There are dozens of major improvements in PowerPoint 2007/2010 when compared to the 2003 version and one of them is the ability to create graphs directly in Excel. In PowerPoint 2003 graphs were created by using Microsoft Graph which was, at best, a poor tool.

This simplifies the process and considerably improves the quality of your graphs. Just following these steps:

• In PowerPoint, click Insert > Illustrations > Charts
• Select the type of graph you want.
• Excel opens in a separate window, with a sample chart, to boot.
• Just key in your data. The graph is created in PowerPoint, in parallel.

It’s as simple as that!

To edit the data, just right click on the graph, select Edit Data, and you are back in the Excel sheet.

If you try to edit a PowerPoint 2003 graph in PowerPoint 2007, you only have access to a limited number of
options, similar to those available in Microsoft Graph. The best thing to do is double-click on the graph in
PowerPoint 2007/2010 to access a dialog box that lets you convert the graph to the newer format. It is then fully editable in Excel.

It is beyond my understanding why people love to use PowerPoint templates with backgrounds that are highly distracting. They actually think that slides, saturated in a rainbow of colors, look professional. How wrong they are. In fact, all that these backgrounds do is distract the audience from the content of the slide. Background elements should certainly be professional-looking but they must also be subtle and unobtrusive.

Furthermore, the fancy design elements in backgrounds often reduce the workspace on the slide, which is something that should be avoided. After all, you goal is to deliver a message not a graphic display.

There is a ridiculously simple solution to this whole issue. VisualBee gives you dozens and dozens of smart and functional templates, developed especially for VisualBee by professional designers, that are ideal for any
type of delivery. And they are free!

How often have you sat through a presentation that is full of busy graphics with so many details that you cannot figure out what an illustration is supposed to offer? The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words doesn’t always hold water. If you have your audience staring glassy-eyed, or checking their emails, then the superfluous detail in your slides may just be the problem.

The resolution of this issue is really simple and VisualBee does it effortlessly for you. VisualBee selects simple and direct pictures, that are clearly related to your content, and highlight your message. Illustrations should complement and support your lecture not dominate it.

If you include numerical graphs and charts then keep them simple. Just give the basics.

VisualBee regularly extends the range of styles available to users. There are already hundreds of really smart and useful templates that you can select, on the fly, and the number is continually growing. Recently one of VisualBee’s designers developed a new concept for styles, one that is explicitly intended for presentations with minimal content. There is a growing momentum that encourages speakers to deliver an almost exclusively oral talk with PowerPoint being used only as a place holder.

In Pecha Kucha, which I wrote about in this blog on February 7, you put a very basic idea on a slide – a few words at most – and you must get a sharp and lucid message across to the audience about this particular subject, building upon the concept in the slide. And all of this must be down within framework of 400 seconds – 20 slides, each for 20 seconds.

The Lessig Method is less demanding. Each slide can contain only a short quote, or a photo. The following link,
to a presentation in support of Obama’s 2008 primary campaign, is an example of Lessig at his best.
This presentation and narration give you a good idea of just how powerful this technique can be:

http://www.lessig.org/blog/2008/02/20_minutes_or_so_on_why_i_am_4.html

Not everyone can do this, but effective speakers can keep an audience spellbound. Where can VisualBee come
to your assistance when you are delivering such a talk? The VisualBee algorithms identify the single or string
of words in each slide and effectively adorns it with appropriate graphics.

These new VisualBee styles can be identified by the word TITLE in large text. Try it. It is quite interesting to see
what a bit of color and an appropriate image does to ensure that your audience is with you from the first moment.

There are several ways PowerPoint can be used to help students take notes in class. The classic method is to print a PowerPoint slide show as a handout. This may be useful to some students as it gives structure to their note taking. Keep in mind that many undergraduate students are not proficient in taking lecture notes.

Another option is to transfer your PowerPoint presentation—or an outline of it—to Word, where it can be used by students who prefer to use a laptop for this purpose. Converting PowerPoint to Word allows students to type their notes directly into your document. Their notes are then searchable and can be easily edited.

