Computers

Point of sale equipment and its accompanying software systems have revolutionized the way retailers do business.”Point of sale” can refer to where a transaction occurs, a checkout counter, or even a retail store itself.

Computerized point of sale systems are commonly used in just about any kind of retail establishment including supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, etc. They are also used for electronic commerce and payment systems. These systems help keep track of inventory, consumer preferences, and have greatly improved overall efficiency and service.

Savvy users of some point of sale systems can maximize their profits through the efficient use of customer mailing lists that are stored in their software. For example, mailing lists can be merged with Word to easily create personalized letters to customers. These letters can advertise upcoming promotions, be used as a thank you for large orders, remind customers when they are due for a service, or even to wish a happy birthday to valued clients. Such personal touches are sure to increase sales, remind clients that they are important to a business, and promote good will with a company’s customer base.

Here are some other tips to make the best use of your point of sale system and software:

– Typing in SKU numbers on a keyboard takes a long time. Make sure your bar code scanners are working properly, as this will greatly speed up your service and make your customers happy. Omnidirectional scanners work even better than traditional scanners because the bar code doesn’t have to be perfectly positioned.

– Not having to use a mouse also increases your speed of service. Touch screens are the most efficient way to go, but even using a keyboard to ring up sales and do other transactions works better than a mouse.

– You want to provide great service without spending a great deal of money. But if your system breaks down, no one’s happy. Your equipment doesn’t have to be brand new, but using reliable hardware and software for your system is essential to running your business more smoothly. This might seem like a no-brainer, but many businesses make the mistake of accepting whatever equipment comes their way in order to save a few dollars. Do your homework and buy good stuff from a reliable supplier. You’ll be glad you did.

– Provide paperless service as much as possible by making efficient use of your POS system. If you take orders by phone, the status of a customer’s order is much easier to determine if it’s checked electronically rather than by using a paper system.

The bottom line is that the use of point of sale systems has greatly increased customer satisfaction at the businesses that use them. Improved efficiency in customer service and better management of valuable employee time makes a POS system a must-have for today’s market place.

If you are looking for an affordable point of sale system or software, visit Guarantee Business Systems (http://www.gbsncr.com/). With over 20 years in business, they’ll help you stretch your IT budget. Art Gib is a freelance writer.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on a Project course, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net

One of the many features of Advanced Excel is the PivotTable. A PivotTable is an interactive table that automatically extracts, organises, and summarises your data in report form, with the assistance of a Wizard.

Pivot tables allow you to quickly summarise and analyse large amounts of data in lists and tables - independent of the original data layout in your spreadsheet - by dragging and dropping columns to different rows, columns, or summary positions.

You can use PivotTables and PivotCharts to analyse the data, make comparisons, detect patterns and relationships, and discover trends. A PivotTable organises and then summarises large amounts of data from any range that has labelled columns and rows. Any number of column headings can act as category items.

The PivotTable is known as such because the headings can be rotated around the data so as to view or summarise it in different ways. You can filter the data to display just the details for areas of interest. Alternatively, you can choose to create a PivotChart which will summarise the data in chart format rather than as a table. An advanced Excel course, led by a Microsoft certified trainer, is highly recommended as you will gain the necessary knowledge to make effective use of Advanced Excel, including PivotTables and PivotCharts.

PivotTables have for a long time been very useful for accountants, but have great advantages to managers too, as a data analysis tool. The source data for the PivotTable can include an Excel worksheet database or list, or any data range that has labelled rows and columns. This data can be in Excel or in an external application such as Microsoft Access. The general rule is that you need more than two criteria of data with which to work otherwise there will be nothing to pivot.

PivotTables are especially well-suited for taking enormous amounts of data and summarising that data into useful reports which can help you analyse your data from multiple perspectives, making it easier for you to discover patterns and exceptions and therefore make faster, better business decisions. In fact, PivotTables might just be the single most powerful tool in Excel for budgeting, financial reporting, and data analysis.

A few of the many advantages of PivotTables are that one can generate and extract meaningful information within a matter of minutes, and the fact that they do not use up a lot of memory from the computer. The drag-and-drop functionality makes PivotTables interactive in that once the table is complete you can very easily see what effect moving, or pivoting, the data has on the information.

Having the information update each time the workbook is opened and/ or by clicking the refresh tab is another feature. Some of the additional features of PivotTables are that they work well with other Excel tools such as AutoFilters, subtotalling, grouping, outlining, and publishing to the web, sending email, and copy and paste linking to MS Word and MS PowerPoint.

