Contents of the GE PowerPoint User Guide Modules

A. Introducing the New GE PPT Template B. Introducing the 5 GE PowerPoint Principles: An Overview One: How to start with your story
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. PowerPoint can help you tell stories Most stories share the same core foundation, made up of 3 parts Figure out your story before you open PowerPoint Tip: Use the hidden story guides to stay organized Tip: One main idea per slide, three major story sections per presentation Appeal to the full range of learning and decision-making styles The goal is to find a balance among what you say, show, and hand out Sometimes the best PowerPoint is no PowerPoint at all Build a solid information hierarchy There are 3 main areas, not just 2, in which to place information Level 1: Use headlines to drive the narrative and control your data Tip: Write your headlines in Word Level 2: Choose the best charts, images, or brief text to support your idea Which elements text, charts, images effectively convey my main idea? To bullet, or not to bullet When you use text, be sure to connect the dots Level 3: Use the Notes section to create a script that others can use

Two: How to center your presentation on your audience, not on you

Three: How to keep it clean and organize it effectively

10. Tip: The Notes Pages printout can be speaker notes for you, and/or handouts 11. Tip: Another approach is to Send PPT to Word for speaker notes or handouts

Four: How to start with a temporary design grid, and end with variety
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 1. 2. 3. 4. Working with the grid To begin, insert the blue grid from the template into the Slide Master The blue grid serves as the basic architecture for your slide design Place your elements so they touch a combination of squares You can create a range of layouts, or even fill the whole slide with an image After youve finished designing, delete the blue grid from the Slide Master Use a chart when it supports the point of your story Tip: Use Notes Pages to make your charts work for you Always return to your slides and ask: What can I subtract and still be clear? Use chart highlight colors only to draw attention to the main idea on a slide

Five: How charts can support your story

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How to start with your story

User Guide Module how how do do II engage engage and and involve involve my my audience audience with with my my message? message?

Contents 1. PowerPoint can help you tell stories 2. Most stories share the same core foundation, made up of 3 parts 3. Figure out your story before you open PowerPoint 4. Tip: Use the hidden story guides to stay organized 5. Tip: One main idea per slide, three major story sections per presentation

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PowerPoint can help you tell stories

PowerPoint and storytelling Most of the presentations were asked to make require us to report on a situation or make a case for a specific action (or dollar amount). They are analysis and argument, intended to persuade. Bare-bones PowerPoint a pre-determined series of bullet points can help you recall your key points, but doesnt help you make those points with your audience. The new template is intended to help you make more effective and persuasive arguments by helping your audience grasp your points more easily. It is also intended to help you go one step further and use stories along with the power of suspense, drama, and emotion to share your problem, and your solution, with your audience. This is a high ideal. As Robert McKee, the great teacher of film screenwriting, says in an interview: Persuading with a story is hard. Any intelligent person can sit down and make lists. It takes rationality but little creativity to design an argument using conventional rhetoric. But it demands vivid insight and storytelling skills to present an idea that packs enough emotional power to be memorable. - from Storytelling That Moves People, Harvard Business Review, June 2003.

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Most stories share the same core foundation, made up of 3 parts

beginning middle end

1
challenge

2
action

3
resolution

Whats a story? Storytelling is the central way that people communicate with each other and participate in their community, be it a tribe or a corporate department. It is a way that we make sense out of complexity, and find meaning amid chaos. Everyone at GE lives out stories. We all face problems every day, marshal our energies and resources to engage them, and succeed, or fail and earn lessons learned that will help us succeed next time. By story, we mean simply a narrative with a beginning, middle and end. Most stories are organized around a conflict: heres the challenge we faced, heres how we met it, and heres what we learned. Its exceedingly common to find these 3 elements in movies, plays, and novels. Keeping these elements in mind is a simple way to tell stories at GE, especially when we use PowerPoint.

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Figure out your story before you open PowerPoint

Take control of PowerPoint How can you tell a 3-part story in PowerPoint? It usually works best if you figure out what you want to say before opening PowerPoint. You can sketch out your 3-part story on a sheet of paper. Or use index cards. Or write a basic outline in Word. Or work it out with a group of others on a whiteboard. Its easy to let data take control in PowerPoint, especially when we try to pack all of the data on the slide (How can I get this chart in here? Where should I put the bullet points?) But when you focus on one slide at a time, its hard to see the forest for the trees. Step back from the data and ask what the story is.

