Week 7: Clear- Creating an effective Presentation

After reviewing the course material for this week, I was very excited about the upcoming presentation project. There are so many possibilities out their for presentations, but where to begin? I think one of the hardest steps most people have it actually beginning a project. This involves thinking of an idea. This reminds me of my earlier college days were I would write a paper and then title it due t not being able to think of a title before the paper was finished. But we cant take that approach in this case. We must formulate an idea. Think of things you are excited or passionate about and how it can relate to the business world. What would you want to hear when listening to someone's presentation? There are many things to consider. I know this can be challenging at first but once you have an idea, it only gets easier from there!

Make sure you map out your ideas on a piece of paper. Create a storyboard. I found a great article on creating storyboard and how some of the great people through history have worked on theirs. This will help you develop your presentation. throughout all the steps of creating a presentation, I enjoy this step the most! I have fun with drawing images and briefly describing what I will be discussing.

After creating your storyboard, you may begin putting the presentation together. There are many different types of tools to use. In the business environment it helps to include charts and graphs. But be careful not to create to much noise within your presentation. You do not want to overwhelm or confuse the audience with your slides. For example, see the below slide which is a bit much!

There is simply to much going on for the audience to be able to pay attention to you as well as the image. Instead, draw the image as you are talking or make it simply so you must explain it to the audience and they can follow it with you. For example:

You can explain to the audience what is represent where on the graph. There is plenty of material online to help you with creating a great presentation. Take a look at the "Basics of Presentation Skills."

Once you have mastered the skill of creating a great presentation, it is a very helpful tool within the work place. You can show your managers that you have a ability to convey information in a great way that others can understand. So dive into the task of completing a presentation!

Week 5: Clear - Pivot Tables in the Work Place

I really enjoyed the lectures provided this week on Excel. I work with Excel on a daily basis and think I am pretty familiar with the system. But it is always nice to see how someone else may work out problems. I deal with a customer some of you maybe familiar with..... Coca Cola, on a daily basis. My company ships there point of sales products and Coca Cola requires daily updates on the shipments along with monthly data. To provide this data I use Excel to create list, pivot tables and graphs. All of with are easy to read and understand. Unfortunately, my work has an older version of Excel, but I work with what I have!

Everyday I come in and begin by importing my data into an excel spreadsheet. I then follow by editing the data into formulas that are needed to receive the appropriate information. After the spreadsheet is complete, I create the pivot table. Once my pivot table is complete, I import the information into a graph. This may sound foreign now but I can do this at the snap of a finger. And you can too! It is much easier than you think. It all began by opening Excel and playing around. The help tab is very useful and I will even google things that I am having trouble. Often many other had the same problems and posted them online. Many functions are available through Excel. I have often sat at my desk for hours playing around with creating my own functions to solve issues. The online Office guide is also helpful to creating your own functions. You may even create the pivot table through the graph by simply selecting the graph option and dragging the data into into the correct graph areas. This will populate the information within the pivot table on a separate page. Here is an example of a pivot graph below:

You are able to edit these graphs into tables, charts, line or pie. If you work in a business environment, I would recommend becoming familiar with these tools. It will impress your boss when you need to provide data and you supply a chart along with it. VideoJug has a great video posted on "How to Impress Your Boss with a Pivot Table" with very usual steps. Just think of it as climbing the ladder to success!