Don't be a slave to your PowerPoint slides! (c) Thinkstock

You have an important internal presentation coming up where you’re going to present to a group of senior managers at your company. Here’s your big chance to make a great impression and land the promotion you’ve been after. You’re excited to learn that they’re going to give you a full hour. You invest a lot of time in creating the perfect presentation. However, as you finish your last slide right before the hour is up, you realize you made a critical mistake — you left no time for group discussion. As your audience quickly files out the door to their next appointment, you’re left wondering if you should have structured your PowerPoint presentation differently.

I recently witnessed some colleagues experience this problem in their internal presentations.The content was great, but they just didn’t budget their presentation time effectively to allow for discussion between key stakeholders. They missed an opportunity to get all of the executives engaged in a discussion around their topic, and gain their commitment to support critical next steps for their projects. As I’ve said before, time is frequently the root of all PowerPoint evil.

At conferences, most presenters leave some time for questions from the audience. However, in smaller business meetings, presenters too frequently take up all of the allotted time presenting and don’t allow sufficient time for discussion. In many cases, the discussion during or after a presentation is the most important part. Here are six reasons why you want to encourage a discussion during your smaller presentation settings:

1. Your audience may provide suggestions, which enhance or strengthen your ideas
2. Your audience might have significant concerns about your content and resist your ideas. If you don’t hear what their concerns are, you’ll miss a valuable opportunity to resolve them
3. In a discussion, you have the ability to further tailor your content to your audience’s needs
4. By actively participating in a discussion on your topic, your audience may more readily support and understand what is being proposed
5. The retention of your content will be much stronger with your audience if they discuss it rather than just passively listen to it
6. The goal of most presentations is to drive some kind of action, and by discussing possible next steps at the end of your presentation, you can gain commitments from your audience to accomplish specific tasks

Presentation scenarios

I thought it would be helpful to identify some different scenarios that I’ve seen in the business world, and discuss why they work or don’t work. Perhaps you’ll recognize some of the scenarios, and hopefully you’re not the presenter on the bad ones.

Which scenario matches your last internal presentation?

“100% me” (Scenario A): As described above, the presenter uses all of the time to present and nothing else. It’s a one-way fire hose of content. The presenter leaves the audience with no time to discuss the key points of his or her slides.Opportunity missed.

“Oh yeah, any questions?” (Scenario B): The presenter mostly presents and then leaves only a token amount of time for group discussion. His or her audience may leave the presentation with questions unanswered and not be totally bought into the ideas presented.

Discussion is usually a good thing during presentations. (c)Thinkstock

“Let’s burn through the rest of my slides” (Scenario C): The presenter generates some discussion at the beginning of his or her presentation, but gets nervous about timing and powers through the rest of the slides to complete it on time. The presenter ends up rushing through his or her content, misses an opportunity to discuss next steps, and fails to answer any outstanding questions. What might have started well, ends badly.

“We’re going into overtime” (Scenario D): The presentation sparks an interesting discussion at the end, but the presenter didn’t factor in enough time for it. The discussion runs beyond the allotted time, resulting in some key people having to leave before it’s finished or causing other key people to be late to their next appointment. Right idea but bad execution.

“Present and discuss” (Scenario E): The presenter lays out his or her content and has budgeted ample time to discuss the key points of the PowerPoint presentation. Everybody has had a chance to discuss the content, fully understand it, and determine next steps. Hooray!

“A discussion interspersed with slides” (Scenario F): The presenter is well prepared and comfortable with having focused discussion during his or her presentation. The presenter has a specific goal in mind and realizes that discussion may get to the desired action more quickly than force-feeding his or her audience with more slides. Bonus: Everybody leaves happy when the meeting ends early.

Summary

Two-way communication is generally encouraged for most presentations. However, communication between audience members can be equally or more valuable than just communication between a presenter and his/her audience. The next time you present in a smaller business setting ensure that you leave ample time for discussion, and you’ll see a difference in the action and success your presentation is able to drive. Don’t let PowerPoint slides interrupt a good discussion!

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Image fades can be useful in many situations (just like a good pair of jeans). (c) Thinkstock

You may have run into a situation where you wanted to fade a part of an image for a PowerPoint slide. By fade, I don’t mean the fade animation effect in PowerPoint. By fade, I mean blending the image into the background color or another solid color of your choice. You may have thought you needed Photoshop to create a fade effect with your images. However, you can achieve a fade effect directly in PowerPoint using an object with a blended transparent gradient fill.

Step 1 - Identify where a fade is required

Typically, I use the image fading technique in two ways. First, you can use it to emphasize a key part of an image and still leave the audience with a sense for the bigger picture. Second, you can also use it to hide or de-emphasize less important parts of an image. In the example below, I wanted to soften or remove the edge of the image so that it didn’t stand out so much on the slide. I’ve used this approach to allow bullet points to overflow on to an image and not have the text become lost in the image.