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Tip: Use the hidden story guides to stay organized

The 3 hidden story guides The Installation Template even includes hidden story guides to help you see the big picture of your story as youre working. When you are working in PowerPoint and Choose View Slide Sorter, you can see all of your slides at once in small thumbnail versions. From this view, you can click on any slide, and drag it to a different location if you want to change the order of your slides. The 3 black story guides in your template can serve as bright markers to show you where the 3 main parts of your story are, and how many supporting slides you are devoting to each point. To use these slides to build your story: 1. Occasionally choose View Slide Sorter and look at where these 3 slides sit in relation to the beginning, middle and end of your story. Maybe you need to build out a section, or cut back slides in another area because theres too much information there. 2. To move a slide to a different place in the presentation, click on the slide and drag it between the slides where you want it to go. 3. Before you give your presentation, click on these slides and Delete them. (In case you forget, the slides are marked Hidden so they wont appear when you give your presentation on screen. However, they will appear when you print the presentation if you do not delete them first.)

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Tip: One main idea per slide, three major story sections per presentation

1 main idea

3 story sections

Slide-story synergy How much information is the right amount to tell your story? How much should go on each slide, and how much should go into the entire presentation? People have only a certain capacity to process information at any given time and a good story can help distill your information and keep things interesting and memorable. But when you include too much information on a slide or in a presentation, people start to get confused and overwhelmed. And when your audience is not engaged, youve lost control of the situation and nobody wins. As a general rule of thumb, its good practice to follow these basic principles: 1. One main idea per slide. After you show a slide, you should be able to turn it off and ask someone what the main point was. If you dont get the answer you want, you need to revisit the slide and make it simpler to understand. 2. Three major story sections per presentation. Firmly keep with the 3-part story structure, otherwise you can lose control of the flow of the presentation and people will get confused. You will know you have done a good job at structuring your presentation when you ask someone at the end to summarize the story, and they tell you the storys beginning, middle and end.

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How to center your presentation on your audience, not on you

User Guide Module
voice audience body language

handout

white board

PPT

Contents 1. Appeal to the full range of learning and decision-making styles 2. The goal is to find a balance among what you say, show, and hand out 3. Sometimes the best PowerPoint is no PowerPoint at all

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Appeal to the full range of learning and decision-making styles

verbal

From Me to You PowerPoint has the best intentions. Its full of features such as bullet points, that help speakers whack up a presentation and plow through it. Unfortunately, the very things that help a speaker can hinder an audience. To communicate effectively with an audience, its important to understand that everyone receives information and makes decisions differently. One school of thought says there are 3 learning styles: 1. Verbal: People who need to hear something said in spoken form. 2. Visual: People who need to see something in visual form. 3. Kinesthetic: People who need to experience something by doing it. People who present tend to shape their presentations according to their own learning style. But if you center your presentation on your audience, you need to stretch yourself to appeal to all styles. Decision-making styles vary, too. According to research by Robert Miller (Change the Way Your Persuade, Harvard Business Review, May 2002), decision-makers need to have information presented in a certain way in order to make use of it. Not everyone will look at a chart and instantly be bowled over by the data. They might need to connect with your vision and your passion before they decide what to do. Or, they might need to hear a story instead. You need to consider the style of your audience and tailor your presentation to them.

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The goal is to find a balance among what you say, show, and hand out
what what you you say say with with your your voice voice

what you show on screen

Find a balance between your self and your data

what you provide on paper or PDF

When you and your audience are in sync, you and your PowerPoint slides fade into the background and the content is the center of their attention. Theres an ideal balance between the words you say, the visuals you show on the screen, and the supporting handouts you provide before, during or after the presentation. A Lee and Bowers study (1997) indicated that a group of university students retained 32% more information when presented with spoken word and text; 46% more with spoken word, graphics and text; and 91% more with spoken word and graphics only. Dont let slides or charts overwhelm you. Keep control of them, and let your own voice and body language guide the experience. .

