10 PowerPoint Tips: Keep Your Audience Awake

Since its debut in the late 1980s, Microsoft's PowerPoint software has become many things to many people: a lifesaver to busy execs attempting to explain critical and complex financial data to their peers; a reliable co-presenter for sales and IT managers trying to rally the troops around a new strategy; and, some might argue, a crutch to knowledge workers everywhere who think pie charts and sound effects can cover up weaknesses in their public-speaking skills.

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The latest version, PowerPoint 2007, (part of Microsoft's Office suite) lets users "quickly create high-impact, dynamic presentations, while integrating workflow and ways to easily share information," notes Microsoft's PowerPoint overview webpage.

PowerPoint slides can hold text, data points, charts, tables, photos, videos and sound effects, which you plug in to any of the many available templates. Making a presentation regarding a company event on July 4th? See the fireworks template. Is a video from YouTube essential to your presentation? See the "Insert Movie" functionality.

To help you get started, CIO.com asked Ayca Yuksel, the product manager for Microsoft Office PowerPoint, to share five design tips and five technical tricks for those who are new to the application. Here are his 10 best tips as well as instructions on how to get at the functionalities in PowerPoint 2007.

5 Design Tips

1. Apply a template to jump start your presentation.

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