In an earlier post , I wrote about how to make a presentation run in continuous loop. Example: A 5 slide presentation starts at slide 1, then goes to 2, 3, 4, then 5 and comes back to slide 1 and again 2. It keeps running. Yesterday a reader asked a question: "Is there a way to have a loop in one part of the slideshow then advance on click in the next part?" Problem: You have a 7 slide presentation. You want to run slides 1 to 5 in a continuous loop. Slide 6 & 7 are not part of the loop. Then after a while, you wish to start presenting from slide 6. How can we set this up? Solution:   The solution is simple. Open PowerPoint normally. You have all slides on the left side. Hide slides 6 & 7. Right click on them and select Hide Slide. Now create a loop with slides 1 to 5. You can read the earlier post  to know how to create this loop. Now when the presentation is run in slideshow mode (press F5) you will only see slides 1 to 5 running in a loop. Slides 6 and 7...

Looks like a special promotion on Amazon. You can buy Dan Roam's book on Presentations 'Show and Tell' for free. Click here for Amazon.com Click here for Amazon.in It is only the Kindle version which is free. Go ahead and download it before the offer is gone. Update on November 23: The offer is now only available if you login from India. I can still see $0 for Kindle version.

Pixabay is an awesome website where you can get free images for your presentation. What's great about this website is its high quality high resolution images, most of which are free for commercial use and there is no need for attribution as well. Just type your keyword. The first few images are from shutterstock . This is an ad and these images are not free :). Choose the image you like from the second row onward. You can choose the resolution you prefer. For PowerPoint, M or L is good enough. When in doubt, choose L size. Do read the terms of usage every time you are about to download the image. As I said, most images are free for commercial use and you don't need to even give a hyper link to pixabay. Other than photos, you also have vector graphics and illustrations.  It's awesome and it's free.  You have to try out this website and spread the word. Share this post with your friends.

www.pixabay.com "Tell me two or three very interesting things about your company.Things which my CEO will share with his friends over a game of Golf", said the Vice President. Recently a friend of mine narrated this interesting incident to me. His company acquired another company in India. My friend and his VP had to make a small presentation about the newly acquired company to their CEO. While the CEO knew the financial stuff about the acquired company, what the VP wanted to present was 2 or 3 very cool stuff which gives the CEO something nice to talk about. Imagine the CEO (the audience of the presentation) playing Golf with this friends. His friends (also CEOs) ask him, what's new? He replies to them saying he has just acquired another company for XYZ million dollars and then narrates few amazing things about the company. These are small nuggets of information which makes the CEO look cool as he shares it with his friends. It is one thing to give a presentat...

www.pixabay.com You do not present to your CEO every other day. When you do get a chance to present to him/her, spend some extra time preparing. Do not try to impress. Deliver a good presentation by knowing that your CEO wants from you. 1. Super short presentation: Your CEO is always short of time and cannot take it too much information. Hence keep the presentation ultra short. Find out how much time has he allocated to your meeting. If your CEO has given you 20 minutes, finish your presentation in 15. 2. The big picture: Your CEO does not have the time and capacity for the micro and the small stuff. He/she needs to get the overall picture. Do not bog him/her down with the small stuff that might matter at your level. Find out why he asked you to present and give him exactly that and nothing else. 3. Accuracy of data: CEO's have a trust problem. That's part of their job. When you present a table on slide 1 and then a related table on slide 2 ensure that there is no...

I came across a question on Quora today. What is better? Memorize your content and deliver your presentation OR read your notes. My answer will be none. You should not read out anything from your notes while delivering your presentation. At best, have a list of bullet points if you want not to forget anything and refer to this list once in a while. You should not memorize your content as well. Memorizing is the worst thing one can do. Rehearse the presentation 5 to 10 times and you will naturally get into the flow. You will know what to speak when without memorizing anything. Hence the final presentation will come out natural.