Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with presentation

Help me wrap and present delicious but frozen food.

anderjen — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:24:16 -0800

This Christmas, I'm giving everyone the gift of delicious and healthy home-cooked meals, but I'm blanking on how to wrap and/or present them at the Christmas Eve festivities. Everything will be pre-frozen, which probably rules out putting them by the tree with the other gifts, and the only other solution I can think of is leaving them in my car and letting everyone take theirs on the way home, which is lame. There must be a better way. As I'm picturing it, everything will be frozen and packaged into reusable Gladware-type containers. Once frozen, are there any cheap ways of keeping them cold and dry to the point where I could actually wrap them and set them under the tree for a few hours until we get to the gift opening, and then again until people can get them home? I don't want anything to defrost too much, obviously.

The one thing I really do not want to do is buy each recipient a mini-cooler and ice packs because that kind of defeats the purpose of a low-cost/all-consumable present in my mind, and also there are 10 people, which would blow my budget.

If I do have to leave them in the car (which is a viable option, as I live in Minnesota), any cool ideas on what I could use or make to represent the meals for maximum effect? The rest of the gift will consist of other homemade treats and snacks, so there will be something open for sure, but the main meal is kind of the piece de resistance, so I'd like to make sure it doesn't get missed in a pile of wrapping paper.

I am certainly open to better ideas and suggestions if you have any. Thanks, all!

Download Adobe Presenter Flash Files

mathiu — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:29:05 -0800

I'd like to download a particular "Adobe Presenter" (Flash) document to show it to a group of students without having access to the Internet. How do I download these Flash files to replay them on my computer? I have tried a couple of Flash downloaders but I don't arrive at downloading "Adobe Presenter" Flash documents. I have the authorization to get the presentation offline but I don't have access to the "mother-file".

Here is an example of the type of presentation I'm looking at. (same link as in the title).

(Preferably macish, but both Windows and Mac solutions are appreciated)

Mushmouth

peachfuzz — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:42:42 -0800

How did you learn to express your thoughts in a way that is clear and thorough - but concise? I tend to ramble when I talk. I start out with a clear idea of what I want to say, but I end up backtracking or going off on tangents that I think help clarify or give context to my larger point. I'm often left feeling like I've only gotten my point across in a very muddy way, and I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for a listener.

If I have plenty of time to edit and reframe and reword what I'm going to say (or if the communication is happening in writing) I have no trouble - speech/presentation situations are no problem. It's more just everyday conversation at work and at home - I get bogged down correcting myself or going off in a direction I think will work better. I'm the master of the half-finished analogy. I constantly correct and fine-tune what I'm saying, as I say it, based on feedback (real or imagined) from my listener and on how it sounds to me as I say it. Basically, I talk like George Michael on Arrested Development.

Can you give me tools to: 1) figure out exactly what I want to say, quickly; 2) say it, without equivocating or qualifying or otherwise confusing things - again, quickly?

Thanks, AskMe!

Help Keep Me From Losing My Voice

Simon Barclay — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:48:26 -0800

I'm looking for advice to avoid losing my voice while speaking for a long time. Can anybody help me...? A couple of times a month, I need to give a presentation that lasts a whole day. The presentation mostly consists of me talking. Sometime after lunch, my voice starts losing its power and I find myself having to "push" harder to maintain the same volume. By the end of the day, my voice is almost gone. It takes a couple of days before I get it back.

Does anyone know of things I can do while speaking that will prevent me from losing my voice? Or, alternatively, what can I do to get it back quickly?

I don't know how frequently I can stop to drink, because I'm not usually standing behind a podium, but I can take a few gulps here and there. Last time this happened, I tried tea with honey during the evening, but that didn't seem to help.

Livening up video presentation graphics?

merocet — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:04:15 -0800

What is the best way of creating a moving graphic timeline in a video presentation? Helping a client who is making a video presentation. At the moment I'm going to make a graphic image in Photoshop or In Design that is wider than the video frame and then pan across that from left to right in my video editor, but there's got to be a better way to do it right? I'd like to liven up the graphic by highlighting the points on it as they go past the center of the screen and things like that. So software recommendations? Work flow recommendations? What do they use on the fancy documentaries for this kind of thing?

