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    Work Ethics - A Paradigm Shift
    Work ethics is a hot topic in today’s business and educational worlds. Yet, how do we define this hybrid phrase with the word work meaning more than a specific outcome and the word ethics being more than the values that enhance that outcome?When we say we are going to work, work becomes the place of employment. When we say we are working, the implication is that we are engaged in a work-related activity and should be performing one or more specific tasks. However, the word work in today’s global economy does not easily denote specific outcomes much less measurable ones.Years ago when our economy was agrarian based, farmers said they were going to work the fields. Their work or more specifically the outcomes of their work could be viewed from the plowed fields to the stacked bales of hay. In today’s technology and service driven economy, workers outcomes are not as nearly recognizable, but what is noticed is their behavior.Now, ethics is a difficult word to define, as it is more than the enhancement of outcomes. This is aptly demonstrated by the variety of expectations such as being to work or school on time, performing quality work, being self-directed, having self-initiative, or being positive to both fellow contributors and customers. Ethics, from these expectations, encompass the internal behaviors of the contributors or what I really believe are attitudes.Let’s step out of the box and construct a new and more accurate term that meets the expectations of both the business and educational worlds. First, let’s ask ourselves are we more concerned with the behavior or the attitudes? If we recognize that it is the attitudes that drive the behaviors that generate the outcomes, it would suggest that the contributors’ attitudes have the greater impact on the outcomes.Next, since behavior has numerous mean
    er than on the axis. Put a star at the peak or use a different colored line for emphasis. If your budget goes from zero to $1,000, just give us $0, $500, and $1k. Label your bars with "Show Value" instead. Trust me when I say anyone with particular questions about a chart will seek you out after the program, bring it up in Q&A, or e-mail you about it later.

    If you're the type to put a chart into your presentation then say onstage, "I know you can't read this, but..." Do something about it before hitting the podium. By admitting to the audience that your chart is useless, you're also saying you don't value their time. Dropping off some data and increasing the size of the remaining font should do the trick, and it doesn't take much work. For particularly complex charts and graphs, create two versions! With a simple on screen version and a complex, fully labeled handout version you have the best of both worlds.

    Another suggestion for charts and graphs is to remain flat. The 3-D options can look good in bar charts and pies, but in my opinion nothing beats a clean, flat 2-D chart with high-contrast labels.

    Fontastic Results:
    Fonts are a tricky beast. A creative font style you might find clever or

    Prosperity Is Your Birthright And Your Natural Condition
    Everyone has a dream of making it big in terms of riches, success and happiness but only some lucky ones are able to achieve that ultimate wealth and prosperity. Well then do you think that these rich people are someone different from what you are or are they simply god’s chosen one’s. No! None of these thoughts is correct. It’s only that these wealthy, successful and happy individuals are those who took the right action at the right time. They were smart enough to take correct decisions and believed that what they wanted can be achieved.Ask any of the richest people you meet about their secrets of achieving huge fortunes they would invariably say that they dared to grab right opportunities on their way and this resulted in huge gains over a period of time. So for all of us who are still waiting to make it big in terms of money, personal development and ultimate happiness we at Ultimate Wealth and Prosperity offer one golden opportunity to move forward and achieve all that you secretly desires throughout your life.It’s the time now and you need to act fast. You have already reached the first step of finding a genuine place where secrets of abundant health, wealth and happiness is not only promised but also delivered right at your doorsteps with an express courier. As the old age saying goes ‘ well begun is half done’, by landing here at the right site which offers you tangible real products that would help in your overall development you are already well begun. So the next step to riches and prosperity only remains about you acting fast and opting for the valuable products presented here.These are all tried and tested resources in the form of C.D’s, DVD’s, books, courses, prosperity teleseminars and live prosperity events. All these while you have been hunting around the bushes throughout the Internet to find secrets
    Introduction:
    After working with hundreds of executives on every rung of the corporate ladder, I've been a witness to some of the best and worst presentations ever created with Microsoft PowerPoint. The program is so evolved these days that there are tools, effects, transitions and settings available that will either help or hinder your effectiveness as a presenter. Everyone wants to have a powerful presentation, and there are some very simple ways to accomplish this.

    First of all, keep in mind that the audience is not assembled to watch a slide show. There is nothing more sleep -inducing than a dimly lit room and dull, content-cluttered slides after a hot lunch. Take it from a frequent napper in Art History 101!

    With great tools it is all too easy to forget that the message you are delivering is coming from Y-O-U. You know the material inside and out! See yourself as the focus of the show, and use support tools like Microsoft PowerPoint to reinforce the key elements of your presentation -- to be your backup singer while you stand front and center.

    Now doesn't that make you feel a little special? It should! For whatever reason it may be, you have been asked to speak as an expert; to weigh in with your opinion; to share your discoveries; this is your time in the spotlight so let the software and laser pens support your performance and not overpower it.

