A Career Case for PowerPoint

Feature by Founder, Amanda McGuckin Hager. When not dreaming of interactive Marketing programs, she’s dreaming of pools, fireplaces, fashion, gardening or digging wells in Africa. Follow her now on Twitter.

In all my years of experience, throughout departments across the organization, there is nothing like an amazing PowerPoint presentation to spur an imagination – or a career. In scrappy start-ups, presentations are used to express intangible ideas and for asking investors for money. In Fortune 500 companies like Dell, dreadful as they can be, PowerPoint presentations are used to express everything in every meeting, every single day.

Young Jedi, I can’t stress these PowerPoint skills to you enough. Whether you are planning to join the Corporate or the Non-Profit world, you’ll need to know PowerPoint. Hell, you’ll even need to know PPT if you plan to join the Military. (See the New York Times: “We Have Met the Enemy, and He is PowerPoint”).

A recent study by University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management uncovered that the PowerPoint slides you present can influence your role in strategy building (that’s cool.) I might even venture to say that your PowerPoint skillz can accelerate your career.

Here are a few key points from popular book Slideology, by Nancy Duarte (which we highly recommend for its stunning visuals. Get it here):

-          Visual Communication is key. (Words are empty. Images are substance.)

-          Design slides that capture the emotions of what you want to convey.

-          Presentations are a 3-legged stool: Message, Visual Story, and Delivery.

-          The #1 Rule you learned in English 101 still applies: Know Your Audience.

-          Beef up your Graphic Design Skills (with the help of the book) or, do like I do, hire a designer.

Where do the great PowerPoint presentations live? Slideshare.net. This site’s traffic is so massive, it is one of the top 1000 websites on the Internet. Run, don’t walk, there to find the best of the best.

And, while you can, go to your student bookstore and get the reduced-price student copy of Microsoft’s PowerPoint or Apple’s KeyNote. Don’t fret – there is always Google Docs Presentations (free).

Now, go to your local community college and take the Community Education Courses in PowerPoint. It’s worth it!

I’d like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to Marketing Superstars and friends of mine in Toronto @AprilDunford and @UnMarketing. I have no idea what their PowerPoint skills are, but we can always ask.

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