Looking to up my presentation skills in NYC

kenzi23 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:04:30 -0800

I'm looking for a job doing presentation graphics (in law firms, possibly financial firms); this is about 30% of my current job at a law firm. I'm one of very few "experts" at my firm which isn't very technologically advanced in this area, so I'm afraid that my skills won't cut it in the outside world. I need advice on how to upgrade my skills. I want to upgrade my skills so that I can show a better portfolio and talk about those skills with more confidence.

I'm pretty strong in all the Microsoft Office products and how they integrate, especially in Powerpoint and Visio. I also am quite skilled and experienced in Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

Since we don't really use Powerpoint to its full potential at my current job, I want to learn more advanced skills, and I feel like I need to improve my Excel skills to integrate better with Powerpoint. From the job listings I have seen, I think I should learn Flash, but what else is essential for a presentations job?

I'm in NYC so if you have any recommendations for places to get the kind of training I need, I would love to hear them.

I'm the Keynote!

SpecialK — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:59:08 -0800

Apple Keynote '09 Lazyweb: I want to hide slides but be able to refer to them. What's the easiest way to do this? I have a presentation to give on Friday. I'm planning to have my Apple Macbook Pro with Keynote '09, and I'll also have my iPhone handy to act as a remote control. It will either be a 2 hour discussion / presentation, or it will be a 10 hour discussion / presentation depending on how many questions I need to answer and the information I need to answer each.

In Keynote, I can have hidden slides with the depth I need in them that won't show by default during the presentation, but I can't seem to access these at all to show them conditionally during the presentation. That means that I'd have to dig into some exceptionally deep material without visual aids, which ... ain't gonna happen.

Even though I have a business degree, it's been years since I've had to give a presentation. I know all the basics and I'm loving the "presenter's notes" features that will allow me to walk around the room and still be able to see my notes (on the iPhone) without having to put EVERYTHING on the slides. That's one of my major pet peeves about presentations dead on the doorstep. Bang!

The presentation isn't going to be that broad, but it could get exceptionally deep if the audience requires it. (The target's got a PhD in Computer Science, but I don't know how many white papers on storage redundancy in medical research regulatory environments he's read recently.) I have to show up prepared to answer tough questions, and I'll need visual aids to do that.

Any tips or techniques from the professional presentors in the audience?

I'd like some advice on giving an academic job talk.

jonesor — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:18:48 -0800

I'd like some advice on giving an academic job talk. I have a job interview coming up. It's a mid-level academic position (Research Scientist) at a prestigious research institute in Germany. I've been invited to visit the institute, meet potential future colleagues, and give a 30-60min long talk which will be open to everyone at the institute. This will be followed by a more formal interview, with a small panel. Then of course there's lunch, and dinner, with the bigwigs...

- What advice can you give me as to the content of the talk?
- Should I concentrate on what I have done in the past, or what I'd like to do in the future?
- I've done quite a variety of research in the past, so should I go narrow and deep and concentrate on one particular aspect, or go wide and shallow, and try to fit everything in?

Other pertinent info: the field is evolution; I've never been to Germany before; the working language of the institute is English.

How to be entertaining to teachers?

archimago — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:03:56 -0800

How can I spice up a presentation on building procedures to a bunch of middle school teachers? During our orientation in a couple of weeks, I need to present to my faculty some new policies and procedures when it comes to building logistics like lesson plans, meeting schedules, classroom set-up, school expectations and other routines and technicalities of the school day/year. I've been tasked with making the presentation interesting and engaging and not just "Here are some new forms we will be using this year and here are meeting schedules, etc. etc." I have to fill 90 minutes and be entertaining and fun. I'm seriously drawing a blank here (which is strange because I always have suggestions for the teachers to make their lessons more fun). Maybe I'm just having a hard time seeing this as a teaching moment because the material is just so darn dry and matter-of-fact?

I have access to and can use lots of technology, if this helps.