In conclusion, some of the many features of PivotTables are that you can summarise and analyse data, quickly rearrange the layout of the report, and they are a convenient way to build intelligent, flexible summary tables.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on advanced+excel+course, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net

Project training covers the mechanics of how to use the software for project management but often doesn’t deal with the details of how to apply these techniques to the real world. Setting up a proper work schedule is one of the core concepts to proper project management. An unrealistic schedule dooms the project from the beginning.

Workers Should Make the Estimates
Many employers make the mistake of sending only project managers to Project training. In fact, all of your staff can benefit from at least a basic understanding of the software and project management principles.

The only person who knows how fast Joe can complete a task is Joe. If Joe’s boss tries to estimate how long it takes, the estimate is likely to come out far too large or small. Let your workers set their own goals and you create more realistic schedule.

“But Joe will inflate his estimate,” some managers reply. That’s a personnel issue not a project management one. If you can’t trust your employees to make realistic estimates, that falls outside the scope of using Project. Managers are often surprised that when they give their employees the chance to do the right thing, most of them do.

Don’t Use Tight Schedules to Motivate
New managers like to use their Project training to implement short schedules with no room for error. They think this motivates their employees to work harder. If workers see they are behind, they redouble their efforts, right? Wrong.

Unrealistic schedules merely depress employees. Faced with insurmountable obstacles, your staff feels doomed and loses the incentive to work hard. You can’t simply force people to work past their capacities, not for very long anyhow.

Even if employees fall for this trick, and it is just a trick rather than good management, you end up with burned out staff that make more mistakes and does less work in the long run. A reasonable schedule gives the workers achievable goals, and workers who are on or ahead of schedule feel happy and motivated.

Planning Means Changing
A 19th century Prussian general, once said, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy”. Neither will your project plan. An error common to managers fresh from Project training is to make a plan, carve it in granite, and assume all will proceed as expected. When complications come up, they badger their staff to keep the plan on track.

Your first project plan will be wrong. As the project unfolds, unanticipated crises and expenses turn your original estimates into so much nonsense. The only choice is to change the plan as new events arise. By doing so, although your completion date will change, it will become more accurate. You will also learn about proper planning.

Your second plan will also be wrong, but less so. The more experience you get, the better your project planning you will get. However none of them will survive unchanged.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on Project training, visit http://www.MicrosoftTraining.net/.

There are many aspects of a video surveillance system. It’s not just about IP cameras, which are just a part of the entire setup. Beyond these cameras exists IP camera software which is also critical in the effective performance of a video surveillance system. The software doesn’t come as a package with the physical cameras. In fact, they have to be bought separately from the market. Hence, it becomes very important to choose a right one from the available lot.

There are many things to be looked into in buying software for your IP camera. But, before setting up the criteria’s, it is very important for you know your needs first. What do you want your software to do? If you are looking for software that will enable you to do video recordings only, then any software in the market should serve your purpose. However, if you want the software to do many more things, then jolt down all the points and see if any of the available software meets them. Then take a wise decision.

IP Camera software come in different features each serving unique purposes. Some of them come with a capability of performing video analytics like facial recognition, object recognition, motion detection and so on. They are also programmed to notify you through regular updates and alerts of any new action taking place.

They can also be set to suit your specific needs like taking a course of action upon motion detection. Once you have short listed few software that could serve your purpose, do not forget to run their trial versions. Most of the software available in the market these days, offer them. They are generally available in the company’s website. Upon running the software, check whether they meet your requirements or not. This sort of trial and error methods can be employed until a right kind of software is met.

Assuming that you have short listed few of them, check each one of them for their features or functions that will serve your purposes. See to it that they are easy to install and fun to use.

No doubt, each person’s taste varies and with it the expectation too varies. So, do not go by what others have to comment on this software. Check them out from your own point of view. If you are happy with the product, go for it. On selecting software, perform all possible tests on it to ensure it stands out during each of those tests. A good and an original piece of software will come good in all situations. They will have more pluses than negatives.

Before making the final purchase of the software, check out its manufacturer. Get to know more about them. If they are a branded company, you have very little to worry about. If not, go to the corresponding company’s website and learn more about their other products and services offered by them.

By doing so, you will be rest assured about the product and its functionality. Last but not the least, check out the warranty period and ask for a hand book of the software. They could be useful to you later.

For unique Project Management Software and Framework Management

Microsoft Excel is one of the most common software applications used in the world, employed in statistical analysis, simple database projects, and even as interactive whiteboards and branching storybooks.

