How to Use PowerPoint for Presentations with Impact

A Half-Day Seminar in Partnership with Westchester Community College

Even the best presenters – those with no fear about talking in front of an audience – can reduce the impact of their talks by using PowerPoint slides that:

• Include more information than the eye can take in
  
• Are difficult to read because of their design and the size of the font
• Use a repetitive template or format with text only
• Contain too much text and are short on visuals like pictures,  charts and graphs

When using slides with these characteristics, presenters often spend more time facing the slide and reading what is on it than on making eye contact and interacting with the audience.  The audience members are often unable to read what is on the slide or understand or how it is contributing to the goals of the presentation.

This program will provide you with tips for designing readable and impactful PowerPoint slides that address the issues listed above.  It will demonstrate some of the ways to add variety to the material you present and to how to present it.  It will not cover the technical basics on working with the PowerPoint software.  However, you will leave with a better understanding on how to take advantage of this software to enhance the message you are presenting to your audience.

Participants are encouraged to bring samples of presentations they have made.  There will be time in the program to look them over and incorporate some of the suggestions into their own presentation material.

Instructor: Mike Matera, Professional Development Consultant, Westchester Community College

Mike is an instructor for Westchester Community College Professional Development Center classes, delivered primarily in corporate and professional settings. He is also a specialist in the Wordpress Web publishing system - providing training & tutoring both in-person and online.

Please note that there is a small fee to attend this seminar, which covers 10% of the cost. The remainder of the cost is covered by a grant from the State University of New York.