How do i set up a standard business plan?

freddymetz — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:09:02 -0800

How do i set up a standard business plan? Do you know of any templates or examples of business plans (maybe in form of powerpoint presentations)?
Also what elements should i include in it? Is it important to cut the crap or to be very precise?

Also what are good mediums to find out what product is in demand in a certain area/group of people? I could interview people in my town, but when other people do this i perceive of it as being annoying. So are there any non-annoying ways to do this?

Thank you

Going back to middle school!

trillian — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:05:49 -0800

How to keep a Career Day presentation interesting for middle schoolers... My husband agreed to give a 45-minute "career day" type of presentation to a group of middle schoolers this Friday. He's a bit worried about keeping the kids' attention for that long. The school has given him an outline of points to cover, but there's still some planning he has to do. How can he keep the presentation engaging but still informative? By the way, he's a civil engineer.

Help me create a great online presentation.

Roach — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:12:46 -0800

I am looking for recommendations for methodologies for the creation of simple, clean, somewhat multimedia online presentations as an alternative to PowerPoint. I am in a hybrid resident/online masters program. This semester, I am in an online course (Organizational Theory) with geographically dispersed students. In this course, a group project is required.

My group is made up of 4 people in various parts of the country. Our assignment is to prepare a presentation, combining written and multimedia elements, on the Walt Disney company from the standpoint of corporate culture and by viewing the company through various metaphors (brain, political system, etc.)

We have a great deal of latitude in the text/multimedia mix, and can use PowerPoint if we'd like. However, we are encouraged to use other tools instead of PP if we're able, such as HTML/CSS.

I'm a pretty good hand-coder of flat HTML/CSS, and think that going this route offers a much more elegant set of tools than PP, especially with the multimedia integration. However, I really don't want to spend hours messing with designs or searching for the right template. A simple, clean, "PP Replacement" type solution is what I'm looking for.

My hope is that there are folks here who can point me in the direction of a solid template for something like this, or who who can point to existing presentations along these lines that are available online. Such a sample presentation would also be an effective tool in showing my other group members what direction we should be heading.

Any ideas?

What's the best presentation controller?

alby — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:11:19 -0800

What are the best presentation controllers? I have two requirements: it must use radio, rather than infrared and needs to interface via USB (preferably without needing software installed) rather than Bluetooth.

The smaller and easier to use it is the better - I don't need a built in mouse, laser pointer, etc.

Presentation on Shintoism..Any info. would be helpful.

lwclec072 — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:17:22 -0800

Presentation on Shintoism...any info. would be helpful Hi, I'm taking a class on world religions and my group is giving a presentation here in a few weeks on shintoism, just wondering if anyone practices that religion or knows about about that religion, from a personal perspective preferably, we want to make this educational though very interesting not like we're only presenting info./facts we found on the web, maybe making it where our classmates can take something away w/ them. perhaps a short activity. any suggestions would be excellent!

Thanks
Laura

Alcohol, marketing, complete presentation-noob

ttyn — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:13:00 -0800

Presentation question: doing a presentation / discussion of Absolut vodka for an audience of 50+ freshman university peeps. Need some help organizing and making presentation less snore-worthy. I have all of my research done and all the facts and terms I want them to remember figured out (certain terms will be in their exam, and so they will be emphasized)

1. What is the best way to organize all of this into approx 15 minutes of storyline narrative? I want to cover history, financial information, marketing through fashion, art, and music.

2. What are some cool things I could do (besides bringing samples to 19 year olds) to make it memorable and less-sucky? Are brief videos good? Anything else?

3. Please keep in mind this is completely non-profit, I'm not related to Absolut in any way, I'm just using them as an example for a marketing class.

Thank you guys!

are acting lessons a good idea for me?

krautland — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 07:19:57 -0800

are acting lessons a good idea for me? I must have held a million presentations in the last twelve months and I noticed how much my delivery has changed. I find it much easier to read people now - when to move on to the next page, when to elaborate, when they 'get it,' those sorts of things. I have fallen into a pattern - how to start, how to explain a piece of work I am presenting, how I make people understand it. I used to think I was pretty good at presenting my work before and only now that I've practiced this relentlessly out there I realize how mistaken I was. I was the quintessential nerdy designer, stumbling and mumbling from page to page.