On the left, the edge of the image stands out. On the right, using the fade technique I was able to soften the edge so the image blends into the slide better (c) Thinkstock.

Step 2 - Choose an appropriate shape and size

I used a long, narrow rectangle for this fade effect.

Normally, I use rectangles to fade out parts of an image (objects need to be positioned on top of images). However, you can use other shapes to create more interesting fade effects. Sizing also becomes an issue with the fade effect as a wider shape makes the fade more gradual while a narrower shape makes the fade more sharp or abrupt.

Step 3 - Add a two-stop gradient fill to shape

With the shape on top of the image, you right-click on the shape and click on “Format Shape” at the bottom of the pop-up menu. Under the Fill tab, you select Gradient fill. Under the Gradient stops, remove one of the stops so you only have two (by default you get three stops but the third one is unnecessary).

Step 4 - Ensure the direction of the fade is correct

While still in the Fill tab, click on the Direction and choose the appropriate orientation of the fade. For example, if you want the fade to go left to right (or vice versa), make sure you select Linear Right or Left.

You need to make sure the direction of the fade is correct to achieve the desired effect.

Step 5 - Change stops to desired color for fade

Within the Format Shape > Fill tab, you configure your fade object.

In the Fill tab under Gradient stops, you select each stop and choose your desired color. For example, if your background is white and you want to fade an image into the background then you would select white as the color for both stops.

Step 6 - Change transparency of one stop to 100%

Next, you’ll need to adjust the transparency setting of one of the stops under the Gradient stops section to 100% (transparent). The other stop will be 0% (opaque). You may need to reverse the transparency settings of the stops depending on whether the fade flows the way you need it to.

With the image fading technique added to your toolbox, you’re better equipped to emphasize or de-emphasize key parts of images in your PowerPoint slides. This technique can add polish to your slides and help them communicate better. Good luck!

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Composition also makes images better. (c)Thinkstock

In the first part of this article, I discussed how good presentation images need to be both relevant and unique. In terms of the uniqueness of an image, there are two factors: the subject of the photo and the composition of the photo. In the previous article, I looked at how the subject of the photo can make a presentation image more interesting, and now I’m going to turn my attention to the second area: composition.

Composition of the Photo

The method that the photographer uses to capture or manipulate a photo can contribute significantly to the uniqueness of a particular presentation image. I’m certainly not a professional photographer, but there are some basic composition techniques in photography that when well executed can make a stock photo more interesting or unique:

• Asymmetry: Most amateur photographers try to make sure that the subject is centered in the middle of their photographs. However, you can achieve some interesting and more realistic-looking results by having your photos more asymmetrical, where the subject or focus of your picture is not directly centered. Most asymmetrical photos come from photographers following the well-known design principle, the Rule of Thirds.

Can you see the rule of thirds in these pictures? Lay an imaginary tic-tac-toe board on top of them. The subject of your images do not have be centered in the middle. (c)Thinkstock

• Empty space: All of the space within an image doesn’t need to be filled. In fact, having some empty or neutral space within a photo can create a nice contrast with the rest of the picture. In addition, you have a convenient location for text.

Empty space gives you a great spot for text. (c)Thinkstock

• Point of view: By simply finding fresh or unique angles for taking their pictures, photographers can create attention-grabbing images of even everyday items or scenes.

The position or angle of the photographer can create a more interesting image. (c)Thinkstock

• Perspective: With an eye for capturing perspective, photographers can add dramatic depth and distance to two-dimensional images.

Perspective puts your audience in the image. (c)Thinkstock

• Cropping: It can be more appealing to see part of an object up close rather than seeing the entire object at a normal view. A close-up can reveal interesting details that normally go unnoticed.

Extreme close-ups and cropping can make subjects even more interesting. (c)Thinkstock

• Background: Some images have the subject cut out and placed on a white background. These images can work well with presentations because most PowerPoint templates use a white background. These images can pop a little more in a slide because the subject contrasts sharply with the white space around it.

Using cut-out images on a white or black background creates a nice contrast and can really make your images stand out. (c)Thinkstock

• Focus or depth of field: The skilled use of depth of field can create an interesting emphasis or focal point in an image. A key part of the photo will be in focus while other parts of the background or foreground will be blurred.

Focus is used to emphasize the focal point of the image. The focus of an image isn't always in the foreground as you can see in the match example on the right. (c)Thinkstock

• Framing: A photographer can frame the focal point of the photo using objects in the foreground, adding a feeling of depth which makes the overall image more interesting and unique.

The unfocused foreground frames the focal point of the image. (c)Thinkstock

• Action or motion: A photo that captures the movement of an object can add dynamic impact to a presentation slide.

