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PowerPoint quick tips to engage your audience

You’re sitting at your desk, sipping a non-fat latte from Starbucks and going over your Outlook when your boss asks to speak with you.

Can you put together a PowerPoint presentation for our meeting tomorrow? She asks. I know it’s last minute but you can put it together, right?

You nod. Of course, who doesn’t know how to use PowerPoint? You’ve heard that even fourth graders are using it to make presentations for state history projects.

“It’s an important tool,” says Ellen Finkelstein, author of “How to Do Everything by PowerPoint 2007.”  ”It’s important to know how to use it well. It’s about the ability to communicate.”

Do you just want to give them the facts? Do you just want to get them excited? Is your purpose to motivate? The goal will determine what you need to know.

Identify your audience, and then identify your goal. Is it a pitch aimed at a possible client? Is it an opportunity to rev up your sales team? Or is it just you presenting facts to your employer? Is it aimed at one person, three people or a conference table filled with prospective clients?

Remember that in today’s business world, PowerPoint presentations can be e-mailed to clients or used in online meetings as opposed to just face-to-face presentations, says Justin Kennedy, a Los Angeles-based consultant.

The next step is to create your design and text. For even the most inexperienced users, PowerPoint will walk you through each aspect step-by-step. Most experts recommend the corporate favorite  ”blue” as a safe background color (never use a busy background) and using bullet points to mark each line of text.

Finkelstein takes a different approach when it comes to backgrounds, believing “white is the new blue,” she says. She also suggests arrows instead of bullets because the text is then representing as a point-to-point process, she says.

Another color catch to remember is that using red and green can be a gamble if anyone in your audience is color-blind. Avoid yellow and pink for obvious reasons and remember that red fatigues the eye, says Diane Diresta, president of DiResta Communications in New York City, NY and author of  ”Knockout Presentations.”

Avoid presenting in a dark room, don’t stand behind the podium and know your material cold, says Finkelstein, and when it comes to design, avoid all clip-art ranging from the obvious cartoon-types to even some photography, which can look unprofessional if not used correctly.

Eighty-three percent of what is remembered is visual and 11 percent is audible so when it comes to designing your presentations, keep things simple, straight to the point and don’t add meaningless art and visuals, seconds Diresta.

She also recommends the “six-by-six” rule: No more than six words on a line and no more than six lines on a slide. As the presenter, it’s your job to fill the “space” between each slide. Just remember that the presentation should be a supplement to the main message and that you should use no more than two fonts. A font size between 30 and 36 works best but don’t forget to test it on the big screen.

Diresta suggests 25-minute presentations with a 20-slide ratio. Also using any type of handout with fill-ins will keep your audience from focusing on you and your presentation.

Stand with your laptop in front of you, facing the audience with the screen behind you. And, just remember to be prepared for your presentation to crash. Always have a backup, either in the form of overhead sheets or a hard copy, Diresta says.

And if you’re traveling, don’t pack your presentation in your luggage; send an electronic version in advance, she adds.

Finkelstein adds that PowerPoint is “just a visual add,” so no matter how great your presentation looks and how much information is presented, it’s important to know your topic cold.