Learn more about the value of communication in presentations and communicating with your audience.

Welcome to the 123PPT Presentation Articles and Advice section for Communicating Your Message.

These articles provide insight, input, and commentary to help you improve, develop, and increase your presentation skills.

In addition to articles relating to communication and communicating your message, we have compiled several categories, listed in the right hand menu to help you find advice and critique of interest to other areas of presentation production and delivery.

As we try to cover as many areas as possible, should there be any aspects of content and content creation, that you would like to see greater covered, then please send us your thoughts. We promise to review every mail and correspondence, and will do our upmost to cover every area and topic that you suggest, to provide you with the assistance and help so that you may achieve all your presentation and communication goals.






Presentation Articles concerning Communicating Your Message subject themes can be seen below:

• Is it possible to be innovative with PowerPoint?

By Scott Harvey, Managing Director, The Impossible Media Group

Sometimes I think we hear the words "innovation" and "innovative" all too often.

Every QVC type sales tv channel present a host of innovative ground breaking products that are going to change the way you exercise, or transform your stomach into a finely tuned board that would give Rambo a run for his money. But if everything we see and are told is innovative then it's hard to understand why my pc still crashes just like it did 15 years ago? Back when it was running Windows 95 or 98 or something or some other prehistoric system.

Or how Microsoft Office 2010 still works the same it always has. I open a PowerPoint slide, I add some text, I press the SlideShow F5 key and you'd never know if it was made in PowerPoint 2010 or PowerPoint 97.

I have a cell phone now that it seems can do most everything except whenever I try to do anything more than answer a call or send an SMS text it decides to lock up and freeze. I remember the guy who sold it to me said it was the latest in innovation and cell phone technology, but I had my first cell back in 1995 and whilst it was about 10 times bigger and granted about 100 times heavier, it could do exactly the same thing as my ultra modern lightweight model. In truth I could theoretically do much more with my older model, for example if anyone tried attacked me on the subway on the way home I could probably knock them out cold with it.

So what is innovation? And more importantly what is innovation in our world of presentations and PowerPoint?

• Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?

By Graham Neil, Presentation Consultant, 123PPT.com

At the start of any new year we all make resolutions, promises to ourselves, and commitments we mean to keep. Sadly, by the end of January, more often than not, we've managed to break most of our resolutions, and carry on throughout the year in a similar routine to the previous.

While most social habits such as quitting smoking, or reducing alcohol intake, cutting out chocolate, or mid afternoon snacks can prove too great for all but the dogged determined, the beginning of a year is a time of opportunity, of planning and goals.

It's a time and opportunity to break bad communication habits, and clarify yourself. To find greater meaning in work. And also the time where after returning to work, you may well feel the need for change, for greater and new challenges. But where should you start? And how can you employ the basics of presenting to help you reach your professional goals for the year ahead?

• Lights, camera, action!...Action!...Action?

By Jeremy Cain, Presentation Consultant, 123PPT.com

It was one of the most eagerly awaited conventions of the year. The organization in which I was employed had invested greatly in securing a presentations stand, in order to ensure our presence, and a one hour time slot on the main stage. The goal of our presentation was simple. To "wow" our audience, and take advantage of this opportunity of presenting our showcase product to the industry. After eighteen months of technical development, from over one hundred and twenty developers, we were now ready to show the world.

Such was the pressure and expectation of the convention that our organization had invested in several full motion graphic DVD titles and introduction sequences, as well as a television styled presentation.

So there I was, the vessel of these efforts. My task to simply stand there and conduct the array of visual treats, to walk the audience through the product showcase and feature highlights, and make mouths water, hands tremble, and distributors race to our stand for contractual discussions.

What could possibly go wrong? ...well after all but introducing myself and our organization, all power to the main stage failed. No video. No sound. No product demonstration. No presentation. Only the deafening sound of silence, and the look of a thousand faces questioning what next?

• Why several screens are better than one!!!

By Antony Eikeland, Communication Consultant, 123PPT.com

Cue cards! Two words that make any audience sit back relax, fold their arms and prepare themselves for forty winks and a chance to catch up on any sleep they've missed out over the past days.

But as a presenter you don't always have the time to learn every line of your presentation, and some presentations are simply too large to even contemplate the thought. So in an effort to keep your audiences eyes open, is it a question of creating content that you can easily remember and annotate, or is it better to utilize techniques to communicate and deliver it?