Training You to Excel
Here are the take-aways for this lesson:
1) Create slides that reinforce your message; your slides should not repeat your message
2) The “Four-by-four” Rule: No more than 4 bullet points; nor more than 4 words per bullet point
3) Ctrl+D is the shortcut for Duplicating a slide
Last night I was watching an old CSI episode. Greg Sanders was demanding that his boss, Gil Grissom make a decision.
(I am paraphrasing here) “Tell me what you have decided. Do I remain in the lab? Or can I start to work full-time in the field?”
Grissom (paraphrased) “Greg – when you have hired and trained your replacement, you can start to work full-time in the field.”
It’s that simple!
If you want to move forward in your career, you must look for, hire (figuratively) and train your replacement.
I wrote an article on this subject last year – “The Best Career Advice – Ever!” Here is an excerpt:
“Want to get ahead in your career? Make your boss replaceable. Start solving their problems. Don’t continue to bring them your problems, bring them possible solutions. Let them see that they are replaceable – by you! Let them move up a rung on the career ladder. And if they are smart, they will bring you along with them on the journey up. They will be your mentor.”
Follow this advice. It’s guaranteed to work every time!
Seth Godin wrote a very useful article, “The three laws of great graphs” on his blog today. Read it. And put a copy of this in the folder of materials for your next presentation. Keep it handy. Heeding Seth’s advice will payoff.
And that’s exactly what you want when you insert a chart or a graphic in your PowerPoint slide – a big payoff! Nothing less.
And… certainly nothing else. As Seth correctly points out – a PowerPoint slide, shown in a dark ballroom to 1,000 people, is not the time to point out nuances.
You want your audience to say (to themselves) “Aha! Now I see it. Now I get it. This really is a big problem!”
A picture is worth a thousand words – if used effectively. Let your graphic speak for itself. Let your audience see the big picture – for themselves!
A poor choice of graphs is like a bad joke. If you have to explain it … Better not to use it.
The Tech Republic website posted a nice compact listing of keyboard shortcuts that you can use to navigate forward and backwards during your MS PowerPoint slide shows.
The list is compact. It is not comprehensive. It doesn’t need to be. You have enough on your mind as you prepare to run your show. Master just a few of the keyboard shortcuts and you will add to your level of confidence.
Did you realize that you can “blank” the screen during you slide show? You might want to do this during a Question & Answer session, for example.
The “B” key will give you a “Black” blank screen. And the “W” key will give you a “White” blank screen. To return to your slide show, click either the “B” or the “W” key – they are “toggle” shortcuts.
Remember to keep the focus on you and your message – not on the PowerPoint slides!
Custom lists in Excel do two things very well:
In this video lesson, I demonstrate how easy it is to create and employ Custom Lists in Excel.
Here are the Steps to Create a Custom List in Excel:
You can now use your custom list for data entry in ANY worksheet and ANY workbook on your computer.
You can turn your Excel data on its side – literally! When you use the Transpose option from the Paste Special dialog box you can turn data from a Horizontal Orientation to Vertical one – or vice versa. It’s easy to do this as you will see in this video.
Here are the steps to follow for today’s tip:
1) Select the data area and copy it to the clipboard
2) Right-click a blank cell in an open area of your worksheet
3) Select “paste special” and check the “transpose” box and then click OK
Writing is easier than speaking!
When you write, you can use a spell checker to correct your mistakes. When you speak – live – there is no way to “flub check” your mispronunciation. You can not recall a malaprop when you speak live.
You can pray that no one is recording your “YouTube” moment.
But, it is better that you “flub your lines” during you practice sessions. Plural.
I know this from personal experience. Over this past weekend, I have started to record a series of video lessons for this blog and my “Danny Rocks Excels” blog. Even after numerous practice sessions; rehearsing with a script; taping my practice sessions, I contined to stumble over key words.
Speaking is much more difficult than writing. Learning to speak so that your words flow naturally requires hours of practice. I know this. And, now, I have a keen appreciation of this topic!
I have written a few short articles on this subject. Click on the links below to access them.
“Why do politicians fumble Q & A sessions?”
“It takes a lot of practice to become a natural speaker”