Motion or action can energize an image. (c)Thinkstock

• Repetition: By showing repetition or a pattern, you can really emphasize a key point and catch the attention of your audience.

Repeated objects or people can create an interesting visual effect. (c)Thinkstock

• Color: Colorful images can draw your audience into your presentation slide. Colors may highlight specific parts of an image, and they can also convey specific moods and emotions.

Color can show contrast, draw attention, or convey an emotion. (c)Thinkstock

You have noticed that many of these sample images above have incorporated multiple composition techniques. You can target a particular main composition technique in your image search, but you’re going to find that other secondary composition elements will contribute to making an image unique or interesting for your PowerPoint presentation.

I’ve only covered a sampling of different composition techniques. A number of photography bloggers have covered other composition techniques (Darren Rowse, Amateur Snapper). Effective presentation images will most likely be a combination of different uniqueness elements — both subject and composition.

Choosing relevant and unique images for your presentation can significantly enhance the impact of your PowerPoint slides. Good presentation images can have the power to move and influence your audience. Rather than just knowing that you need to use more images in your PowerPoint slides, I hope this article helps you to identify better images for your future presentations. Happy hunting!

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Lots of photos are taken, but few are chosen. (c) Thinkstock

If you’ve read any presentation design books lately (Presentation Zen Design, Slide:ology, etc.), you’ve probably decided to use more images in your presentations. However, you may still be wondering if the images you’re selecting are good, average, or lame. Using more lame or average images in your presentations is about as helpful as adding more bullet points or animations to your PowerPoint slides.

“Good” can be extremely subjective or relative. Just because you’re using an image from a stock photography site doesn’t mean it is automatically good. If you’re using a stock photo in your presentation, you should have the quality basics covered - e.g., higher resolution (not pixelated), adequate size, professional-looking (proper composition, lighting, contrast, color, etc.), and not distorted (stretched).

However, these quality aspects don’t guarantee that a stock photo will be effective for a particular PowerPoint slide. I believe the following two factors define whether a photo or picture is a good presentation image:

1. Image relevancy: Does it support/reinforce the key point or message of your slide?
2. Image uniqueness: Does the image stand out and get noticed by your audience?

Moving from left to right, the images get more relevant and unique.

If you use poor quality, overused/generic images that aren’t relevant to your message, these images end up being distractions. They don’t complement your message, they just get in the way. If your images are unique but not relevant or vice versa, they become decorations — ineffective accents to your message.

If you use interesting and relevant images, your presentation slides will become more potent and powerful. In some rare cases, the stars align and you find an incredibly powerful image. This “big bang” image may end up being the star of your show, ensuring a key point is remembered long after your audience has forgotten the title of your presentation.

Image relevancy

A good presentation image is more than just a good photograph or illustration as it also needs to match your message. An unassuming but relevant image can suddenly click with a particular idea or concept you’re trying to share. It can feel like finding a missing puzzle piece in your presentation.

Text and images often need to work together to deliver the desired impact. (c) Thinkstock

A potentially good image can fall a part if it’s not positioned appropriately with your audience. As a presenter, it’s your responsibility to connect the dots for your audience between your message and your image. Like telling a good joke, an effective presentation image needs a good setup and delivery. Proper positioning of the image to show its relevance to your topic can be achieved either verbally or with the right supporting text (e.g., title, quote, statement).

Determining how you’re going to present an idea or concept can be the most difficult and time-consuming part of building a slide. As you settle on an approach, you may want to consider whether your approach supports rich imagery. You may find some topics don’t give you enough options to find a really good image. When appropriate, I like using analogies or metaphors in presentations as they can provide you with richer, more memorable visual options.

This slide uses content staging to introduce each image one at a time to build up to the main point of the slide. (c) Thinkstock

Another consideration that impacts image relevance is whether you’re trying to convey too many ideas or points on a single slide. Many people advocate for one idea or key point per slide. When you’re presenting only one message on a slide, your images have to be pertinent to your message. You can create really powerful and memorable slides using this approach.

In some cases, you might use several images to build up to the main message. Using a content staging approach, you can use animations to introduce the images individually. In addition, the “one idea per slide” philosophy may not always be practical or applicable (i.e., time to find multiple images for multiple points, cost to purchase multiple images, creating a summary slide, etc.) so your image(s) should tie into one or two of your key points.

Image uniqueness

Your image may be relevant or related to your message, but does it stand out? Is it going to capture the attention of your audience? I feel there are two main areas where a stock photo can be unique: the subject of the photo and the composition of the photo.

Subject of the photo

The subject of a photo is the focal point of the image. The focal point or main subject may be a person, place, or thing. There are a number of ways in which the subject can make the stock photo more unique:

• Avoid tired images: You’ve seen “the handshake”, “the globe”, “the arrow/dart in the target”, and “the chess piece” a thousand times. Whenever possible shake it up and find something a little different.