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Sometimes the best PowerPoint is no PowerPoint at all

Just Just hit hit the the B B key key to to black black out out your your PowerPoint PowerPoint screen screen

Extreme PowerPoint: Blackout PowerPoint is a very visible and powerful presence in any meeting room. Sometimes you can turn that power in your favor by turning it off. When you want to make an important point, black out the screen and turn your audiences full attention on you and what you are about to say. PowerPoint even includes a blackout feature. To black out the screen when a presentation is running, simply hit the B key on your keyboard. (Hit W and the screen will turn white.) Some remote control devices also have a button that lets you black out a screen. Or, if you wont be able to reach a keyboard during your talk, simply insert a totally black slide where you want the screen to go black.

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How to keep it clean with effective organization

User Guide Module

Contents 1. Build a solid information hierarchy 2. There are 3 main areas, not just 2, in which to place information 3. Level 1: Use headlines to drive the narrative and control your data 4. Tip: Write your headlines in Word 5. Level 2: Choose the best charts, images, or brief text to support your idea 6. Which elements text, charts, images effectively convey my main idea? 7. To bullet, or not to bullet 8. When you use text, be sure to connect the dots 9. Level 3: Use the Notes section to create a script that others can use 10. Tip: The Notes Pages printout can be speaker notes for you, and/or handouts 11. Tip: Another approach is to Send PPT to Word for speaker notes or handouts

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Build a solid information hierarchy

6? 1?

3?

2? 4?
Sharpen the focus Where does your eye go first in the slide above? To the title, because its at the top? To the three green bars? To the three white clouds? Or to the yellow text? After looking at the slide briefly, look away and ask yourself, What was the most important information on the slide? When the answers to these questions are not clear, PowerPoint presentations can confuse and overwhelm an audience, causing them to shut down and not pay attention any longer. They might continue to listen to you, but will be distracted by the slide. When we use a visual tool like PowerPoint, we have to apply basic techniques from the design world. In every kind of visual composition, our eyes are drawn first to contrast, to images, to the size and color of type, and to the placement of elements. The order in which we see these elements is called information hierarchy. You can help your audience understand your point by establishing a focus and hierarchy of information on your slide. There is a wide range of techniques you can use to create hierarchy, including contrast, type, and placement of graphics. There is an information hierarchy built into the new template, as explained on the next page.

5?

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There are 3 main areas, not just 2, in which to place information

1. 1. headline headline 2. 2. visual visual area area

3. 3. verbal verbal area area

A natural information hierarchy In the View Notes Page screen capture above, the 3 content areas have been filled in blue to highlight the space available for information: Level 1: As described in User Guide 1, the headline occupies a natural place of prominence because it sits at the top of the slide. As in a newspaper, the headline is normally the first thing we see. Level 2: This is the place to put images, diagrams, or short text elements that support your main point. If it happens to be a graphical element, our eyes will probably go there first, but then will turn to the headline area to find the context for it. See User Guide 4 for layout information. Level 3: Although your viewers do not see Notes Pages when you project your slides on a screen, they will see the text if you provide Notes Page handouts.

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Level 1: Use headlines to drive the narrative and control your data
1. 1. headline headline

Headline vs. Takeaway Box Our old PowerPoint template placed the main idea at the bottom of the slide, in the venerable GE takeaway box. This ordered our data inductively subject first (in the headline), then data about the subject, (charts/bullets), and then the main idea (takeaway). It makes sense to have people leave the slide taking away the main idea; however, with inductive order listeners (and viewers) have to hear a lot of data before learning why they are hearing about it. This problem is compounded by the wealth of data we post on our slides, which visually obscures the main point. The new template dares to eliminate the takeaway box and put the main idea in the headline. This orders the data deductively heres the main idea (headline), and here are the points that support this idea. Your audience can better understand all that rich content because they wont have to search, guess, or speculate about what youre trying to say. As you move from slide to slide through your presentation, these headlines will drive the story forward. Each headline should set up a visual beat that guides your audience through the next point of your story.

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Tip: Write your headlines in Word

Send Send to to

Use the Send to Word feature As noted in User Guide 1, writing out your story before you open PowerPoint can help you avoid the distractions that come with populating one slide at a time. Writing headlines can help you do this. Open up a Word document and write a series of headlines that tell your story, one line after another. Stay focused on your big picture story and the main points you want to make. Dont add any bullet points or sub-points at this point. When you have a series of headlines that tell your story clearly and sequentially, choose File Send to Microsoft PowerPoint. A new PowerPoint will be automatically created, with each of your headlines in Word now a headline on a PowerPoint slide. (If the new PowerPoint is not formatted with the GE template thats installed on your computer, choose Format Apply Design Template, and from the selections, choose Blank Presentation, then Apply.) You now have a fresh presentation structure with headlines already in place, ready for you to add content to support your headline on each slide.

