Debi,
Haha! You probably know me as an EDI guy, and a Softshare evangelist, but at this very moment I am sitting in a Toastmasters meeting dedicated to the subject of effective Powerpoint presentations. As a trained and experienced presenter, let me try to give you a few tips. Know your audience, and gear your presentation to their interest level. Example: Hardly anybody outside of your team cares about the format of a transaction, what is a loop, or specifics of a 997. Most of them care about what EDI means to them. An IT person may what to know about the various communications protocols, the advantages of each, why you need a VAN if you are doing AS2. The business wants to know why they need EDI, what use is it, because if there are any problems with a transaction, it becomes their problem. Management wants to know about risk and return. They want to know how else you can leverage their investment. Don't use the PowerPoint for your outline. Use it for emphasis. Include graphic representations of ideas, cartoons, quotations, extremely simple financial stats. Keep one point per slide. Only use big fonts. Limit animation - your message is the message, Powerpoint is to illustrate, not to entertain. Keep backgrounds simple. Use basic fonts, and only a few. Because your outline is not on the screen, you won't be as tempted to look at it instead of your audience. This is good. Less is more. Don't try to do too much. You have 10 seconds to grab your audience's attention. Start with something interesting. "EDI allows our Customer Service Representatives to spend 75 more hours per week working with customers, lowers the cost of taking an order by 95%, and reduces chargebacks by 80%. " Something like this is appropriate to put on a slide. Most importantly, realize that your audience is not there to judge you, they want to hear what you have to say. So there is nothing to be afraid of. Finally, Give yourself extra time to become familiar with the room, the technology, and have a plan B because there is a chance the technology will fail. Good luck Art Douglas From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of noyes Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 6:07 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [EDI-L] EDI_presentation Hi, I'm looking for any suggestions that you may have for coordinating an upcoming EDI presentation. The presentation challenge is later this week. The goals are: Create exitement while explaining how this small piece of IT (3 person team EDI of 37 IT members) adds value to the organization Give an overview of EDI for the newbies while not boreing the experienced Educate others on how EDI is here to say and has unlimited potential It will be part of an all day IT offsite (15 min. in the late afternoon) so I need to have something dynamic, simple and intriging--may need to wake some people up and certainly don't want them to fall asleep. I am also trying to recruit for potential succession planning opportunities and create excitement in the TeamEDI world. Does any one have any suggestions on how best to make this type of presentation? --any powerpoint that depicts EDI activity in a fun, enlightening manner? I was hoping to find some automation to use and put our story at the front and back of the presentation. I look forward to your suggestions and tips. Debi [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ ... Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Job postings are welcome, but for job postings or requests for work: <JOBS> IS REQUIRED in the subject line as a prefix.Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[email protected] mailto:[email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