Do you recognize these images from Office 2007 clipart? Similar images have been used millions of times in presentations, brochures, websites, etc. If possible, try to break the cycle or at least look for more compelling variations.

• Unexpected application: Rather than using the standard product- or business-oriented photos for your presentation images, could you use something more playful, retro, or unexpected?

This slide compared managing multiple report suites (web analytics) to shepherding sheep. (c) Thinkstock

• Realistic vs. fake: Almost everybody in stock photography looks beautiful. Most stock photos of business settings (e.g., people in a meeting room) look overly staged or contrived. I often wonder if the attractive model smiling at the monitor screen in stock photos would even know how to turn the computer on. Keep it real so real people can relate to your slides.

The meeting images on the left feel staged or contrived. The images on the right feel more genuine as though a snapshot was taken at a real meeting. (c) Thinkstock

• Exaggeration: There’s a difference between something pretending to be real (unsuccessfully) and something that makes no attempt at being real. An exaggeration can really stand out and emphasize a key point. Use your best judgment with embellishments as they can come across as tacky or cheesy.

The image on the left relies on some Photoshop tricks and comes across as a little tacky. The image on the right emphasizes how we can feel overwhelmed with tasks and projects.(c) Thinkstock

• Focus on people: Garr Reynolds and Carmine Gallo mention that audiences respond positively to images with people, especially faces. Putting a human face on your presentation can help your audience better relate to your message, products, or services. Tip: Use pictures of people that match your audience. If your audience is more business casual, don’t use images that have people in suits and ties.

Close-ups of faces can really draw your audience into your message. It's funny how this model looks a little like Owen Wilson. (c) Thinkstock

• Tell a story: One well-chosen photo or group of photos can tell or imply a story that your audience can relate to. Stories are some of the most powerful ways for getting ideas to stick.

Each of these images is like a self-contained story. They need less explanation or elaboration to tie into your message. (c) Thinkstock

• Evoke an emotion: When appropriate, you can use photos to elicit an emotional response from your audience. Whereas logic helps people to draw conclusions, emotion gets people to act.

Real images are going to evoke emotions more readily than stock photography. This photo from Haiti captures a great moment in the relief efforts. When working with photos from flickr, be careful to respect the photographer's rights.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dvids/ / CC BY 2.0

• Humor: Life is already too short and painful to put your audience through slide after slide of boring, lifeless content. If you’ve ever seen Seth Godin present, he effectively uses thought-provoking and humorous images throughout his presentations to engage his audience. You can too.

Stock images are more dependent on the setup and delivery to be funny. Most real-life photos like the two bottom images can stand on their own (from Strangefunnyworld.com). However, be careful with low resolution images and make sure they still tie into your overall message.

I’ve covered how good presentation images need to be both relevant and unique. I’ve showed how the subject can make images more interesting.

In Part II of this article, I’m going to look at the composition of the photo. Composition refers to how a photographer takes a picture in a specific manner to emphasize a focal point in a photo. The subject of two photos can be identical, but how a photographer composes the picture (e.g., rule of thirds, angle/point of view, framing, etc.) can make one image more compelling than another.

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Sometimes you want to adjust a group of objects together and other times you want to adjust just one element within a group. (c) Thinkstock

Recently, a new PowerPoint 2007 user from Australia contacted me about being frustrated with one of PowerPoint’s new features. You may have run across this inconspicuous feature when you attempted to move a grouped object and rather than moving the entire grouped object, you end up accidentally moving just a sub-element of that object. You may have wondered what is going on because in PowerPoint 2003 you would have to ungroup an object before you could reposition any of its sub-elements.

In PowerPoint 2007, you can now reposition any sub-element without having to ungroup the grouped object. In PowerPoint 2003, you could edit sub-elements (e.g., color fill, border thickness, etc.) but if you needed to move a sub-element, you had to ungroup the object, reposition it, and then regroup all of the elements again. I love this new “quick edit” option in PowerPoint 2007 as I find it saves a lot of time. However, I realize it can be a little frustrating if you can’t distinguish between when you are working with the sub-elements or the entire grouped object.

How to spot the quick-edit mode

When you’re working with a grouped object, the first time you click on the object you will see a solid border around the outer edge of the grouped object. When you have a solid border, you can edit or move the object as a group. If you click again within the object, a dashed border appears on the outer edge of the object and a solid border appears around one of the sub-elements. With the dashed border you can click on any of the sub-elements and move or edit them.

Watch the border to know what level you're working with. Solid = group / dashed = sub-element.

If you hold down the Shift key, you can select multiple sub-elements at the same time. If you want to go back to moving or editing the entire grouped object, just click outside the object and then click the grouped object again to get a solid outer edge.

