Chapter 2: Developing the Content

Overview

DILBERT reprinted by permission of United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

Jane runs a non-profit agency that connects people who need services with those who provide them. She has been assigned to create a program to use local teens to do yard work for members of the city's homebound population. She needs to start this project as quickly as possible by creating a series of PowerPoint presentations to introduce her program to the area.

I need help. I have experience speaking off the cuff, but am new to PowerPoint and re-creatable presentations. I need to get the project launched as soon as possible.

I have read through several of the available on-line resources, so I have a pretty good idea of what PowerPoint can do. I know that I am going to need several different presentations, but don't even know where to start the development process. I also know that I will not be the only one giving these presentations, so I need to create the most versatile presentations possible. Can you help?

Jane has several things to do before she even opens PowerPoint. She knows what she needs to say, but not to whom she needs to say it. She also wants some help making sure the messages are consistent from presentation to presentation, as she won't always be there when the information is looked at. She needs to decide:

• What main messages she wants people to take home

• Who is the intended audience for each presentation

• How she is going to present the information

• What is in each presentation (the outline)

These decisions seem trivial and obvious at first glance, but the time you take to do them correctly saves considerable time and effort later. Making the right choices up front makes your presentations much more useful and understandable by your intended audience. If you don't first decide who you are talking to and what you want to say, you may end up sharing your information with the walls instead of your audience.

People who are new at developing presentations usually spend hours building and picking just the right graphics, adding sounds, and moving between slides in the best way possible. Unfortunately, these extras are not the most important parts of the presentation. The most important part is the content. One of the stumbling blocks for presentation creators is the actual process of creating the content.