    Keep It Simple, Superstar:
    A good place to start is by looking at the amount and complexity of the material you need to present. An easy way to keep your presentation from becoming an uncontrollable monster is to remember the six-by-six guideline. Six bullets to a slide, six words per bullet. This is a simply brilliant way to avoid the dreaded "Presentation Karaoke" syndrome -- a speech where either the presenter reads directly from the slide or the audience reads along with the presenter -- or both! Six-by-six works so well, it is taught as a presentation model in many communications seminars throughout corporate America. Can you go five-by-five or seven-by-seven? Of course you can. Any individual slide may need adjustments as you go along but by keeping the six-by-six guideline in mind you're guaranteed to keep the fat trimmed from your presentation.

    Let's add sub-bullets to the mix. I try to avoid subs, but sometimes that is impossible. When subs are involved, I keep them the same size or just slightly smaller as the regular first-line bullet text, and let the indentation tell viewers the next line is a sub. The default templates often reduce subs into the unreadable zone.

    If you find yourself going to a second or (yikes!) third sub-bullet, you need to re-work your material. Perhaps by changing the headline to a shortened version of your first full bullet, or losing the first actual "bullet" to create a sub-head. I find that presenters often create a headline and hold it through an entire section. A full page "chapter" slide at the beginning of a new portion of material will allow you to then change each subsequent slide headline and make it more custom to the material in the bullets below. In a fluid presentation your audience won't forget your subject.

    "But, but, but... If you have the space, why not use it?" The answer is simple. Your slides are there to drive home or re-state important points, to help with keywords a note-taking audience member should jot down, and to preface or summarize your presentation or "chapters" within. There's nothing worse than having so much on a slide that you either cannot get through the material, or the audience cannot read everything because the font is too small.

    In an average presentation, a speaker will hit two to three slides a minute. That alone will guide you into choosing your words carefully to cover everything you put on the screen. If you don't plan on speaking about something, or assume you will skip through certain segments, remove that material from your slides. Bullet points remaining untouched will leave your audience asking mental questions instead of listening to you!

    Charting a Course to Success:
    Here is a pet peeve of mine I see far too often. A chart with so much information on it that nobody in the audience would be able to take it all in during the short time it is onscreen. Not to name names, but financial analysts and engineers with timelines tend to be the biggest offenders when it comes to charts! Granted, there is value to showing a trend-line over a period of time -- any stockbroker will tell you that. Obfuscation typically occurs when too many ticks are labeled. This can leave a junkyard of 10 point, aliased text that does nothing but look horrible.

    The fixes are easy. If your trend is over twenty years, just give us five year labels. We realize the spaces between are non-labeled years. If you have a particular peak or valley, call it out in the chart area rather than on the axis. Put a star at the peak or use a different colored line for emphasis. If your budget goes from zero to $1,000, just give us $0, $500, and $1k. Label your bars with "Show Value" instead. Trust me when I say anyone with particular questions about a chart will seek you out after the program, bring it up in Q&A, or e-mail you about it later.

    If you're the type to put a chart into your presentation then say onstage, "I know you can't read this, but..." Do something about it before hitting the podium. By admitting to the audience that your chart is useless, you're also saying you don't value their time. Dropping off some data and increasing the size of the remaining font should do the trick, and it doesn't take much work. For particularly complex charts and graphs, create two versions! With a simple on screen version and a complex, fully labeled handout version you have the best of both worlds.

    Another suggestion for charts and graphs is to remain flat. The 3-D options can look good in bar charts and pies, but in my opinion nothing beats a clean, flat 2-D chart with high-contrast labels.

    Fontastic Results:
    Fonts are a tricky beast. A creative font style you might find clever or "

    Media Training Tips for the Novice: A Guide for Those New to the Media Spotlight
    Media interviews can be difficult even for those used to public and media attention —but they can be downright terrifying for those who’ve never been in the media spotlight before.For many who’ve never interacted with the media, fear of the media usually stems from a feeling of lack of control in the process, and concern over the reporter’s motives in doing the interview. Will I be able to answer the reporter’s questions? How will I know the reporter won’t make me look bad?Reporters of course, understand many of their interview subjects will react this way, and good ones will do what they can to put their interviewees at ease. Reporters though have a tendency to believe people’s fears about the media are for the most part, groundless. As a media trainer and former reporter, I know it’s not that simple. Facts often don’t speak for themselves and interview subjects can indeed look foolish, inept or worse, even if that wasn’t the reporter’s aim.The goal of media training is to teach you how to serve both reporters’ goals and your own, truthfully, factually, and with confidence. Media training is designed first and foremost to allow interview subjects to understand how to exercise the control they often don’t even know they have over the process.The first thing for the novice interviewee to understand is that he or she is in far greater danger from a reporter who doesn’t get it, than from a reporter who is out to get you. The vast majority of reporters want to get the story right. If they work for a mainstream news organization, there are standards they must meet and higher ups to hold them accountable to those standards. That’s not to say reporters don’t sometimes get it wrong. It means if they’re a professional, they have a stake in getting it right and value their reputations. That means you need to concentrate
    th your opinion; to share your discoveries; this is your time in the spotlight so let the software and laser pens support your performance and not overpower it.

