Since the days of the Roman Senate there has been no shortage of advice on the subject of presenting, oratory, speeches, etc. In this blog we'll zero in on one small part of that bigger universe: presenting with a PowerPoint slide deck. Too often we wind up in meetings watching slide after slide of densely packed text and poor visuals. Your mind wanders. You lose focus. A poorly designed slide deck, and a poorly designed presentation, can rob the very life out of your meeting, derail your vision, and undermine the value of what you have to say.

I'm not willing to accept the excuse that because it's in PowerPoint we can't make it look good or that we're limited in some way. Ever since David Byrne took a turn at creating art in PowerPoint, I've liked the idea of embracing it as a challenge. If people can manage to create art on something like an Etch-a-Sketch, PowerPoint shouldn’t prove a barrier to creativity. Anyway, there really are no limitations, pages can get formatted in any aspect ratio you like, color is as limited as RGB, animation keeps stepping up, and clever use of it can get you close to the elegance of credits in a high-budget, Hollywood flick. And, if and when you do feel a creative pinch just import: movies, eps, png. There are really no excuses for not produce any visual experience with what’s available in PowerPoint.