Does anyone have experience doing....

presentations or lectures for large groups, like over 50 people?
Do you use a powerpoint?
What are your best tips?
Are there any books or other things you suggest to learn about it?

Re: Does anyone have experience doing....

Yes, I use powerpoint any time I have to give a presentation. I learned power point pretty much just by playing around with it. It really helps u to organize the presentation----and it also takes the focus off of you because the audience will be looking at the slides more then they're looking at you!!!!

Here are some super basic instructions to get u started:

---When u get into powerpt, add some text in the different boxes.
---Look at the headers up on the top of the page and click on design. Pick one of the designs and you'll see that the template changed to that design.
---Then go into Google images to find a picture (http://images.google.com/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi).
---After u find an image, right-click the mouse and press copy.
---Go back to powerpt and right-click and press paste.
---Now you'll have a background, some text and an image.
---Click "new slide" and you'll see a 2nd slide come up. You can add text and pics to that slide as well.
---Then you can go to "Slide Show" and watch the presentation.
---Once you get comfortable doing that, you can play around with animations too.

HTH! FM me if u have any other ?'s and I'll try to help u out.

Re: Does anyone have experience doing....

I would recommend using power point presentation and making copies for a group of 50+ people. You can print it out with lines so that your audience can take notes.

Don't make it too text heavy. I learned that white space is good.

Good Luck!

Re: Does anyone have experience doing....

I do it all the time. PowerPoint is a great tool, but more often than not, it is over-used and misused.

Avoid wordy slides. I can't say this enough. Unless you are quoting some authority that is extremely important, there should not be full sentences on the slides. The slides should be used for illustration / bulletpoints only. Visual things (pictures, graphs, charts, etc.) are better than sentences.

Do not put too much information on one slide. At the same time, do not put so little information on the slides that you are switching slides every 10 seconds. You'll just have to practice going through your presentation to get a feeling for the timing of the slides. Eventually, you figure out about how much time per slide works.

Avoid lots of different colors on one slide. Stick to one or two font colors throughout the entire presentation.

Make sure the slide template is businesslike and professional (and consistent) throughout.

Re: Does anyone have experience doing....

Re: Does anyone have experience doing....

Re: Does anyone have experience doing....

thank you!!!!

Re: Does anyone have experience doing....

The suggestions others made are good. I have always been taught you want to have about 1 slide per minute. So if you presentation is 30 minutes you should have ~30 slides.
Again, having non-wordy slides is good. Try and have a picture, chart or graph on your slides.

Re: Does anyone have experience doing....

I have only used powerpoint very minimally. Every presentation is differernt but I always give out written literature that is usually available on paper or as a .pdf document.