Several times I know I have unintentionally dragged just a sub-element when I really wanted to drag the entire grouped object to a new spot. I hope this explanation helps to clarify what’s going on and what to look for.

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Garr Reynolds' new book!

After his breakthrough book, Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery, Garr Reynolds brings us another offering to the presentation design altar, Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations. If you enjoyed his first book, you should like his second book. I agree with other reviewers that it isn’t the same breakthrough as his first Presentation Zen book was, but it is a worthy follow-up book for fans of his blog and anyone who does presentation design on a regular basis. Overall, I give this book four out of five stars.

Highlights of Presentation Zen Design

More of the same from Garr Reynolds, which is a good thing in my mind. (c) Thinkstock

As I mentioned, if you liked Reynolds’ first book, you get more of the same stuff you love in this book: emphasis on simplicity, stock photography, white space, no bullet points, fundamental design principles, interesting slide examples, etc. Going through Presentation Zen Design was a good refresher or reminder on what’s important for designing a strategic, keynote-style presentation.

In Presentation Zen Design, Garr Reynolds focuses on some new topics that were not covered in his first book: color, type, video, and data. All of these subjects were covered to varying degrees by Nancy Duarte in her Slide:ology book, and it’s nice to see Reynolds devote entire chapters to these key topics as I value his opinion on them.

Besides the helpful design suggestions from Garr Reynolds, in Presentation Zen Design you also get a great collection of featured experts, who provided useful insights on a variety of presentation-related topics. Some of these experts included David Rose (VC pitches), Nancy Duarte (storyboarding), John McWade (imagery), Scott Kelby (photography), and Stephen Few (data visualization). I felt as though these subject matter experts nicely complemented Reynolds’ content.

Criticisms of Presentation Zen Design

Throw on some wasabi, and I could eat Japanese culture all day long. (c) Thinkstock

I’m a big fan of Japan and its amazing culture (e.g., sushi, ninjas, samurais, anime, tech gadgets, politeness, etc.). I’ve even been fortunate enough to have visited Japan three times in my life. Although the Japanese cultural references used throughout the book provided interesting visuals and a common theme, I don’t feel as though they pulled their weight in terms of better explaining Reynolds’ presentation design concepts or main points. In fact, I felt as though the various features on wagasa (umbrellas), tokonoma (interior design), and zen aesthetic principles were mostly tangential at best (nonessential as Garr would say) and detracted from the efficacy of the book.

Garr Reynolds, Nancy Duarte, Seth Godin, and other keynote presentation-focused experts seem to believe one approach fits all situations. For strategic presentations, a Presentation Zen Design approach is fantastic. What about the non-strategic, tactical slide decks that most presenters are dealing with on a day-to-day basis? Do we need remove all of the bullet points, use heavy amounts of stock images, and create handouts for all tactical presentations as well? For many tactical presentations, a pure Presentation Zen Design approach will be expensive, time-consuming, and ill-suited. Several of Reynolds’ design principles still apply to tactical presentations, but readers are unfortunately left to figure it out on their own.

My final minor criticism relates to the slide examples included in this latest book from Garr Reynolds. In his first book, I really enjoyed all of the interesting slide examples from various presenters, especially the before and after examples. I found it really helpful to see a poorly-designed slide side by side with a well-designed version. In Presentation Zen Design, I didn’t feel as though there were enough before and after examples, which was a little disappointing. In addition, there were too many slide examples from the same presentation design firm (Duarte Design). I would have preferred a greater variety of sample work from different professional and non-professional presentation designers. Nancy Duarte’s team is very talented, but I wanted to see a richer variety of styles and approaches.

Besides a slight Apple Keynote bias in Presentation Zen Design, Garr Reynolds’ second book builds upon the core concepts outlined in his first book. Overall, I believe Presentation Zen Design is definitely a good addition to your business book library if you regularly build presentations in your current role.

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Miter joints are new in PPT 2007. (c) Thinkstock

If you regularly use shapes and lines in your PowerPoint presentations, you should be familiar with the standard line style options such as width, dash type, and compound style. All of these options were in PowerPoint 2003 and have carried over to the latest version of PowerPoint. In PowerPoint 2007, they have added a couple of new options that you should be aware of  — join type and cap type.

Join Type

I was recently trying to create an explosion shape, and the points of the explosion just didn’t look crisp. As I started exploring in the options, I found that the join type was the culprit.

In PowerPoint 2007, your default setting for join type is round. There are two other options for join type — bevel and miter. In the image below, you can see the differences between each join type on the lightning bolt shape.

For explosions and lightning bolts (any shapes with sharp angles), the miter join is the way to go.

The miter join works well with any shapes with sharp or right angles such as squares, rectangles, etc. For example, I used the miter join for my explosion shape, and it looked much better than the default round join. The bevel join looks like someone clipped off the corner of the angle. The differences between the join types aren’t as noticeable if you’re using a thin line width (< 1 pt), but can be very noticeable if you’re using a very thick line width (> 3 pt).