Nearly every organization uses Excel and yet its versatility makes it a difficult application to master. Many businesses face the need to use Excel in a way that is beyond their current capabilities, either to create a one-time application or as an ongoing need, and need a way to give their employees the needed skills.

Excel is not the most intuitive program beyond the basics, and many businesses find that they need an expert to accomplish their goals. In this case, there are two options - to hire an outside consultant, or to have a Microsoft-certified Excel expert come in to help the staff create the application you need. Each approach has advantages.

Organization with Limited Needs

If your business has a narrow application for Excel, then Microsoft Excel training courses will contain a lot of irrelevant information that is likely to just frustrate and confuse your staff. For example, a small insurance company might want a simple employer database to generate reports on upcoming renewals. They don’t need statistical and financial functions or even simple arithmetic. All they would need is training on Excel’s database functions.

Another business might have a spreadsheet they have been using but that was created years ago by someone who has since left the company. The old spreadsheet is becoming less useful as details of the business change. They don’t need a new workbook. They need someone who can help them update different parts of the sheet to provide needed new functionality.

Consultancy training is more focused than typical Microsoft Excel training courses, which is both the strength and weakness of the technique.

Microsoft Excel Training Courses for General Needs
Most organizations use Excel in a more widespread manner. Many employees are using the application and they are using a variety of functions. Traditional training courses are likely to be more appropriate. Each student receives a broad foundation of knowledge and even experienced Excel users have “I didn’t know you could do that” moments.

The generalized nature of the information means that some employees will be learning techniques they will never use, but instructor-led training is likely to be less expensive than bringing in a consultant.

Customized Microsoft Excel Training

One compromise between the two is to find a training provider who offers onsite Microsoft Excel training courses that can be customized to your needs. The instructor will create a course which will emphasize the material that is important to your company, even using your own spreadsheets as examples. For the right situation it combines the low price of traditional training with the focus of consultancy.

This provides less one-on-one support than consultancy but may be a good solution for a staff of inexperienced Excel users. They get the basic skills they need, but directed toward the specific tasks they will perform in their jobs.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on Microsoft Excel training courses, visit http://www.MicrosoftTraining.net/.

Scope creep. It is the bane of every project manager, and yet it is inevitable. Unless you have planned for it, your schedule will be in a shambles, your project late, and your clients unhappy.

What is Scope Creep?
After a plan has been created in Microsoft Project it is inevitable that changes will be made. As the project proceeds, tasks will need to be added. For example when developing a new product, people might think of features which will supposedly make the product better.

Creep can come from many sources. Managers may promise features to clients without consulting staff to see if they are feasible. New workers on the project often have ideas that can seem good at the time. Embarking on the project often reveals flaws with the original plan, requiring additional tasks to cover shortcomings.

Use Buffers to Absorb Scope Creep
Well developed plans in Microsoft Project have a certain amount of leeway for exactly these situations. It’s critical to budget extra time into schedules to cover the implementation of additional ideas. If the extra time has been used up, or wasn’t planned for in the first place, there may be other places that time can be borrowed from. Time planned for researching competing products or usability testing could be reduced to allow the implementation of new tasks.

Be careful. It is common for companies to spend so much time adding more that they use up all of their testing time. They release a product with lots of cool features, none of which work well. Don’t lose sight of quality when taking time to absorb scope creep.

You Can’t Manufacture Time
Most Microsoft Project endeavors eventually reach the point where there is no time left for more tasks. At this stage there are only two options.

The first is to pare down the feature list. Although every feature might seem critical at the time, once you start comparing them you learn which ones are actually critical and which just sound cool. Often this makes a better product. During the development of Microsoft Excel 5, programmers had to cut lots of “critical” features to get the product out. When starting Excel 6, they looked over the list of cut features and realized that not one of them was worth implementing in the new version.

The second choice is to extend the schedule. If the additional work really is necessary, it’s going to take more time to implement it. If your deadline is not changeable, then see the preceding paragraph.

One choice you don’t have is to expect your staff to work beyond their capacities. This common management mistake makes the situation worse. Staff becomes burned out and makes more mistakes, requiring more fixes, and a late product. Tasks take as long as they take and workers can put in only so many hours.

Scope creep has doomed many a project, but with the right preparations your project will survive it.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on Microsoft Project, visit http://www.MicrosoftTraining.net/.

Fresh from a Microsoft Project course, a manager sits down to develop a project plan. However without proper project management principles, the plan will just be pretty charts and graphs that have no bearing on reality.

