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The PowerPoint Ezine - 22
by Geetesh Bajaj
Introduction
This is a special issue - we'll look at the impact PowerPoint
has had on society as a whole - be it business, education, home
and even religion. We begin with a question - can you ignore
PowerPoint? We then look at what some PowerPoint bashers have
to say. A listing of Quick News is followed by a link to
download an article on PowerPoint repurposing - we thereafter
look at using plain colour backgrounds in PowerPoint. A
story on Presentation Storyboarding comes next. We finish
with a look at TAJ Simmons' site and a list of upcoming
PowerPoint related events.
Can You Ignore PowerPoint?
What's omnipresent today in the world of business and education?
Which program provides a monopoly to Microsoft that surpasses its
hold over even Word and Excel? That's an easy one - it's PowerPoint.
Unlike Word or Excel, which have had their traditional counterparts
in the typewriter or an account book, PowerPoint is purely an electronic
invention. Its earlier equivalents could have been flip charts
and 35 mm transparencies, yet nothing could have prepared one for
the razzmatazz of today's multimedia presentations.
PowerPoint has succeeded where many others have failed - in the
process, you'll find umpteen presentation programs disbanded over
the years. Some casualties include Macromedia Action, Adobe Persuasion,
Astound, Bravo, Compel, Charisma and more. Even Lotus Freelance
and Corel Presentations cannot match the PowerPoint juggernaut.
In some cases, these programs may have been better or have offered
more features, yet PowerPoint has always been easier to use.
Not surprisingly, many people love to hate PowerPoint. I remember
visiting a site called the PowerPoint Loathe Society or something
similar. Scott McNealy's (of Sun Microsystems) ban of PowerPoint
from his company is well known!
With over 300 million users and a market-share of 95%, PowerPoint
is certainly the presentation standard - love it or hate it, you
just cannot ignore PowerPoint anymore.
When you launch a new product or service, you create a PowerPoint
presentation. When you want to send your corporate profile on CD,
you use PowerPoint again. You use PowerPoint yet again when you
want to create a kiosk-style presentation at an exhibition stall.
And that's not all - you use PowerPoint at home to create a Christmas
card, a photo album or a homework assignment. You also use PowerPoint
as a teaching aid in the classroom - or to train and educate millions
over the Internet. Not surprisingly, that's only the beginning!
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PowerPoint's Role In Society
Critics love to tear PowerPoint to pieces. Ironically, there's
probably nobody better than them to help understand PowerPoint's
role in today's society! I personally don't believe in everything
these articles speak about, although many of these thoughts do
help us understand where improvements can be made.
Ian Parker's famous Absolute
PowerPoint article first appeared in the New Yorker - the
link leads to a PDF file.
Is
PowerPoint Too Dumb For Words? by Art Jahnke looks at PowerPoint
with observations from critics and defenders.
Ian Shoales wonders if the global economy will fall apart without
PowerPoint in Power!
Point?
Stephen Shugart looks at ways to respond to the dominance of PowerPoint
in Beyond
PowerPoint.
The Textism site
asks if an appearance at a meeting without PowerPoint would be
unwelcome and vaguely pretentious, like wearing no shoes.
The Chicago
Tribune has an article on PowerPoint's cultural effect on
society - they call it 'Killing me Microsoftly with PowerPoint'.
John-Paul Flintoff asks if PowerPoint is too much of a good thing?
Coleman proclaims 'I Loathe PowerPoint'
Note: A search at Google will provide hundreds of anti-PowerPoint
sites. Unfortunately, there aren't many sites defending PowerPoint
- probably it's fashionable nowadays to blame PowerPoint! The
fact remains that PowerPoint is just a tool and finally it is
up to the person who uses the product to find ways to use it
creatively.
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Quick News
You can enter the Powerpoint Live Sweepstakes for
a free pass to the three-day event being held from October 12 to
15 at Tucson, AZ, United States - a $795 value. Entries close July
1 and winners will be contacted one week later. Enter
your name here...
Apple has announced an update to its Keynote presentation
software for the Mac. The new 1.1 update offers improved PowerPoint
import and export capabilities. More
info...
