menu. In the "Multiple monitors" area, chose "Monitor 2" from the drop-down menu, then click OK.

Now run your presentation, and you'll see that your slides display normally, while your laptop is free to run anything you like, including a Word document with all the notes you want in giant type.

You can also use one of the many downloadable countdown timers in a separate window to make sure you don't run over.

Use Unusual Images

Rather than using the standard stock images in PowerPoint use striking images that stand out from the crowd, perhaps even using cartoons. However, always steer clear of overly humorous images, they might seem like a good idea at the time but rarely are.

Sources of low cost or free images

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