Please, no more boring PowerPoint presentations!
My mentor Seth Godin has been crying in the business meeting wilderness for 4 years about this. Part of what he advises:
Here are the five rules you need to remember to create amazing PowerPoint presentations:
- No more than six words on a slide. EVER. There is no presentation so complex that this rule needs to be broken.
- No cheesy images. Use professional stock photo images.
- No dissolves, spins or other transitions.
- Sound effects can be used a few times per presentation, but never use the sound effects that are built in to the program. Instead, rip sounds and music from CDs and leverage the Proustian effect this can have. If people start bouncing up and down to the Grateful Dead, you’ve kept them from falling asleep, and you’ve reminded them that this isn’t a typical meeting you’re running.
- Don’t hand out print-outs of your slides. They don’t work without you there.
If you hope to have effective presentations as part of a successful business, read Godin’s entire post.
February 7th, 2008 by Day Tooley
Posted in Communication, General | Enter a comment »
After a hiatus of more than 6 decades, I found myself back in kindergarten this week. It was my first full week as a ParaEducator substitute for Portland Public Schools at Meriwether Lewis Elementary, Room 1, where Mrs. Parks was called 'Teacher'. I was the other adult present. The children called me 'Day.'
It might be more accurate to say that there were 25 five-year-old teachers channeling wisdom to 2 adults.
My primary responsibility was to help a sweet but disruptive little girl stay on track and get through her day. She had a 4-syllable name which took some effort for her to write at the top of each paper. I will honor her privacy by using an alias of 'Dulcinea' (from Man of La Mancha ). Sometimes Dulcinea believed she was more of an 'Aldonza.'
Being there was both fun and profound. The classroom landscape was rich in possibility and unpredictable. I hadn't realized that a return to the basics would be so refreshing. Remember Robert Fulghum's 1990 book All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten? His top 10 things were all there:
- Share everything.
- Play fair.
- Don't hit people.
- Put things back where you found them.
- Clean up your own mess.
- Don't take things that aren't yours.
- Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
- Wash your hands before you eat.
- Flush.
- Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Pretty good reminders for those of us in business too.
November 9th, 2007 by Day Tooley
Posted in @ EasyStreet, General | 1 Comment »
~~~~~~~ Related Posts
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Remember the frenzy in January, 2003 when the National Do Not Call Registry promised to block unwanted phone solicitors from calling us at home? Your phone-free dinners may come to an end soon.
- Stop Telemarketing Calls - Unless you opt-out again before December 1st, you’ll have to put up with 31 days of telesales calls while your new request goes active. Telesales companies are gearing up to make your life a living hell for those 31 days.
- Stop eMail Spam - Stopping it at the source is better than blocking it at your computer. I don’t have big hopes on this one.
- Stop Junk Mail - Trees are disappearing by the millions and showing up in our mailboxes in the form of junk mail catalogs. I carefully remove the label from soup cans and put it in the paper recycle box before smashing the can for its recycle box. A years worth of can labels don’t weigh as much as 1-day’s worth of holiday catalogs.
Today, I spent 20 minutes and $2.64 (4 postage stamps and $1 Visa charge) to eliminate part of this avalanche of unwanted marketing junk. And I did it at a new one-stop website: ProQuo.com. Here are the 16 bad actors responsible for a ton of cr*p that I hope I stopped:
Stop Request Received For Abacus (Division of Epsilon)
Stop Request Received For Acxiom
Stop Request Received For Aristotle
Stop Request Received For Choicepoint
Stop Request Received For KnowledgeBase Marketing
Stop Request Received For Publishers Clearing House
Stop Request Received For ShopWise
Stop Request Received For ValPak
Stop Request Was Confirmed For Credit Card, Mortgage & Insurance Offers
Stop Request Was Confirmed For Criss+Cross Directory
Stop Request Was Confirmed For Direct Marketing Association (DMA)
Stop Request Was Confirmed For Money Mailer
Stop Request Was Confirmed For National Do Not Call Registry
Stop Request Was Confirmed For PennySaver
Stop Request Was Confirmed For Switchboard.com
Stop Request Was Confirmed For WhitePages.com
Four of these global-warming marketing mills required me to print out a letter and mail a signed copy. The Credit Card, Mortgage & Insurance Offers service (OptOutPrescreen.com) asked for my Social Security Number (I gave it) and charged me a dollar on my credit card so I won’t get offers for more credit cards.
The National Do Not Call Registry required an email confirmation but was really quick (30 seconds total). Here’s the success confirmation screen:
Now to sit and wait for the storm to pass. You might want to give ProQuo.com a visit.
October 25th, 2007 by Day Tooley
Posted in General, eMail | Enter a comment »
Unified messaging is finally official. Business communication will catch up.
My “non-technical” 13-year-old 7th grader was collaborating with classmates on her Mac the other night as she was doing her homework. Others were being contacted and added to the conversation. Emails and files were being exchanged. And, of course, some music was playing. These kids had their new school-issued iBooks for 2 weeks and were masters of them already.
Yesterday Bill Gates took the pulpit at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco to announce that Microsoft was committing to take the parents of these kids into “unified communications,” a term that refers to combining voice calls, e-mail, instant messaging and videoconferencing into one application.
Here’s the deal: In three years Microsoft believes there will be 100 million users of unified communications, which should provide companies with a 50 percent reduction in communications costs. It represents a $45 billion annual market opportunity (and that’s not counting the kids).
This is good news for businesses and for parents. In three years we can be buying stuff from Microsoft so that we can save some money on communication costs and understand what our kids already do today for free.
October 17th, 2007 by Day Tooley
Posted in Collaboration, General | 1 Comment »
It's been more than a decade since AARP aggressively attempted to recruit me for membership. And nobody ever asks for my ID anymore to see if I qualify for the coveted Senior Discount. But this morning's Wall Street Journal article New Social Sites Cater to People of a Certain Age led with the announcement that "Older people are sticky." That caught my eye.
Referrals and testimonials have been the mother's milk of doing business forever. The Internet has added powerful tools that many business people are using. My first one was LinkedIn. It continues to be a good way to keep connected to a sphere of people who can help one another in business. Young people continue to mob MySpace until they go to college and graduate to FaceBook, which is considered more adult. (OK, I have a FaceBook account too.)
Responsible adults now have some new places to hang out with their peers and share experience. These sites with names like Eons, ReZoom, Multiply, Maya’s Mom, Boomj, and BoomerTown, look like FaceBook — with wrinkles. All are free to join but require some time and involvement to be useful.
I took a look at Multiply which would appeal to those who want to be known in the community. Good choice for sharing with friends and family. But I really liked TeeBeeDee (their theme is "Sharing Experience to Thrive") as a place to connect based on personal interests. TeeBeeDee is new and has just received $4.8 million in venture capital.
Social networking in business is a 2-way street. While you can learn about others, others can also research and learn about you. For example, before we interview a potential employee, it is common to do a Google search on them as well as to look for their Internet footprints on the social networking sites.
Of course, you can share your networking experience on this blog as well by leaving a comment. What is working for you?
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Posted in @ EasyStreet, Collaboration, Networking, General | 2 Comments »