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Level 2: Choose the best charts, images, or text to support your idea

2. 2. visual visual area area

Support your main idea in the content area Once youre ready to start designing, notice that below the headline area is the second natural level of information hierarchy: the content area. This is the container to place any elements that support and expand the main idea of this particular slide. Lengthy text and bullet points are not necessarily the best solution for the content area. When you put text on a slide, youre asking people to read it, and if theyre reading text, theyre not paying attention to you and what youre saying. Since we strongly encourage moving text and narrative into the Notes section, the design question changes from How do I squeeze everything I need to say onto this one slide? to What can I put here that will help my audience understand my main point? Try to balance this visual area with the words you say: By conveying your message in both verbal and visual form, you increase the likelihood that it will be received and remembered and responded to. -- John Clayton, How to Make a Picture Worth a Thousand Words, Harvard Management Communication Letter, October 2002.

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Which elements text, charts, images effectively convey my main idea?

East West North East West North 100 100 90 90 80 80 70 70 60 60 50 50 40 40 30 30 20 20 10 10 0 0 1st Qtr 1st Qtr 2nd Qtr 2nd Qtr

text descriptions

Level 2 visuals PowerPoint can display just about any visual image, and Level 2 is the place for it: 1. Photographs, scanned images and screen captures. 2. Charts, diagrams, tables and infographics. 3. Multimedia. 4. Brief text. Charts are probably the most common visual image at GE. Visual displays of quantitative information can be extremely powerful -- if they can be read and understood from the back of the room (If the font sizes or illustrations are going to be small, provide detailed handouts instead). Use images that enhance, support, or tell your story (in Medical Systems case, great images often are the story). There is a fifth possibility as well: 5. Nothing. Sometimes its more effective to black out the screen and just talk, or hold up a physical model of a product, or sketch out a diagram on a white board. To black out the screen when a presentation is running, simply hit the B key on your keyboard (hit W and the screen will turn white.) Some remote control devices have a black-out button. If you wont be able to reach a keyboard during your talk, simply insert a black slide where you want the screen to go black.

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 to bullet or not to bullet

The limits of bullets PowerPoints are full of bullet points for good reason they serve as extremely helpful memory triggers for speakers. However, because they contain no narrative, and omit the relations between the various points, bullet points actually can make it more difficult for audiences to retain information long-term. Most presenters do tie their points together but too often audiences are writing down the disconnected bullet points and ignoring them. Or the presenter is merely reading the bullet points off the chart and ignoring the audience. Either way the purpose of presenting to make ideas present is defeated. (For additional reading on the limitations of bullet points, see Strategic Stories: How 3M Is Rewriting Business Planning, Harvard Business Review, May 1, 1998). It may be contrary to human nature, or at least to GE culture, to ban bullet points altogether. In fact, they can be helpful as a script, for you or someone else who repeats your presentation, if you put them in the Notes Pages section of your slide (covered on p. 36).

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When you use text, remember to connect the dots

Connecting the dots The new template encourages you to make your main idea the headline which encourages you to use a complete sentence. If you must use bullet points, guard against the tendency to leave out the connections between ideas. In the slide above, the relationship among the headline and each of the points is clear and in a logical sequence. Always keep in mind that bullets are working against you if your audience is reading them instead of paying attention to you. Guard against the tendency to read them off the chart as if you were merely reading a written report. Presenters are livelier than that. The template also offers several ways to use (some) supporting text, and encourages you to write out those supports as sentences as well if needed: 1. Subheadings. These can amplify or extend on the main idea in the headline. 2. Captions. These can summarize or describe other elements on a slide. 3. Quotes. Use a sentence or two from a quote to bring a point home. 4. Single words. If youre giving a presentation about strategy and want to engage your audience in discussion, put the single word strategy? in large type in the middle of the screen, and leave it up as you discuss the topic with your audience.