I wonder how to keep improving my presentations - I wonder if there are speaking tactics that would help me especially when I'm presenting work to people I don't know yet, if there are ways to win over my audience that I am not aware of. you can't work on issues you are not aware of yourself.

so that's where acting classes come in. I wonder if they'd be useful for me of if there is something entirely different I should be considering to work on my presentation and people skills. making strangers like you doesn't come natural to germans.

to those who have taken acting classes: what were your experiences? what would you recommend I look out for?

Griffin Air Click - any way to make it work or remote control another waY?

lockedroomguy — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 15:05:12 -0800

I want to remotely control (from 20-30 feet away) a Powerbook G4. The Griffin Air Click USB isn't working. I want to give a presentation on my Powerbook G4, preferably using iPhoto, but I also have Powerpoint and could use Keynote in a stretch.

I bought a Griffin Air Click USB, a paired remote device and USB dongle, because the PB does not have an infrared port to use with a remote device. The Air Click says it works with OS 10.4, says it works with iPhoto, Keynote, iTunes, and Powerpoint, but nothing happens when I click the remote.

You plug the dongle into your USB, install some software, and then the remote is supposed to be able to control forward, back, mute/on, and so on in some Mac applications.

I've tried both USB ports, and I can confirm that the Air Click is switched on, and that the signal is successfully sent from the remote to the Air Click dongle in the USB port, because when I click the remote the dongle success light comes on. But nothing happens on the powerbook.

I've checked the Griffin help pages and FAQ. Any options to make this work, or to make this work another way?

Thanks!

Please help a novice do a software demo

Valuev — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:44:30 -0800

I have to do a demo of a content management system. I was never completely proficient with the tool to begin with, and I haven't used it for two years. I'm not a programmer. I've never done a software demo before. And I have only the weekend to prepare. I need your help. I've been asked to give a demo of a content management system for a client who might be interested in buying and repurposing it. We developed it for another client about four years ago, but it hasn't been in use for about two years. The original developer left, and our remaining technical people don't have the presentation skills(or the language skills) needed to competently deliver the demo to this particular client... so I'm the lucky bastard who gets to do it.

I was only a user of this tool, not a developer, and I have zero technical insight into the thing. To top it off, I've never done a software demo before. I've sat through a few so I know basically what should happen, but without any real in-depth technical knowledge of the tool I'm not really sure how to approach this, or even where to start.

So I guess my question is simply: how do I do this? The good news is, the people I'll be demoing this for aren't highly technical either, and don't have any real knowledge of CMS tools, so hopefully they're not expecting perfection. But any tips or advice I could get on how not to make a total idiot of myself would be greatly appreciated.

Embedding Movies in Keynote

dearleader — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:01:03 -0800

This seems like Keynote 101, but I'm technically challenged. My computer recently crashed, so I'm using a backup to give a Keynote presentation. I've noticed some of the quicktime movies that were part of the presentation don't show when I run the Keynote on the new computer (even though there's a placeholder image). I'm guessing the new computer doesn't have the movie to link to; so the question is how to get the movie "embedded" as part of the Keynote file, so I could show the whole thing, self-contained, on any Mac? I'm sure I should have been doing this from the get-go, but trying to play catch-up. I also feel the photos I'm importing are more high-res than they need to be, or larger. Does anyone know the specs for a photo to show up nice and crisp vis projector, without wasting extra firepower?

Two streams (want to) become one

cdmwebs — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:32:05 -0800

How can I combine a presentation and video stream in real time to stream to Ustream.tv? We've been toying with streaming and recording our monthly Ruby group meetings for remote attendees and the first pass didn't work so well. This is where you come in AskMe.

Last month, I just pointed a webcam at the wall and tried to do the best I could recording a person and a projector. It worked okay, but remote attendees weren't able to see the presentation as clearly as I would have liked.

