PowerPoint Business Presentations & Data Visualization

This is the introduction to the PowerPoint Business Presentations & Data Visualization course. I will share the most important information and where to download resources so we can get immediately to work!

Here you can download resources to the Business PowerPoint course by Andrew Pach

This is a warm-up lecture where I show you how to set certain powerpoint elements as default. We will discuss setting default charts in PowerPoint.

The key to every good slide is its title area. Here I want to discuss what is placed in the header of a PowerPoint slide.

The next crucial thing for a PowerPoint business presentation is its Slide Body. Let me explain a couple of things about it.

At the bottom of each powerpoint slide, you can find the footer area. Let's discuss what is usually placed there in business presentations.

The Guttenberg diagram showcases how people usually read our slides. This is essential to understand how to craft business presentations in PowerPoint.

This is a simple exercise to perform after the lectures in this section.

This is a quick recap about key things that we talked about in the previous lectures

Here  I want to describe what action titles are, how are they used in Microsoft powerpoint presentations and how they differ from regular titles.

Let me showcase a few action title examples so you will understand it and get some context about it.

Let me showcase what for Action titles are used.

Let's set up some sort of blueprint, step-by-step guide on writing effective action titles.

This is a simple exercise to perform after the lectures in this section.

Here we will compare the pyramid principle against the academic way of crafting presentations where it usually takes a shape of a funnel.

Let's recognize the usage of the pyramid principle in business powerpoint slides and presentations.

Barbara Minto deserves some credit in this section so let's talk a little about how the Pyramid Principle was invented and what was her part and role in developing and then popularizing it.

Let's make together an exercise where we thing together about certain aspects of the pyramid principle on some example business slides.

Here we will discuss how to tell a story with your presentation. Let's first talk about horizontal and vertical flow of information in PowerPoint business presentations.

One of the most popular frameworks to use for storytelling is the SCR framework. It means Situation, complication and resolution and allows us to easily organize our content into logical sections.

Let's preview business examples of storytelling and thing about how can we apply them to our powerpoint presentations.

This is an exercise as a follow-up to the storytelling section of the course. Let's try to see how to put things in an SCR fashion on our slide.

Let me explain what an executive summary slide is and where is it used in business powerpoint presentations.

A few good practices to utilize when creating summary slides for your presentations, wether for business or regular use.

I want to establish and show you a framework on which you can rely when creating summary slides for executives in Microsoft PowerPoint 365 and all other versions, including the PowerPoint for MAC version.

Let's do an exercise where we will try to create and compile an ESS from 3 example slides.

Here I want to talk about what the MECE principle is and how it is used when working with any form of communicaiton.

Let's showcase the MECE principle in a graphical way so it's easier to understand.

Here we will discuss a few business powerpoint examples of the MECE principle.

Let's do an exercise together where we will try to sort information based on the MECE principle.

Powerpoint chart design is an essential topic for any type of business presentation. Let me introduce you to powerpoint charts in general.

Here I will showcase basic PowerPoint features regarding charts.

Let us continue showcasing the capabilities of PowerPoint regarding charts and data visualization.

An interesting trick to put items (essentially embed them) within a chart in PowerPoint.

Let me showcase how you can work together with me using my PowerPoint resources.

We start our data visualization journey with one of the most popular chart forms - a clustered column chart.

We continue by making a stacked column chart where individual values are on top of each other on the chart.

Different language versions of PowerPoint can interpret dates differently. Just be aware that if PowerPoint doesn't recognize the dates as dates you probably need to format them another way, for example instead of 01/05/2050 you should use 05/01/2050 , or instead of January 2050 you should use 01.2050

Another popular chart form is of course the line chart. The line chart is most often used when there are more than 10 data points and they are continuous over time.

Let me continue the Line chart within this lecture because there are still a few things I wanted to show you.

When you want to showcase a part to whole relationship with a chart then the Pie chart might be a good option!

A bar chart is very similar to a column chart but displayed horizontally. It is used in different cases where it suits the data.

An area chart is a specific form of the chart where a line and bar chart are essentially connected into one.

