Will Prezi Dethrone PowerPoint? Survey Says…
August 7, 2012What to Do When the Picture Won’t Fit – PowerPoint video tip #17
September 6, 2012I have a lot of clients contacting me lately interested in learning how to build SlideShare decks for marketing their business. So I jumped at the chance when Kit Seeborg at SlideShare asked me to write a blog article and include a SlideShare deck.
And how successful was this deck? Very. It has been the most downloaded (over 1,000 downloads) and most favorited SlideShare in August 2012. So I must be doing something right.
I’ll be writing more about developing SlideShare decks, especially for marketing your business, in future posts. Subscribe to my blog to receive blog posts in your inbox.
About the author: Bruce Gabrielle is author of Speaking PowerPoint: the New Language of Business, showing a 12-step method for creating clearer and more persuasive PowerPoint slides for boardroom presentations. Subscribe to this blog or join my LinkedIn group to get new posts sent to your inbox.
7 Comments
Very nice Bruce. But you should add a voice over.
Thanks for the thought Tom. But I’m not sure I could add anything with a voice-over, since the deck is written to be self-explanatory.
Right. It would have to be reworked. I guess I was thinking it would be more effective in your “voice”.
It might be worth experimenting with, to see if voice-over is more compelling than straight reading. Does it get more downloads, favorites, twitters, views with or without voice?
SlideShare is a new medium and the old rules may or may not apply. That’s why I’m beginning to test different approaches. Glad to have your suggestions along the way, Tom.
Excellent. Thanks for sharing.
Really nice tip to ask the execs a question – that’ll surprise and engage them, and make the talk stand out too.
I also have a question and a suggestion about the deck: What’s the intent of the uppercase format? My suggestion’s to use sentence case, because it’s much easier to read. I found the all-caps quite tiring – a bit like listening to someone speak in a loud monotone! That’s most true of slide 30, which is 100% uppercase text and quite full. (See it at http://www.slideshare.net/speakingppt/5-tips-for-presenting-to-executives-13959919/30 )
Content-wise, though, I think the deck’s extremely good. I especially like your point #4 about leading with a story, not data.
You might also find THIS tip handy when presenting to execs: When you start your laptop, your slideshow starts automatically, waiting for you on slide 1. That way, you come across as a pro, rather than spending time and attention (yours and the execs’) while you open the deck in PPT…
http://remotepossibilities.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/how-to-start-a-high-stakes-presentation-instantly/
I hope that’s a help! Thanks for publishing your deck, Bruce, and for stimulating a discussion.
Hi Craig – Thanks for commenting about the ALL CAPS font. I’m experimenting with the SlideShare format and made a choice to use all caps based on observing other decks. The ones that used sentence case seemed more pedestrian. The ones that used all caps seemed more dramatic.
However, I appreciate your candid feedback that it was tiring. I’ll play with that bit for my next one – likely in October.
Great tip about teeing your laptop up to start on slide 1.
Always welcome your thoughts, Craig. Hot and cold feedback welcome! 🙂
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Bruce