Fast, Good, Cheap - Pick Two
Some Project courses discuss the project triangle because it is such as central concept to project management theory. Any project is constrained by three things: time, scope, and cost. A manager can influence one or even two of these but only at the cost of the third.

For example, a manager has to deliver a finished project by a certain deadline and keep to a specific budget. This will restrict the scope of the project. On the other hand, perhaps the deadline is flexible but the quality of the finished project, which is part of scope, must meet a certain requirement. The one thing the manager can’t do is increase all three constraints. One of them will suffer as the other two are improved.

Or Pick Fewer Than Two
As any experienced project manager knows, two or even all three constraints can get out of control if the project is not carefully administered. So there is a limit, say, to how much you can reduce a project’s cost. However there is no limit to how much you can increase it. It is easy to produce a project that is late, poor quality and over budget.

That is often the result of project plans that ignore the triangle and try to remove all three restraints. The project plan becomes unrealistic and when problems arise, the entire thing comes crashing down. No Project course can protect you from bad planning. We are never in control of outside events. All we can do is try to correct for them, while keeping the triangle in mind.

Balance All Three Constraints
Most managers don’t have unlimited ability to relax constraints. All three factors will seem important, but the plan must consider which one is most important.

Consider a non-profit organization that has received a $10,000 grant. They can’t go to the grantor and request more money if they go over budget. If their expenses are higher than anticipated, they have no choice but to cut back on scope or extend the time.

On the other hand, a company might have a contract to manufacture a component to specific tolerances. If the component is created outside these tolerances, it won’t fit into the larger assembly and is useless. The company must follow this constraint, even at the expense of the other two.

After taking a Microsoft Project course, managers will still require experience on many projects before they are able to create plans that incorporate these principles efficiently. However, in time, it will become second nature and their project plans will benefit.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on Project course, visit http://www.MicrosoftTraining.net/.

Sourcing the best student laptops is important, because all over the internet, in the newspapers and even at your local stores, people are talking about the importance of having a laptop while attending school. Laptops can be very beneficial to any student but unfortunately the truth is that there are many laptops that are just too expensive for the student’s budget. Luckily the good news is that there are relatively cheap student laptops available for you to purchase but you need to know some facts first before you go out and buy.

For starters, let’s take a moment to look at all of these cheap student laptops available at the major electronics chain-stores all over the nation. You see their advertisements for cheap high-end name brand laptop with so many instant and mail-in rebates on them that the whole computer only costs a couple of hundred dollars. You think to yourself for a moment and then you realize, this is more expensive then if you were to just pay cash. I know how that sounds, but here is how it works out. Most of these rebates are only given when you sign up for services, software or even extras like a printer. In the case of the services, you are signing in to a contract that locks you in for a specific amount of time, usually 12 months. Even if it is something as simple as internet access, that rebate can end up costing you well over $250 in the first year; more if you break the contract.

How messed up is that? A $100 instant rebate can cost you more than double in fees over the next year. Now just imagine all of the other rebates that come along with these and you will start to understand why when it comes to purchasing cheap student laptops, the last thing you should be looking for is for the name brand computers at the large chain-stores.

What you need to do is take a look on the internet as well as checking out the local computer shops in your city. You will soon start seeing names that you have heard of before, but not directly associated with laptop manufacturing. These might include companies who make parts for laptops like motherboards and hard drives. There is quite literally thousands of small companies as well as big names that qualify under the second tier; just below the name brands. Each and every one of these are also known for their quality and great prices.

When you see a laptop that has everything you need but you question the quality, look it up online. It does not get any simpler than that. You would be amazed as to how many people have already purchased that exact same model and are more then willing to say what is good and bad about it. It is by far the best ways to find cheap student laptops that meet all your requirements.

Visit the authors website Cheap New Laptops for articles, tips and advice about everything laptops. Find out about cheap laptops notebooks and why paying less for cheap student laptops doesn’t necessarily mean getting less quality for your money.

As your business grows, the increasing number of employees, clients, products,services, and functions increases the complexity of organizing the data associated with each of these entities. One way to streamline system processes and data control is with the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning software.
ERP solutions are designed to integrate all of the data and processes […]

A vast majority of careers are variations of the basic ones that have been carried down through families over the years - most apart from those that involve internet and computer technology.

This is pretty much a genre that has begun in the Forties and gradually gained momentum until the Nineties when it really took off. Software engineering is just one aspect of this, from games software to business accounting software, there is an application to suit all businesses. Some of them will be off-the-shelf packages that can be adapted to many general activities and others can be bespoke designed software to suit specific requirements.