Cap Type

Once I discovered the effect of the join type setting, I became curious about the cap type setting. The cap type setting is only used with open shapes (e.g., lines), not closed shapes (e.g., squares). The cap type controls the endings of lines as well as the format of dashed lines. The default setting is flat, and you have two other settings — square and round. In the image below, you can compare the effect of each setting:

The flat and square settings are so similar, we probably didn't need both options.

There’s not really a huge difference between the flat and square options. The square option lengthens the line a little beyond the end points, but that’s about it as far as I can tell. The round option creates rounded end points for a line, and if it is a dashed line then each of the dashes will be rounded as well. I wish the arrow point on a line could have been rounded as well, but it isn’t changed by the cap type setting.

How to access line style settings

Most of these options should be familiar.

If you’d like to adjust the line style settings on one of your lines or shapes, you need to right-click on the object. On the pop-up menu, select Format Shape which is at the bottom of the menu. On the subsequent menu, select the Line Style tab from the left-hand side. You’ll then see the different line style options including the new join and cap type options. Good luck!

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Add a tapered "swoosh" arrow to your slides.

Back in December 2008, I published an article on how to create “sexy” curved arrows in PowerPoint 2007. I never thought that particular post would become one of my most popular articles. It highlights a problem within PowerPoint 2007 where you can no longer edit and curve the default arrows. The article shows you a workaround approach that enables you to create a nice flowing — dare I say “sexy” — curved arrow in PowerPoint 2007.

In this Part II article, I’d like to add to your curved arrow technique to your PowerPoint design toolbox — the curved swoosh arrow. It’s a little more work to create than the “standard” sexy curved arrow, but I think the effect might be worth the extra effort in some situations.

What are my arrow options in PowerPoint?

Before I introduce the swoosh arrow technique, I’d to review the different types of arrow options that you have in PowerPoint 2007 and show how there’s a void that the swoosh arrow fills.

You have many arrow options in PowerPoint. However, you probably only use a handful of them regularly.

As mentioned, the default arrow is only good for straight lines — you can’t edit or curve it. Some people like to use the elbow arrow connectors. I rarely use them because I find the connectors difficult to work with and the connectors (not the objects) can’t be aligned so they often end up looking messy. You also can’t curve the connectors.

The directional (up, down, left, and right) block arrows are straightforward and very useful, and I use them frequently. However, the curved and circular block arrows usually end up looking too chunky, skewed, or generally awkward-looking so I typically just use sexy curved arrows in their place.

Enter the Swoosh Arrow

You can have fun with a swoosh arrow. Maybe I got a little too much air time on this one. (c) Shutterstock

When you look at all of the Arrow options in PowerPoint 2007, you’ll notice that all of the arrows basically have a uniform thickness. Sometimes you’d like to create a more dynamic arrow to highlight or emphasize a particular aspect of your presentation. A swoosh arrow provides a more dramatic, tapered effect than a simple curved arrow. Let’s walk through the steps to creating a curved swoosh arrow.

Step 1: Create a directional block arrow

Create a block arrow.

The first step is create a directional block arrow. The key is to size the arrow so the head of the arrow is the right size for the swoosh arrow. If you find that you haven’t sized your arrow correctly, then in most cases you’re going to have to start over so it’s important to get the arrow’s head size correct.

If you are creating a series of swoosh arrows and want them to have uniformly sized heads, you’ll want to make several duplicates of the block arrow once it is sized properly.

Step 2: Rotate the arrow to the desired angle

Rotate with the green handle.

Focusing on the arrow head, you want to make sure it is rotated to the desired entry position. It’s important to position the arrow head correctly because you want to avoid having to adjust things later on when it would be messier and more work to fix.

Step 3: Convert the arrow into a Freeform shape

Now we need to convert the arrow into a Freeform shape so that it can be transformed into a swoosh arrow. First, you select the arrow by left-clicking on it. Second, you click on the Drawing Tools > Format tab on the Ribbon. Third, on the far left you should see the Edit Shape option within the Insert Shapes module. Click on the Edit Shape dropdown menu and select Convert to Freeform to change the arrow into an editable Freeform shape.

You could draw a curved swoosh arrow, but it's way easier to just convert a block arrow into a swoosh arrow.

Step 4: Edit the block arrow’s shape

With the arrow being a Freeform shape, we can edit its corner points to create a curved swoosh arrow. In order to edit the arrow shape, right-click on the arrow and select Edit Points. With the end points showing, you can now reposition the starting points of your arrow. You’re going to need to use the handles to adjust the angles of the corner points of the arrow to create the desired curve for the swoosh arrow. You can keep both of the starting corner points or delete one of them so the arrow starts from a single point instead.