This month, I'd like to combine the presentation and live video of the presenter in a single stream to Ustream. Anyone have any advice?

I'm on a Mac, but I used an XP virtual last month to access the Adobe Flash Media Encoder so I'm open to either platform. Or Linux. Why not.

How does one address a Local Council?

Mutant — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:31:55 -0800

Next week I'm addressing a meeting of UK Councilors on a specific aspect of the UK housing market / crisis. Questions about etiquette and the experience overall. On behalf of an organisation I directly represent (and two others that have ceded their concerns on this topic to myself) next week I'm speaking before 51 Councilors.

This will be a full meeting of a Local Council. If this presentation goes well, I may be invited for a in depth discussion of UK Housing at much more intimate Cabinet meeting (i.e., ten senior members).

I'm comfortable with public speaking, know the subject material fairly well, am conversant with the numbers and issues and have a stock "stump speech" I've modified to suit this audience so the basics are (I hope!) covered, but I had a few operational questions.

Has anyone here presented at a local Council meeting?

How to address to entire assembly? (e.g., in my opening and closing pitches)

How to address Councilors that raise questions after the speech (we've already been asked to seed several so there will be queries)

How are these Council meetings carried out in the UK? Specifically, should I expect lots of comments / noise from the "peanut gallery" as it were, or are they better run? (my background is banking so meetings tend to be civil, sharp and to the point)

Any other tips one could pass along would be appreciated. Many thanks!

Need Help with Non-Profit Presentations

Gideon — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:03:20 -0800

I'm starting up a new non-profit organization and need some help streamlining my message for presentations and explanation, but I've not had any success looking for such information. I need to know what I should be looking for in terms of vocabulary, etc. So... More info.

I work for a non-profit at the moment, so I have some experience with this, but I've never been the one who had to streamline the message.

I know what I'm doing, I know how I'm doing it. But my explanation is kind of long and I need some tips (and ideally a process/worksheet) on streamlining the presentation (to about 20 minutes) for people I may want to involve and perhaps donate later on.

Normal business presentations only have a slight impact on what I'm doing, or so it appears so far, so I'd appreciate any help possible.

Elevator going, er, up

bargex — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:07:29 -0800

What do I need to know about giving an elevator pitch? I've been asked to TEACH a lesson on giving one. I've been volunteered by my boss to lead a workshop on giving elevator pitches. I'm pretty confident with my presentation skills in general, but I've never used this particular constraint. What are the key elements of elevator pitches that I should convey in my workshop?

I know that in the 30 secs-1 min that a pitch lasts, the goal is really to generate enough excitement to interest your audience in further discussion. What techniques can help accomplish this?

A quick google reveals numerous sites with suggestions for this kind of talk. Can anyone recommend a particularly good site? I'd also be interested in offline material.

How do I act like I know what I'm doing at an academic conference?

meerkatty — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:22:21 -0800

What do you wish you had known before your first academic conference? I'm heading to my first academic conference where I will be presenting a paper. I'm a few months away from submitting my Ph.D. thesis and I've never been to a conference before. I'd love some tips - what do you wish you'd known before your first one? How did you meet people? What did you wear? How did you handle the Q&A after your presentation?

I don't know a soul there and am a bit nervous that I'm going to be the kid eating alone at the lunch table.

Converting a PPTX into a DOCX

desjardins — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:58:46 -0800

How do I convert a PowerPoint presentation to a Word document? (Office 2007 on Windows XP) I have a 63-slide PPT that my boss has decreed should really be a Word document. It's going to be inserted into yet another Word document as a chapter of a big honking manual. I can extract some of the text by saving it as an Outline/RTF, but that doesn't extract the text within text boxes, and I have to reformat all of the text anyway. The most frustrating thing is that there are screenshots on almost every slide, and the only way I've been able to do this is in the past is to cut and paste every one of them.

IIRC, Office 2003 used to be able to do this conversion (albeit sloppily). Unfortunately, I don't have access to it. How can I go about this? The end result needs to be accessible to and editable by people who are not, shall we say, technologically adept.