At the outset, software was pretty difficult to maintain as new computers were being evolved on such a regular basis that it left already developed software obsolete. Software engineering as a career in itself first came about in the early Sixties and really belonged to those who already had a grounding in computer engineering.

The software industry has not been without its share of catastrophic failures due to a lack of understanding. A lack of software security leaves users computers wide open to hackers and subsequently the incidents of identity and money theft. Business accounting software is one area where it is essential to have high security as standard to avoid the loss of details and leaving a company open to possible fraud.

A software defect in radiotherapy machines led to patients being given lethal doses of radiation - in fact, one hundred times more than the recommended dose. This led to three deaths in patients.

It was following the widespread acceptance of the internet around 1990 that a need for well developed software really came to the fore. Information was being transmitted across the globe on a regular level and forms of software were needed to cope with this.

This meant that software for the translation of foreign languages was vital and also a form of search engine optimisation needed to be introduced for some level of order to be assigned to the internet.

Software has come on leaps and bounds over the past few years and is now at a point where situations, solutions and results can be simulated to a point that has ushered in a new time for researchers and scientists. It is now possible to work things out in such a short space of time, whereby actual physical experiments would have wasted months of time.

The health care service is one arena which has benefitted hugely from the development of secure and advanced software. The mixing of chemicals and the possible effects do have to be tested but many calculations as to the possible outcome can be configured on computer screens before being physically trialled.

Businesses are also prospering with the use of software. Business accounting software has led to a much more efficient handling of incomings and outgoings for companies. It saves time and manpower when figures can be entered into a software programme and all calculations carried out in an instant. It also removes the human error factor although a computer is only ever as good as its programmer.

In these days of penny pinching and belt tightening, anything that can make a business run smoother, more efficiently and more cost effective is a good thing.

Shaun Parker is a leading internet expert with many years of experience in the SEO industry. Find out more about business accounting software at http://www.e1business.com

Lara Croft is one of the most recognisable faces in the world of video games. She is right up there with Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario, her trademark short shorts and teal tanktop are unmistakable.
Ms. Croft first jogged into our living rooms in 1996 when Tomb Raider was released for the ill-fated Sega Saturn games […]

Often people who are skilled with spreadsheets shy away from learning Visual Basic. Excel carries a lot of built-in functionality so they don’t feel the need to learn programming. In fact, there are a number of reasons to get comfortable with writing macros in Visual Basic (VBA).

VBA Looks Good on Your Resume
Microsoft Office is used by nearly every employer in the world and the more extensive your skills with the application suite, the more attractive a candidate you are when applying for jobs. Visual Basic in Excel is the same macro language used in Word, Access or the other Office applications.

Once you know how to write macros in Excel, using macros in Word is just a matter of learning a few new object definitions. Even if you are happy with the company you work for, it never hurts to improve your job skills. The more you can do the more valuable you are to your boss. Besides, you never know what tomorrow will bring and an unexpected layoff could force you to start job hunting.

Get More Value Out of Excel
Stretch your software dollar further by using all the features of Excel. If you aren’t using Visual Basic, Excel is just half an application. It’s a bit like buying a car but making only right turns. Learning to write your own macros opens up a world of functionality. You are no longer limited by built-in functions. You can now write your own and have them do nearly anything you want.

Macros allow you to create complex functions without the intermediate calculation cells that may be required when using built-in functions. For example you might have a list of values and you want to put each value into an equation then sum the values. With built-in functions you’d have to have a cell next to each value that puts it into the equation then another cell that sums the results. A macro could step through each value, perform the calculation, and sum the total all in one cell.

Get Your Work Done Faster
When you first learn Visual Basic, Excel built-in functions might seem like a faster way to do things. Puzzling out program structure and getting results to come out right takes longer than using quick and dirty shortcuts on the spreadsheet.

With time, your VB programming skills will improve and you will create your custom functions faster. Although it takes extra time to create the function up front, it will save time every time you use it. Soon you will have a standard library of self-created functions that you can easily add to every spreadsheet you make.

Don’t be discouraged. It can take months to become proficient with Visual Basic, but once you are comfortable with it you will be glad you took the time to learn.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on visual+basic+Excel, visit http://www.MicrosoftTraining.net/.

In order to use their project planning software more effectively, many companies send their teams to Microsoft Projects courses. Sometimes employees don’t seem to learn much and that’s not always the fault of the course. Proper planning can avoid three of the major pitfalls that lead to bad training.