I would recommend not touching the front three edit points that form the “V” of the arrow head. If you start playing with them you can ruin the integrity of the arrow. It will begin to fall apart like a cheap tent that has had its support poles removed.

Right-click on the arrow shape and then you'll be able to create the swoosh arrow.

Swoosh arrows may not always be worth the extra effort compared to that of regular sexy curved arrows. Most of the time a simple curved arrow will communicate just fine, and you don’t necessarily want arrows to stand out. However, when an arrow is important to what you’re trying to communicate and it needs a little extra flair or panache, the swoosh arrow can be a great option.

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SmartArt is not PowerPoint + Bob Ross.

PowerPoint is often criticized for encouraging presenters to rely too heavily on bullet points and not helping people to communicate more visually. Microsoft added a feature known as SmartArt to help convert text into various stylized graphics. When you’re designing your PowerPoint presentation, you can quickly rotate through various shapes, colors, layouts, and styles in order to find the right graphic for your presentation.

For novice or casual PowerPoint users, SmartArt can be a handy tool for quickly making your presentation more visual and professional looking. If you decide to use SmartArt in your PowerPoint slides, you need to be careful because SmartArt is dumb.

Warning: SmartArt is dumb

I'm not calling SmartArt stupid...just dumb. (c) Shutterstock

Hear me out before you say, “Hey, PowerPoint Ninja, you’re dumb! SmartArt is the greatest.” By “dumb” I don’t mean “stupid”. When I refer to SmartArt as dumb, I mean what the Merriam-Webster dictionary refers to as “not having the capacity to process data.” In other words, SmartArt is not going to intelligently guide you to a diagram style that is appropriate for your content. SmartArt provides you with lots of visual options, but it is up to the presenter to choose an appropriate graphic based on his or her content. This is where presenters and SmartArt can go wrong.

Recently, I was asked to fix some slides that someone else had built. The main slide of the presentation emphasized the three core teams (consulting, training, and client support) within our client services department. The designer had used a diagram with three flowing circular arrows that has been re-purposed several times in various presentations at my company. The diagram wasn’t a SmartArt graphic, but like SmartArt it was used as a more visually attractive alternative to a boring list of bullet points.

The circular flow diagram wasn't an appropriate diagram in this case. The diagram needed to align better with the content -- aesthetics aside.

Replacing bullet points with the wrong graphic is worse than just having bullet points. It’s a downgrade, not an upgrade. The circular motion of the graphic implied that our customers flowed through consulting to training to client support — and then the whole process would be repeated over and over. If our clients never had to work with our client support team, I wouldn’t see that as a problem. And yet the diagram’s circular flow implied our customers would rotate through the different teams when this wasn’t intended or wanted. The diagram didn’t accurately portray what needed to be communicated — that these three teams are the core foundation of our client services organization. As a result, I changed the circular-arrow diagram to different diagram with three pillars — each pillar representing one of the three teams.

Choose your diagrams wisely

With diagrams you need to remember that the diagram style contributes to the overall message just as much as the actual labels do. You need to choose an appropriate graphic for what you’re trying to communicate. Each type of diagram — chart, map, timeline, venn, etc. — has different strengths, weaknesses, and preconceptions. PowerPoint users may not realize that Microsoft provides helpful descriptions of each SmartArt graphic and how they should be used in the SmartArt pop-up window.

Read the descriptions to make sure you're choosing appropriate SmartArt graphics.

If you’re looking for further guidance, Dan Roam’s book “Back of the Napkin” focuses on developing better visual thinking and provides a good framework for choosing appropriate visuals.

SmartArt just got smarter!

If SmartArt was so smart, why couldn't I ungroup it? (c) Shutterstock

You may be wondering if PowerPoint ninjas are too cool to use SmartArt. Actually, I’ve frequently wanted to use this feature, but a fatal flaw of SmartArt has been the inability to ungroup and customize SmartArt objects directly. It was unfortunate that I couldn’t use a SmartArt graphic to get 50-75% of what I needed and then customize the remaining parts of the graphic to my liking. Unless my concept matched up nicely with one of the preset SmartArt graphics, I really had no use for SmartArt (99.9% of the time).

With the release of Office 2007 Service Pack 2, you can now ungroup SmartArt graphics. Rather than being forced to build your own ideas entirely from scratch, you can now ungroup and edit SmartArt objects when appropriate to save time. This small change turns SmartArt into another useful tool in your PowerPoint tool box. I’m glad I installed SP2 as it has fixed a number of annoying issues in PowerPoint 2007 and added this new option for ungrouping SmartArt (Note: Consult with your IT team before installing any service pack just to be safe). Kudos to Microsoft for making this change!

Office 2007 SP2 enables PowerPoint users to ungroup SmartArt. Just right-click on the SmartArt graphic and select Group > Ungroup.