To transfer a PowerPoint outline to Word, choose Send to > MS Word, and select the Outline option. Although
it has potential, do not use the Send to MS Word with Paste Link option. The automatic update feature can
cause havoc.

For most small businesses, a brand is hardly more than a combination of a logo, tag line, colors, a few images and font types that are used throughout various marketing communications collateral (website, business card, company presentation, data sheet, etc.). So long as these items look decent and appropriate for your type of business, you are okay.

VisualBee’s Premium package can help you achieve this goal. For a few bucks a month, you can select a really attractive PowerPoint template for your corporate presentation, insert your company logo and even use the colors from the template for your website and print material. Using VisualBee’s Image Gallery you can even select a set of corporate images. And if you already have organized a set of pictures for your collateral, just click MyImages to load them into your presentation.

You don’t have to pay thousands to a professional designer. Get really professional looking branding for your startup, for almost nothing. Just click on VisualBee.

VisualBee has a great new feature that has not yet received sufficient attention – Image Gallery. Without even enhancing a presentation, you can take advantage of VisualBee’s huge 12,000+ (and growing) image library. Just select a photograph and clip it into your presentation.

How does it work?

• On the VisualBee ribbon, Click Image Gallery.
• In the Image Gallery, enter a search string to find suitable images.
• Click an image and click Insert Image into Slide (or double click the image).

Don’t forget that you can, of course, still use Select from Gallery, as part of the VisualBee Enhancement process to select and replace images from the Image Bank.

The other day I gave a long presentation and I stood in front of the audience the entire time. The end result was that I finished with a real pain in my lower back. This is obviously the result of a combination of the natural tensions involved in giving a lecture, and posture – and they may just go hand in hand.

I have given this some thought and the fact that speakers must stand in front of the audience really concerns me. There must be some way to ease a presenter’s time spent on the platform. The audience is privileged enough to be able to sit in comfortable chairs, so why do we have to be exposed targets on the stage? I would like to start a movement to ease the suffering of presenters. Is in not sufficient that half of us are quaking in our boots at the idea of having to stand behind the lectern – or worse, wander around the stage – as we chatter? Why can’t we have a more comfortable arrangement? This seems to be a long-standing social issue and it is time we changed our approach for the benefit
of presenters.

Have you installed the latest version of VisualBee? If not, get with it. VisualBee now lets you send out tweets about each new presentation and post a Facebook update – all directly from the VisualBee PowerPoint ribbon. You can also post your presentations directly on Slideshare, the online slide hosting service. Altogether, VisualBee gives you the broadest possible exposure and viewing audience.

You can share your presentation on your Facebook wall – and show off all the nice stuff you have created in PowerPoint – with a single click of a button. You can also share a link to your presentation on Twitter, also directly from the VisualBee ribbon.

Slideshare is similar to YouTube, but for presentation slideshows and it is another great way to upload your presentation to the Internet.

Nancy Duarte wrote a brilliant piece (http://sbit.ly/fNiwLw) about how social media is turning presenting into an interactive conversation. She claims that social media is forcing the art of presenting to become an interactive conversation. Presenters who embrace audience participation connect their audiences to their ideas through tools such as twitter. She gives six ways to utilize social media while planning a presentation to ensure that a relevant conversation occurs.

Ms. Duarte recommends using social media as a connection tool, especially auto-tweet live by pre-writing tweets that get sent out when you click to advance your slides. The audience is thus involved in some sort of enhanced anticipation of what is about to happen. One reviewer commented that he uses "social objects" in live-tweets. Audiences get key points, images and links that they can use content with as they listen to the speaker.

But, before you start on such an adventure, be certain that your audience actually understands and uses social
media. You may get a blank gaze when you start fooling around with this stuff. Also, an audience is often not
able to interact with social media and still pay attention to the presenter. The tweet becomes more of a distraction
than a benefit.

To make this a success you must do substantially more work than just preparing a presentation. Is it really worth it?