interactivity Archives | PowerPoint Tips Blog

Use triggers to create interactive presentations

September 16, 2018 by Ellen Finkelstein Leave a Comment

Audiences today want an interactive experience. As a presenter, you can:

Ask them questions
Answer their questions
Organize small group exercises

But you can do more.

You can also integrate your audience into the presentation itself. For example, you can create a menu slide that links to other parts of the presentation (or other presentations) and let your audience decide the order of the presentation. I explain one way to create a menu slide here.

Another way to get the audience involved is to create mini-quizzes on your slides. You can also provide additional explanation if an audience member wants it. These techniques work well when you are presenting in front of an audience but also allow you to create interactive presentations that audiences navigate on their own in front of a computer.

You can do this with PowerPoint’s Trigger feature. (At the end of this post, there’s good news if you have a Mac!)

What are triggers?

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Do you give out prizes when you train? Do you sing and dance?

May 7, 2012 by Ellen Finkelstein 7 Comments

Trainers know that they have to work hard to keep the attention of their students. Recently, someone emailed me and said,

I am a technical trainer… My class varies in attendee background and experience and sometimes I feel the only way I can keep their attention is with a song and dance.

I have had several clients who teach technical, legal, or administrative subjects and say that their audiences think the topic is boring. Often, the trainees are employees who are required to attend, but don’t really want to. These trainers struggle to keep their sessions lively.

Here are some ideas that might help.

Colorful, surprising slides

Make sure that your slides are colorful and interesting. Use lots of images. Use images that surprise. A little shock value is good. Whenever possible, use photos of real people.

For example, one of my clients was discussing a committee that had to approve certain types of research at the University where she worked. I suggested that she take a head shot of each committee member so that researchers would feel more connection with them instead of thinking of the committee as just a bureaucratic process.

Interactivity

Be careful not to be the only one talking. When you interact with audience members, you keep them involves. Interactivity can include:

Aasking the audience questions
Answering their questions
Breaking up into small groups for short exercises
Creating challenging scenarios to work out. Scenarios are what-if situations, such as, “What would you do if a colleague said x and y to you?”

Prizes

In certain situations, it’s appropriate to play games and give out prizes. You can give out prizes for simply answering a question, volunteering to do a role playing game, or anything you want. Make sure the prizes are seen as useful or interesting and that they are appropriate for everyone. (Most men won’t want a makeup kit and most women won’t want a tie.)

And don’t forget about food. One of my clients says that her trainees certainly aren’t happy if she doesn’t provide treats!

What do you do to keep your sessions lively? Leave a comment!

My training webinar: Present interactively-your audience expects it!

November 18, 2009 by Ellen Finkelstein Leave a Comment

Today I conducted a training webinar on presenting interactively. I loved the topic and enjoyed myself quite a bit! Here’s what I covered:

Why interactivity is necessary in today’s world: people are no longer willing to sit passively and take in information. They’re used to gaining knowledge interactively on the Internet, choosing what they want to see and hear.
How to create a menu-based presentation that lets the audience control the direction of the presentation
How to use third party software to make interactivity easy. I showed Yawnbuster and Raptivity Presenter
How to use social media, specifically the “back channel” to create and manage interactivity.

Of course, I did everything possible to make the webinar interactive. I used polls and created a menu-based presentation that covered the last 3 topics. I let the attendees choose the order by typing their first choice in the Questions box in the webinar panel.

The social media topic was especially fun. Some attendees were familiar with social media, some used it occasionally, and others hadn’t used it at all. I introduced them to BackNoise, a chat program that facilitates comments on an event. I heard about it from Cliff Atkinson at the PowerPoint Live conference. (He’s writing a book called The Backchannel, which covers the topic of social media during presentations.) I gave the webinar a hashtag of #interactivepreso. During the webinar, attendees used BackNoise and commented on the webinar, as well as BackNoise itself. Here you see some of the comments.

BackNoise

I think the attendees liked the idea that they could see each others’ comments. Even those who didn’t open BackNoise saw the comments, because I displayed it on my screen. I certainly enjoyed seeing their comments!

Have you used the back channel in your live presentations? Have you ever attended a webinar that used the back channel?