As event managers we’re forever hyper linking presentations and have sat through literally hundreds over the past two years. We’ve also seen a fair few crimes against PowerPoint in our time and this got us thinking that some basic do’s and don’ts might be quite useful as a speaker aide.

To this end we’ve put together a guide to creating and delivering PowerPoint presentations which is freely downloadable from this blog as a PDF. In a way it’s a companion piece to a great post on presenting by PR Blogger Stephen Davies which focuses on preparation, content and delivery and is well worth a read.

Microsoft Office PowerPoint is the accepted industry standard when it comes to slide show presentation software although it’s only fair to say there are a number of other packages which perform the same function.

The vast majority of speakers we’ve worked with are using PowerPoint 2003 although a new updated version has been released this year. It certainly has more whistles and bells and does a decent job of making slicker looking presentations easier to produce but interestingly we’ve only had one speaker using the 2007 format so far.

It’s worth noting that 2003 presentations will play on the new version but not vice versa unless you choose to save your 2007 presentation in the 2003 compatible format.

I’ve tried not to focus too much on the technicalities of Microsoft’s software as I’m hoping much of the advice will be of use to anyone preparing a presentation regardless of the programme you may be using. Hopefully you’ll find the tips helpful and the document will provide an easy to follow insight into creating and using slide show presentations to your best possible advantage.

Follow this link to download or view The Don’t Panic Guide to PowerPoint Presentations and feel free to forward it on and share the document with colleagues. Please do let us know if we’ve missed anything out or not covered any areas adequately as we’re happy to add to and revise the document if necessary.

REVISION 2.11.07 The section on fonts has been tweaked to clarify the differences in legibility between serif and sans serif typefaces. Thanks to Peter Cooke at Chichester County Council's design unit for the advice.

Sadly there's no YouTube link to the video for this post's title track which is by Win, one of my all time favourite 80's groups. Instead here's the Freaky Trigger MySpace site with a selection of audio and Trash Icons a great fan website.

Apologies for the lack of posts recently which has been down to a last flurry of events work alongside final preparations for the imminent birth of our first child. Nicky’s doing fine and we’ll update the blog as soon as we have some news…

Over the last month we’ve managed a packed out repeat of the joint Manchester Digital / CIPR Online PR event with Jane Smith of Smith & Smith PR and Jonathan Bowers of UKFast; a highly entertaining and informative CIPR photography seminar with former Yorkshire Post picture editor Giles Rocholl at Leeds Met’s newly refurbished and much recommended Old Broadcasting House venue; a half day seminar on the future of search marketing for a hundred Manchester Digital delegates with speakers from all the major players in the field and a fascinating CIPR evening seminar on government PR with Clive Naish of GNN.

We’re now having a well earned rest before the new arrival and then in between sleepless nights and nappy changes we'll be focusing on three of our own Don’t Panic branded events for the new year. These begin with a London date for our crisis communications conference in January swiftly followed by further visits to the capital for our social media seminar in March and our New Wave PR event in May, the latter of which we’re also planning to take to New York later in the year.

Thanks to all our clients, speakers and delegates for making 2007 such a good year for us and we look forward to seeing many of you again in 2008.

In anticipation of the biggest event of our lives here’s The Ronettes and Vanessa Paradis.