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Level 3: Use the Notes section to create a script that others can use

3. 3. verbal verbal area area

Communicating on Level 3 with Notes Pages When you expand your real estate into the Notes section, you can free up space on the slide for visual communication, while still retaining text information below. A PowerPoint that is printed on paper or converted to PDF format in the Notes Pages format is a very useful visual-verbal record of your presentation. Take a look at the page you are reading it was written in PowerPoint. The slide area at the top is outlined with a solid black line. The Notes section containing the text you are now reading is outlined with a dotted black line. (The rest of the pages of this document have had these lines removed.) This is an example of what you can do with handouts for your presentations.

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Tip: The Notes Pages printout can be handouts, or speaker notes for you

How to use Notes Pages for scripts and handouts To create Notes Pages handouts for your own speaker notes, or for handouts for your audience: 1. Choose File Print 2. From the Print what dropdown menu, select Notes Pages. If you want to see what your handouts will look like, click the Preview button and you can take a look at the result before you print. (Advanced tip: If you have Adobe Acrobat, you can also create a PDF version by following the same steps and printing to the Acrobat distiller. When you open the new PDF, you may need to choose Document Crop Pages, then Set to Zero and Apply to All Pages.)

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Tip: Another approach is to Send PPT to Word for speaker notes or handouts

For even more control with notes and handouts Another approach that gives you even more flexibility with how your notes and handouts look, is to use the Send to Word feature in PowerPoint: 1. Choose File Send To Microsoft Word. 2. Youll get a dialog box (above right), that gives you several layout options. When you click OK, PowerPoint exports both a thumbnail of your slide and your Notes into a Microsoft Word table. The Word table is fully editable you can add or delete columns and rows, and apply any other standard Word formatting you choose. (Advanced tip: To keep your Word document file sizes small when you use this technique, select the Paste Link option in the dialog box above. Once you have the new Word document, Save it. Select the entire table in Word, then right click, select Link Slide Object Links, and in the dialog box, select Break Links, then OK, and save your document.)

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How to start with a temporary design grid, and end with variety
User Guide Module

Contents 1. Working with the grid 2. To begin, insert the blue grid from the template into the Slide Master 3. The blue grid serves as the basic architecture for your slide design 4. Place your elements so they touch a combination of squares 5. You can create a range of layouts, or even fill the whole slide with an image 6. After youve finished designing, delete the blue grid from the Slide Master

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Working with the grid Some GE PowerPoint slides are built with very busy design grids, and some dont use a grid at all. A design grid can help create visual order and harmony. It also helps maintain discipline in selecting and ordering information, and helps keep your slides readable and your story clear. Every newspaper, magazine and brochure publisher uses grids to design layouts, which are removed before the pages are printed. The Installation Template includes a temporary design grid that you can use to guide the placement of content on your slide.

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To begin, insert the blue grid from the template into the Slide Master

An elegant infrastructure When youre ready to start placing content on your slides, find the temporary blue design grid located in your new presentation that was created from the Installation Template. Click anywhere on the grid to select it, and Copy it. Choose View on your menu bar (above left), then Master Slide Master, then paste the guide there. If it is sitting above your text, click on the guide, then on your Draw toolbar, click Order Send to Back to send it below the text. Then, Close Master View, and return to your presentation. Now the temporary blue grid is temporarily in the background of every slide.

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The blue grid serves as the basic architecture for your slide design
A grid ensures there is proper spacing between elements Your grid is located in the new GE template

Consistency and clarity The grid will help you ensure there is ample spacing and alignment among your different content elements, and will ensure there is an underlying unity and consistency between individual slides. As you can see above, the first row of blocks at the top of the grid is where the headline sits, four blocks across horizontally. Place content elements below the headline in some combination of the other 12 blocks below, either vertically or horizontally.

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Place your elements so they touch a combination of squares

Keep in touch with the sides The default PowerPoint layouts complement this design grid, making it easy for you to set up your layout as a single column or a double column, either side-by-side vertically or stacked horizontally. To access PowerPoints built-in layouts, select a slide and then choose Format Slide Layout, then choose the layout you would like to apply.

