Online PowerPoint Presentation.com

Far too often, I see online PowerPoint presentations that just come to an end after an important issue has been discussed. The presenter might finish by saying “well, that’s all I have” or a similarly pathetic statement that just feels awkward. Every online PowerPoint presentation needs a strong concluding slide.

Your conclusion slide should have 3-5 key messages that have already been introduced throughout the presentation, and reiterated on this final slide. Repetition is a key element in any PowerPoint presentation to keep your audience engaged, and for them to walk away remembering your message. The conclusion slide isn’t just to tidy up your presentation, but it’s you last chance to drive home the messages you just spent the rest of the presentation explaining.

The conclusion slide may also have a few bullet points on calls to action that are required either by individuals, or concepts in general. Keep your conclusion slide clean and simple and spend most of your time speaking to it, not reading from it. Use large fonts that have a good contrast with your background, so that everyone can read the messages and let them sink in. Save your most prominent message for last, and emphasize it in your presentation. Finally, be sure to thank the audience for their time and attendance, and if possible and appropriate, field any questions they may have.

Steven Kosslyn outlines 3 goals you should strive to attain in any successful online PowerPoint presentation:

1. Connect with your audience
2. Direct and hold their attention
3. Promote understanding & memory

Goal 1: Connect with your audience. Do not include too much or too little information and select information and use language appropriate for your particular audience.

Goal 2: Direct and hold attention. Attention is drawn to areas that are perceptibly different, so leverage design principles in your online PowerPoint presentation by using contrasting colors and images where appropriate. Make differences big and obvious. People will naturally tend to group similar elements into a single unit, keep them focused on the topic at hand.

Goal 3: Promote understanding and memory. Messages are easier to remember when they are clearly understood. For example, the word Red presented in green text violates this principle as would a graph about the homeless population in Los Angeles, decorated with a background image of people playing with their healthy dogs. Remember that people expect any change in your online presentations, such as a sudden interjection of a joke or a story, or a visual change in slide color or an animation, etc. to have meaning, and when they don’t have meaning this becomes noise and distracts them from being able to remember the message. Audiences can only retain a limited amount of information in an online presentation, so limit the amount of messages within a presentation.

Openings are the toughest part for most presenters. Like most impressions, you have less than 15 seconds to make a good first one. Many presenters have different styles for starting their online meetings. Some open with a joke or anecdote to calm there own nerves and some start talking immediately to cover up their anxiety or to project confidence.

In an online PowerPoint presentation, you usually can not directly see your audience, so the non-verbal cues that you would find in a standard meeting don’t apply. Open with a personal story that reflects your humanness. Your opening line is the most critical line which should connect with the audience.

Again, since you can not make eye-contact with your audience, you need to speak naturally and in a friendly manner. Reading directly from your notes or slides will quickly lose the attention of your audience. Speak as if you are merely having a conversation with individuals, who happen to be in a group. Speak in short, concise sentences, pausing frequently to really connect with individuals. Open the online meeting to questions at the end of each topic, or when presenting material that may be difficult to understand.

Use humor based on your own experiences and limitations as a human being. In this era of political correctness, jokes can easily offend or get you in trouble. Personal stories are limited to you and are often endearing. If the audience feels that they can connect with you on a personal level, they are much more likely to feel they can relate to the information you are presenting.

It’s usually pretty simple to tell when someone is speaking to an online PowerPoint presentation that someone else has put together. You may hear or see expressions of surprise or puzzlement or even comments that a graphic is especially good. You can have someone else prepare your slides and even have someone else manage the online meeting, but you have to own the presentation as if you created it. When you are completely familiar with the presentation and are comfortable working through the slides, you become free to connect with your audience and stand out as a presenter.

While online PowerPoint presentations will not take the place of communication skills, it can be a great tool for enhancing and improving presentation skills. Through practice, repetition and hard work, you can learn to be a great presenter by studying and using the right tools. Mind you, that the best speakers and presenters are the ones who are able to speak in a way that is most congruent with their own personality. The more authentic you are on your subject and to your audience, the more effective the communicator you are. The strength of online PowerPoint presentations and webcasts are that they give you the flexibility to use your own style and clearly get your message across to your audience.

When participating in an online PowerPoint meeting and communicating via teleconference, there are ground rules that all participants should abide by. Physical cues and facial expressions that assist in conveying your message in person are not available during a teleconference.

Unlike physical meetings, where it can be easy to slip in without disturbing the meeting, most teleconferencing services have an audible notification when someone else joins the teleconference. The meeting then usually pauses for that person to identify who they are and can be annoying when the meeting has to stop for each person that joins late. Plan on logging on 15 minutes before the start of the meeting so people can introduce themselves and the meeting can start on time. These same ground rules apply for video conferences.

Be aware of background noise. If you have dogs barking, or noisy traffic outside, it can be quite disturbing to the rest of the participants in the meeting. If you are in a noisy environment and can not help it, use the handset and not the speaker phone to reduce this noise as much as possible. The “mute” button can be used to prevent background noise, however the pause for you to turn off mute before you can answer the question prevents the conversations from flowing freely. Use the mute button only if you have to. When you do participate in the conversation, state your name and be sure to speak clearly, so the rest of the meeting participants can identify who is speaking. If your phone system has “hold” music or information when you put a phone line on hold, be aware that if you press hold during your teleconference, the entire meeting will have to hear that until you return.

It is your responsibility to pay attention and fully participate in online meetings and teleconferences. Turn off your cell phones and PDA. Don’t browse the web or check your email. Treat the teleconference and its participants with the same respect and attention you would an actual meeting to get the maximum benefit of the technology.