What I’ve learnt giving PowerPoint talks

Craig Boutlis

Ensure the 2nd slide grabs attention

What makes a great talk?

1. Passionate delivery2. Presenter is “on message”

• The aims are clear

3. Presenter knows the audience• How many? What backgrounds?

4. Slides are uniform and neat• And not thematically disturbing

5. The talk is only 2/3 to ¾ the allotted time

How do you give a great talk?

• Follow Malcolm McDonald’s guidelines• Remember, adults aren’t children• Set yourself the following challenge:

– Imagine one of your potential audience turns up late after you’ve finished and bumps into someone who’s on their way out… “What did she say?”

– Hopefully, they can give a good summary

What makes a great talk?

1. Passionate delivery2. Presenter is “on message”

• The aims are clear

3. Presenter knows the audience• How many? What backgrounds?

4. Slides are uniform and neat• And not thematically disturbing

5. The talk is only 2/3 to ¾ the allotted time

Stick to a plain background

Either white with black text if it’s a fairly dark auditorium (like level 8)

Or yellow headings on a black background

With white text- If the room is fairly light

So long as you keep all slides the same

Make sure they’re not “thematically disturbing”

Stay out of the clouds!Stay out of the clouds!

Off the mountains!Off the mountains!

Avoid fire works!

Is this the second worst slide ever?

Ribbons!Wait for it…wait for it…

Keep waiting!

And thank God they killed off…

Dad’s tie!

What a shocker

The moral of the story is…

Don’t let the slides detract from your message

The moral of the story is…

“And don’t put that fucking logo on every slide”

-Dave Kemp

Stay inside the boundaries

• Never, ever enlarge the default boxes• And stick with size 32 font for the first line

– Size 28 for the next line• Size 24 for the next sub-point

– And size 20 thereafter» And ever more; i.e., always use the defaults

• Always start the line with a capital– And never end with a full stop.

• ‘6 lines per slide, 6 words per line’

CAPITALISATION KILLS TALKS

• AND OFTEN NO ONE WILL TELL YOU THAT THEY’RE SITTING THERE AND TAKING AN ETERNITY TO TAKE IN THE MESSAGE ON YOUR SLIDES

• MEANWHILE, THEY REALLY CAN’T FOCUS ON ANYTHING THAT YOU’RE SAYING. I’VE SEEN TALKS DIE LIKE THIS ON THE SECOND SLIDE AND NEVER,EVER RECOVER

Fonts

• ‘Serif’ fonts have little dangly bits– Our eyes and minds use them as hooks

• This allows us to appreciate the words quicker– Has it ever struck you that novels use serif fonts?

• I use them for quotes, in italics, without bullets– Times New Roman is the prototype

• ‘Sans serif’ means “without dangly bits”– Arial is the prototype

• It tends to be clearer, crispy, more professional

“Never write more on a slide than you can read on a T-shirt”

Grant Morahan

A word of caution on fonts

• Always stick to the standard fonts• Non-standard fancy fonts can look great

– But if they’re not present on the computer you’re using…• ..and if you forget to ‘embed’ the font (Save options)• Then it will substitute the closest related font

– But if they’re not present on the computer you’re using…

• Then you will find many of your sentences going over one line• And then all of a sudden before you know it, something has

dropped off the bottom of your page

Red on blue

Will never do (it’s a killer)It just doesn’t stand out right

It is possible to over-animate

• Especially when the first line moves left• And the second moves right• And the third comes up from below• While the fourth is ridiculous• When you use “SlideShow / Custom

animation” stick with “Appear”• And apply this test

– Would animation enhance this slide?

Can you use fewer words?

• Never use more words than you need• Use the least words• Use few words• And it will keep you on one line, every time

“Never use a single word you don’t need”- Malcolm McDonald

Enough of the ‘don’ts’

What about the ‘do’s’

Making great slides

• First, turn on the drawing guides– View / Grid and guides / Display drawing

guides on screen• Then, duplicate a few (map out the boxes)

– Hold down the Ctrl key while you drag a guide– Hold down the Alt key to move 1mm at a time

• Ctrl and drag – makes a copy• Alt and drag – moves 1mm at a time• The secret is this works in all Microsoft programs!!

Let’s make some shapes!

• Ensure you can see the drawing toolbar– View / Toolbars / Drawing

• Our favorite commands– Right click an object / Format AutoShape– Draw / Align and distribute– Group

• Hold down the Shift key as you click each object• Or just drag a big box around things to select them• Then click Draw / Group

Do this quickly!

Yellow centre

Red, 3 point line

Equally spaced in 2 groups of 4, centred on slide

Now make them like this!

Tip: Click (one use) or double click (multiple use) the Format Painter paintbrush

Text boxes are just as easyClick the text box icon on the drawing toolbar

Right click, Format text box and choose a color and a fill

And this one?

Can you work out how to apply that same formatting quickly to this text box

Inserting pictures

• Many ways…all easy– Copy and Paste (Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V)– Insert / Picture / From file

• Compress all pictures to save space– Right click / Format picture / Picture /

Compress / All pictures in document / Web/Screen

• This will look EXACTLY the same• But save you up to ¾ of the memory for the file

Resizing a picture

• Hold down the control key as you drag a corner or edge outward and it will happen equally in each dimension – try it

What makes a great talk?

1. Passionate delivery2. Presenter is “on message”

• The aims are clear

3. Presenter knows the audience• How many? What backgrounds?

4. Slides are uniform and neat• And not thematically disturbing

5. The talk is only 2/3 to ¾ the allotted time

Your titles are headlines

• Imagine each title was a headline in the newspaper – use them to tell the story

• An alternative is to pose questions in titles– What makes a great talk?– What did we find?– What is the significance of these results?

• Try and end your talks with titles that say “Significance” and/or “Implications”

Put graph captions in titles

0

5

10

15

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25

30

35

40

45

Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar

2008 2009

ClinicalSwab

Sum of First

Years DATE RECEIVED

isolate

First recognised VRE isolate

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar

2008 2009

ClinicalSwab

Sum of First

Years DATE RECEIVED

isolate

This is the most important slide

• At some stage, you should say this about one slide in every talk!– AKA the take home message

Some examples

Where does it come from?Achromobacter sppAcidaminococcus fermentansAcinetobacter cacoaceticusAeromonas sppAlcaligenes faecalisAnaerobiospirillum sppBacillus sppBacteroides fragilisBacteroides melaninogenicusBifidobacterium sppButyriviberio fibrosolvensCampylobacter coliCampylobacter sppClostridium difficileClostridium sordelliiClostridium sppEikenella corrodensEnterobacter cloacaeEnterococcus faecalisEnterococcus faecium

Escherichia coliFlavobacterium sppMorganella morganiiMycobacteria sppMycoplasma sppPeptococcus sppPlesiomonas shigelloidesPropionibacterium acnesPropionibacterium sppProvidencia sppPseudomonas aeruginosaRuminococcus bromiiRuminococcus sppSarcina sppStaphylococcus aureusStreptococcus anginosusStreptococcus viridansVeillonella sppVibrio sppYersinia enterocolitica

Outline

1. Case presentation2. Recipe for making a VRE hospital3. Are we a VRE hospital?4. Does it matter?5. Can we un-make a VRE hospital?6. Let’s talk about you and me…

• Let’s talk about all the good things…

VRE is worse than non-VRE

• Mortality 2° VRE bacteremia and not illness = 37% with RR of death of 2.3– Another study, 2-3 fold odds of death

• Vancomycin resistance associated with higher 14 day mortality in enterococci– OR 2.10