An area chart can either be displayed next to each other or in a stacked form where one overlaps the other. Let me show you in this lecture how to create a stacked version of the chart.

Let me show you a new and specific type of chart - a PowerPoint MAP. It's essentially a heatmap of certain countries that you select put on a world map.

Here we will talk about how to add a map in Microsoft PowerPoint 365. We can use templates from the Microsoft office website and utilize their map.

A waterfall chart can display changes in values over time with several total values along the way. This feature was added recently to PowerPoint so we now longer have to use workarounds to achieve a good result here!

A combo chart is a powerpoint chart where we combine multiple charts (mostly two) on one physical chart. To achieve that we use the Y axis and put different values on the left and right sides.

A pictograph is nothing different than icons or pictures showcasing statistical data in a graphical fashion. I will work through an example inside of PowerPoint with you.

I want to do this brainstorm-type of a lecture where I shoot around different interesting practices about charts and their usage within PowerPoint.

Accessibility in PowerPoint is an enormously important topic but needs to be understood correctly to put in in live action. Let us start by learning about w3.org - the website with accessibility standards.

PowerPoint has built-in accessibility features. Here I want to show you the basics about this custom tab.

Let me showcase how to add automatic subtitles within Powerpoint and its accessibility features.

It is actually important how we set up alternative text for objects and the reading order of items on a slide. This might be very helpful for people with vision and hearing impairments who need to use screen reading software.

It is important that the text and colors we use on our slides will be easily distinguishable from each other. We can check the color contrast with various tools to make sure we meet given standards.

Adobe (and other color-matching websites) have great tools to check the contrast. Let me showcase them here!

There are different visual impairments that we can cross-check our colors for to make our presentations in PowerPoint more accessible.

Let's discuss PowerPoint templates and how they work. I will start by explaining the Master Slide in PowerPoint.

The master slide in PowerPoint has a feature that allows you to show or hide the background graphics you put on it. Let me show you how that works in this lecture!

A crucial part of any PowerPoint template is Layouts. We can create multiple layouts under one master slide for all kinds of slides.

Guidelines allow you to work easily and precisely within PowerPoint, no matter if you create templates or work within a presentation directly.

PowerPoint has its specific footer options you can use in your templates.

Its important that we select a font that not only looks good but also complies with our company brand.

Color is just as important as the font itself. In this lecture, I will teach you how to apply a color scheme to a Microsoft PowerPoint template.

Let us start creating advanced PowerPoint layouts, we will start with a simple layout for our title and outro slide.

The second layout we prepare for our PowerPoint template will include different placeholders so we can fit our content inside.

Layout #3 will have content on the left and right sides. Let's create according placeholders and adjust the entire layout.

This slide will divide content into the top and bottom part. We will work on a layout for this.

Its important that we save this template for future use. No mater when we open PowerPoint in the future this template with all its options will be already saved there.

Let us discuss and selec a topic for our business powerpoint presentation.

A storyboard can be a place where we draw up our entire presentation. It will make our work quicker and more effective.

Here we are going to create the title slide of our presentation.

A statement, mission or topic explanation looks usually a little different from regular slides. We will use a big font and some design tricks to capture viewers attention.

This part of the slide will contain text information. Let me show you how to work with text on a business presentation.

This slide will be completed with a chart. It will round up its information in a graphical format.

Working through the content in an SCR fashion we are now designing the left side of our "situation" slide.

Here we want to continue designing our powerpoint situation slide.

A little trick is adding sections in PowerPoint. It helps to organize content in a consistent way.

Our presentation will continue with a "Complication" slide. Here w will prepare its first part.

Let us design a custom table so we can fit a lot of text on the slide.

Here we finish the complication slide in Microsoft PowerPoint.

We are preparing a custom table so we can place multiple categories on one slide.

This slide will try to give an answer to our issue and provide a resolution for the topic presented.

Something that adds structure and gives detailed information to viewers is an appendix. We will design and fill it with all links and sources we cited, used and went to when researching our topic.

This will be the last slide of our presentation. To close up we will make a duplicate of the introduction slide and make a few design changes so it doesn't look completely alike.

We will prepare an executive summary slide with a quick overview and information about the entire presentation.