Adobe has acquired the technology assets of Syntrillium
Software including the popular Cool Edit audio editor. More
info...
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 PowerPoint
Repurposing
In February, I wrote an article for Presentations magazine
that discussed PowerPoint repurposing. This discussed ways to achieve
more with your existing PowerPoint content through repurposing
and distribution.
Excerpt: That presentation you worked so hard on doesn't
have to die. It can be reused in any number of other ways - as
an autorun CD, QuickTime movie, e-mail presentation and much more....
This article is now available for download as a PDF - download
it here...
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Changing The Background Colour
If you are creating a presentation with many elements like charts,
tables, pictures, text content, etc. - then maybe you should consider
a plain colour background. Plain colour backgrounds are safe and
elegant - and it's easy to choose any colour.
- Select Format | Background
- In the resultant dialog box, open the drop down list next to
the down arrow - this will reveal 8 colour swatches - if you
want to use any of these colours as the background, colour, just
click on the respective colour swatch.
- In many instances, you may want to choose another colour -
click on the 'More Colours...' option.
- This will open the 'Colours' dialog box - with two tabs:Standard
and Custom.
- The 'Standard' tab contains a hexagonal colour picker where
you can choose any predetermined colour.
- If you require a different shade, then click the 'Custom' tab.
- The Custom tab shows a spectrum of colours - you can click
anywhere in the spectrum to choose your colour - you can also
entire exact HSL or RGB values to use an exact shade - maybe
something which matches your corporate colours.
- Click 'OK'.
- Click 'Apply to All' to change the background colour for the
entire presentation, or just 'Apply' to change only the current
slide's background.
The instructions above are for PowerPoint 2000 - PowerPoint 2002
and 2003 work in a very similar way.
Mickey Stevens, Microsoft MVP for the Mac Office adds: The
interface for choosing colors is different in PowerPoint 2001/X
for Mac, because it now uses the system Color Picker, so there
are several ways of choosing a color. Also, the option on the
Mac is called Format -> Slide Background. Thank you, Mickey.
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Presentation Storyboarding
A presentation without a storyboard is like a cart without a horse.
You have no idea which direction whomsoever is going to pull the
cart. And when you realize your mistake, it may be too late. And
it is at this note that our storyboarding story unfolds...
Storyboarding is never the beginning of any creative project,
because you cannot get to this stage unless your concept and vision
are completely clear. If you are undertaking a project for yourself
or for a client, there would be little to be gained in undertaking
a storyboarding session without ideas - the storyboard is an element
to capture and refine ideas, not to create them.
What exactly is a storyboard? Is it a piece of paper or a part
of your computer screen? Is it that part of your mind where you
store the sequence of your creativity? Actually, its all of them
- the 'storyboard' is both abstract and physical - in our thoughts
and on papyrus. The abstract is its very existence, but it's the
physical one which is a retrievable record of its brilliance.
The abstract storyboard has got more to do with our imagination
and visualization - it is also the source, inspiration and the
very existence that channels the physical storyboard. Read
more...
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TAJ Simmon's Site
TAJ Simmons runs the Awesome PowerPoint Backgrounds site - the
site contains hundreds of readymade PowerPoint templates that can
be bought online through the site.
TAJ also provides several detailed PowerPoint tutorials - some
of these discuss linking PowerPoint presentations and optimization
of graphic content. TAJ is a PowerPoint MVP (Most Valuable Professional). Visit the site...
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Events & Seminars
Winning Presentations Seminar
August 5 and 6, 2003
September 24 and 25, 2003
Boston, USA
Claudyne Wilder, Wilder Presentations
http://www.wilderpresentations.com/
PowerPoint Live
October 12 to 15, 2003
Tucson, Arizona, USA
Rick Altman, R Altman Digital Consulting
http://www.pptlive.com/
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Credits
During the preparation of this issue of the PowerPoint Ezine,
I received assistance and feedback from Claudyne Wilder, Echo Swinford,
Glen Millar, Mickey Stevens, Sonia Coleman and TAJ Simmons (all
in alphabetical order). I would like to use this platform to thank
them for their help.
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