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Must...finish...this...presentation. (c) Shutterstock

It’s getting late, and you’re the last one in the office besides the late-night cleaning crew. With the soft buzz of a distant vacuum in your ear, you wonder how you’re going to bring everything together in time for tomorrow’s big presentation. You stare blankly at the empty slide in front of you, thinking just a few more slides and you’ll be done. Two hours later, tired and hungry, you’ve made some progress (if you call one mediocre slide progress) and even the cleaning crew has gone home now.

How can you keep your creativity flowing through the entire process of designing your slides?

Sure, we all start off with a burst of creativity, but you may lose your steam before completing your presentation. Creative blocks can occur at any time, but they’re more acute when you’re on a short deadline. When your back is against a wall, what do you do? Business people frequently approach these challenges like they do any other daily tasks, which are mainly non-creative tasks. They simply buckle down, try to focus hard really, and devote more time to the task at hand. They figure they’ll eventually be able to grind it out.

You may be familiar with the economic theory of diminishing returns. I believe the same theory applies to the creative process in presentation design (and other creative activities). Once you’ve exhausted your creativity, simply devoting more time to the design process will result in more time being spent to achieve less and less (i.e., diminishing returns). Frequently, as your creativity wanes so does your productivity. “Grinding out” your presentation is an inefficient use of your time and may result in an inferior final product if you’re forced to lower your standards in order to finish your slides in time.

If you run into these situations from time to time, what should you do?

Step #1 - Recognize when you’re in a rut

Recognize when you're stuck in a rut!

The first step to jump starting your creativity is recognizing when you’re stuck in a creative rut. Being self-aware of your situation is critical because it can be tempting to keep plowing ahead. I was recently working on a presentation at home that was due the next day, and it was getting late. I felt as though I was still missing 3-4 key slides to tie together some of my main concepts. I really wanted to wrap up the presentation before I went to bed, but I noticed that my creativity and productivity had fallen sharply. The last hour had yielded very little as I found myself vacillating on a single slide. Experience told me my current trajectory wasn’t taking me to a solution anytime soon. As the euphemisms go, I’d “hit a wall” or “run out of juice”, and now I was “dead in the water”.

Step #2 - Step away from your presentation

When things aren't progressing, take a time out. (c) Shutterstock

With a deadline hanging over your head, it seems counter-intuitive to step away from your slides. However, when your creative productivity is low, it’s exactly the right thing to do. You can’t force creativity. In the personal example above, I went to bed with an incomplete presentation and a limited window of time to complete it the next day. A curious thing happened the next morning. Rather than waking to my alarm, my mind kicked into gear processing the gaps in my presentation. By the time I hit my morning shower, I had several great ideas on how to complete my PowerPoint presentation. The amazing thing about your mind is that it will continue to process information subconsciously even when you’ve stepped away from the presentation design process.

Step #3 - Recharge your creativity

Do something different to recharge your creativity. (c) Shutterstock

Once you’ve pulled away from your monitor screen, you need to do something entirely different to recharge your creative batteries. In the example above, simply getting away from my presentation and going to bed gave my brain an opportunity to process all the disparate information I was working on.

I’ve found that taking a break and engaging in a passive activity such as going for a short walk or drive is sufficient to jump start my creativity. At the office, it might be as simple as walking to the vending machines to get a snack or a drink. At home, it might be taking a break to play with the kids, walk the dog, or pick up some grocery items. I haven’t found more engrossing activities such as watching a movie or playing video games to be as helpful because your mind isn’t as free to process information from your presentation. However, any chance to disengage and refresh your mind is better than nothing.

Step #4 - Rinse and repeat

Rinse and repeat as necessary. (c) Shutterstock

Sometimes all you need is a single jump start to get your creativity back on track. Other days can be more difficult due to fatigue or stress. Maybe you’re working on a larger or more demanding strategic PowerPoint presentation. As a result, you may need multiple jump starts throughout the presentation design process to keep your creative fires burning. The key is to not get sucked into the trap of trying to “grind out” your slides. Remind yourself that at any point, you can take a time out and rejuvenate your creative productivity. You might need to do it several times — there’s no shame in that. The final product is what matters, and you usually end up being more efficient even with the repeated breaks you take.

Ninjas hate unicorns. Don't be deceived by their cuteness because they're ugly, soul-sucking monsters that steal your time. (c) Shutterstock

Beware of unicorns!

Related to being in a creative slump, you also want to realize when you’re chasing a “unicorn” such as an all-encompassing analogy, chart, diagram, image, or quote that neatly sums up all your key ideas. Taking a break may allow you to figure out an alternative solution or give you a more realistic perspective on your situation. Don’t lament how much time you wasted. If my accounting courses taught we anything, it’s to not dwell on sunk costs (in this case hours). The unicorn doesn’t exist — cut your losses and move on.

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