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You can create a range of layouts, or even fill the whole slide with an image

Create within the grid There are multiple configurations you can use within the grid. In addition to these possibilities, you can also: 1. Reverse the colors of the slide background. Examples of this technique are included in your template the slide background is dark blue, and the text is changed to white to keep contrast. You can use these blue slides to create visual variety, to call out an important point or quote, or to introduce a new section of your presentation. 2. Completely fill a slide with an image. When its most effective to tell your story with a picture, fill the entire screen with that picture, from top to bottom. Never let a PowerPoint template get in the way of successful communication. 3. Place images side-by-side. Creating a contrast or conflict between pictures is an innovative technique for stimulating dialogue about a topic.

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After youve finished designing, delete the blue grid from the Slide Master

Erase the grid when youre done Before you give your presentation, go back into the slide master and delete the grid. Also, delete any of the Story Guides you may have used to structure the story.

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How charts can support your story, not be your story

User Guide Module

Contents 1. Use a chart when it supports the point of your story 2. Tip: Use Notes Pages to make your charts work for you 3. Always return to your slides and ask: What can I subtract and still be clear? 4. Use chart highlight colors only to draw attention to the main idea on a slide

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Use a chart when it supports the point of your story

East 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1st Qtr 2nd Qtr 3rd Qtr 4th Qtr West North

Do my charts advance or obstruct my story? Visual displays of quantitative information that is, bar charts, pie charts, stack charts, etc. are the most commonly used visual resource in GE PowerPoint. They have tremendous power to inform and persuade and to confuse and distract. As a rule, use a chart when it helps make the main point of your slide simpler to understand. Charts support your main point. Dont use a chart if it distracts, confuses, or causes you to lose control of your message. If providing a complete explanation with the chart is an issue, ask yourself how much of the explanation am I actually going to deliver to my audience when I am speaking? And consider using the Notes page approach described on the next page. (For more information about charts, see the educational resources links in the PowerPoint Resources area.)

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Tip: Use Notes Pages to make your charts work for you
screen screen

handout handout

Keep control Many times we load up our charts with explanatory text because we know they are likely to be distributed to a wider audience and we will not be present to explain our points. But meeting the needs of future audiences can make you less effective with the audience in front of you. You can address this issue by moving your explanatory text to the Notes Pages. You actually have more control over your information with this approach. When you add text to a slide, you have to shrink the size of the chart. In order to add text at all, you have to break it down into bullet points. This significantly increases the risk that someone, including you, will not fully understand the relationship between each of the bullet points and not be able to connect the dots. Putting the full narrative description on the Notes Page might make your slide (and you) feel blank. Ironically, you have the most possible control. It is you who is writing the explanation, and you dont rely on the risky strategy of someone else misconnecting your dots. This might be a big shift the way you use PowerPoint, but using Notes extensively is a win-win-win situation, for the presenter, for audiences, and for GE.

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Always return to your slides and ask: What can I subtract and still be clear?

? ? ? ?
A shift in presenting

? ?

As you open up to the Notes view, ask yourself on each slide what you can move into the narrative area at the third level of information hierarchy. Remember, when you put a large quantity of text on a slide like the one above, your audience will read it and not pay attention to you. Beyond improving the presentation experience, when you use the Notes section you are preserving GEs intellectual assets in a way that other people can use them.

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Use chart highlight colors only to draw attention to the main idea on a slide
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Using the chart highlight colors The template includes options to use the additional colors below if you need to call out a very important piece of information in a chart. These colors should be used very sparingly, only when you want to draw your audiences attention to a specific data point that drives your story forward. If youre thinking about using these colors, ask yourself a couple of questions to make sure youre keeping the slide aligned with our core PowerPoint principles: 1. Will adding this highlight keep this slide simple and clear? The templates white background and shades of blue keep things simple and consistently clear, so be careful that the additional color doesnt make things less simple and clear. 2. Do I want this highlight to be the first thing my audience notices? User Guide 3 describes how information hierarchy guides the eye through the elements of a slide in order of importance. The highlight will draw your audiences eye first is that what you want them to see first, before anything else on the slide? 3. Is this highlight the main idea of my slide? User Guide 1 suggests one main idea per slide, 3 major story sections per presentation. If you use a highlight, make sure it is driving forward your main idea, not distracting from it. (Tip: to highlight part of a chart, click on it, choose Format Data Point, then under Area, choose one of the colors below. Do not add additional formatting.)

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