Training is Work - Schedule Appropriately
Let’s say an emergency project comes in. It will take an employee two full days to complete. It would be common practice to shift some of that employee’s work to other staff so that one person isn’t overwhelmed. And yet, managers won’t do the same with training.

When managers send employees to 2-day Microsoft Projects courses, they are giving their people two full days of work. Expecting them to perform their regular workload on top of this means asking them to put in very long hours.

This can lead to resentment from staff members who view Microsoft Projects courses as annoying distractions. They resist training and will be less likely to remember their new skills. By redistributing work during training, the employee can go to the course without being sidetracked with thoughts of the office. The person is more relaxed, learns better, and has time to practice new skills upon returning to work.

Today’s Hot Topic Is Tomorrow’s Obsolete Skill
A manager reads an article about Microsoft’s project management software. Microsoft Projects courses are scheduled, employees attend, and procedures are changed. A month later, the manager reads an article about Oracle Projects and the Microsoft platform is abandoned. New courses are scheduled, new procedures are created, and the department is in turmoil again.

This kind of cafeteria training, sending staff to courses in the latest business fad, is counter-productive to a positive training culture. Employees see training as a waste of time since they know their new skills will never be implemented.

Instead, Microsoft Projects courses should be included as part of a long-term strategic plan. Even if said manager honestly believes Oracle or some other project management software to be better, the department is better off staying the course for six months to a year before even considering a change of that magnitude.

Less Is Not More
Managers are often looking for the best training bang for their buck. This doesn’t mean just looking for the cheapest training provider. Often they are looking for the shortest courses to minimize employee downtime.

You can probably find Microsoft Projects courses claiming to teach everything about the software in an afternoon. In fact, they are going to teach very superficial skills. Some courses are little more than product demonstrations that leave students with no useful skills to take back to work.

Training takes time. Not only should managers expect to lose employees for several days if taking a full set of Microsoft Projects courses, but there will be time after training to plan ways to implement the new skills in the department workflow.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on Microsoft Projects courses, visit http://www.MicrosoftTraining.net/.

People take Microsoft PowerPoint training to learn how to use the software, but using PowerPoint is not the same as making a good presentation. You need skills beyond what you learn in Microsoft PowerPoint training. There are three elements in a good PowerPoint talk: the speech, the report, and the slides.

The Most Important Component - Your Presentation
This doesn’t mean the PowerPoint slides; it means your speech. “Speech” may not the best word since that brings to mind a speaker who drones monotonously while listeners daydream. The goal of your presentation is communication. The best communication imparts information through emotion.

We have two sides to our brains, one concerned with facts and figures and one with creativity and emotion. A speaker who appeals to both sides communicates the most effectively. Think about the last time you heard a speaker who really held your attention. It was probably someone animated and engaging.

To deliver a great presentation, you don’t need to be overly animated or attempt to tell lots of jokes. Giving a great presentation is about connecting with your audience, speaking to them rather than at them, and holding their attention. It’s about interacting with your audience more than you interact with your PowerPoint slides.

The Second Most Important Component - Your Document
At the beginning of the presentation, DO tell the audience you will be handing out a document containing all the details of the presentation. This way, they won’t need to take notes and can pay attention to the presentation. There are two absolute “don’ts” regarding this document. DON’T hand it out at the beginning or people will tend to ignore you as they read it. DON’T just make copies of your PowerPoint slides.

The report can be as detailed as you like. Unlike your talk, people can skim through it and focus on the areas important to them. Putting details in here keeps you from losing your audience due to information overload.

The Least Important (But Still Important) Component - Your PowerPoint
Perhaps the least important element in your PowerPoint presentation is the actual PowerPoint! It’s still significant, but it shouldn’t be the core of your presentation. It should reinforce your speech, not replace it. It should contain some information, but nowhere near the level of detail of your report.

Keep your slides simple so they don’t distract from the message. You will be tempted to use all the cool techniques from your Microsoft PowerPoint training; resist the urge. Clip art and slide transitions don’t enhance your presentation; they obscure it.

Graphics are effective tools, probably more effective than words on PowerPoint slides. Not the graphs and charts you learned about in Microsoft PowerPoint training, but pictures that evoke emotion and drive your point home.

A good presentation has these three elements. If you show PowerPoint slides, read from the slides, and hand out copies of the slides, you haven’t incorporated three elements. You’ve used one element three times. The components should be distinct and complementary, each building on the other two to create a harmonious whole.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on Microsoft Powerpoint training, visit http://www.MicrosoftTraining.net/.