    Keep It Simple, Superstar:
    A good place to start is by looking at the amount and complexity of the material you need to present. An easy way to keep your presentation from becoming an uncontrollable monster is to remember the six-by-six guideline. Six bullets to a slide, six words per bullet. This is a simply brilliant way to avoid the dreaded "Presentation Karaoke" syndrome -- a speech where either the presenter reads directly from the slide or the audience reads along with the presenter -- or both! Six-by-six works so well, it is taught as a presentation model in many communications seminars throughout corporate America. Can you go five-by-five or seven-by-seven? Of course you can. Any individual slide may need adjustments as you go along but by keeping the six-by-six guideline in mind you're guaranteed to keep the fat trimmed from your presentation.

    Let's add sub-bullets to the mix. I try to avoid subs, but sometimes that is impossible. When subs are involved, I keep them the same size or just slightly smaller as the regular first-line bullet text, and let the indentation tell viewers the next line is a sub. The default templates often reduce subs into the unreadable zone.

    If you find yourself going to a second or (yikes!) third sub-bullet, you need to re-work your material. Perhaps by changing the headline to a shortened version of your first full bullet, or losing the first actual "bullet" to create a sub-head. I find that presenters often create a headline and hold it through an entire section. A full page "chapter" slide at the beginning of a new portion of material will allow you to then change each subsequent slide headline and make it more custom to the material in the bullets below. In a fluid presentation your audience won't forget your subject.

    "But, but, but... If you have the space, why not use it?" The answer is simple. Your slides are there to drive home or re-state important points, to help with keywords a note-taking audience member should jot down, and to preface or summarize your presentation or "chapters" within. There's nothing worse than having so much on a slide that you either cannot get through the material, or the audience cannot read everything because the font is too small.

    In an average presentation, a speaker will hit two to three slides a minute. That alone will guide you into choosing your words carefully to cover everything you put on the screen. If you don't plan on speaking about something, or assume you will skip through certain segments, remove that material from your slides. Bullet points remaining untouched will leave your audience asking mental questions instead of listening to you!

    Charting a Course to Success:
    Here is a pet peeve of mine I see far too often. A chart with so much information on it that nobody in the audience would be able to take it all in during the short time it is onscreen. Not to name names, but financial analysts and engineers with timelines tend to be the biggest offenders when it comes to charts! Granted, there is value to showing a trend-line over a period of time -- any stockbroker will tell you that. Obfuscation typically occurs when too many ticks are labeled. This can leave a junkyard of 10 point, aliased text that does nothing but look horrible.

    The fixes are easy. If your trend is over twenty years, just give us five year labels. We realize the spaces between are non-labeled years. If you have a particular peak or valley, call it out in the chart area rather than on the axis. Put a star at the peak or use a different colored line for emphasis. If your budget goes from zero to $1,000, just give us $0, $500, and $1k. Label your bars with "Show Value" instead. Trust me when I say anyone with particular questions about a chart will seek you out after the program, bring it up in Q&A, or e-mail you about it later.

    If you're the type to put a chart into your presentation then say onstage, "I know you can't read this, but..." Do something about it before hitting the podium. By admitting to the audience that your chart is useless, you're also saying you don't value their time. Dropping off some data and increasing the size of the remaining font should do the trick, and it doesn't take much work. For particularly complex charts and graphs, create two versions! With a simple on screen version and a complex, fully labeled handout version you have the best of both worlds.

    Another suggestion for charts and graphs is to remain flat. The 3-D options can look good in bar charts and pies, but in my opinion nothing beats a clean, flat 2-D chart with high-contrast labels.

    Fontastic Results:
    Fonts are a tricky beast. A creative font style you might find clever or

    Four Super-Deadly Marketing Sins - And How To Fix Them
    It seems nowadays every marketing guru and their brother-in-law has a “deadly sins and how to fix them” book, ebook or at least an article! But apparently nobody is reading this stuff! How do I know? Because nine out of every ten businesses continue making the same marketing goof-ups. The most amazing part is – they are convinced their marketing is great and their phone will be ringing off the hook any moment now! Time for a reality check! Are you guilty of these four marketing sins? Find out how to fix it! Deadly Marketing Sin #1Not Standing Out From Your Competitors You want to be one in a million not one of the million. In the marketing jargon it’s called a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). I call it a HUB – Hot Undeniable Benefit of doing business with you. Your HUB sets you apart from the crowd. It tells your customers why you are special. And it answers the question your customers are asking themselves, which is: "Why should I do business with you versus anyone else?" So how do you go about discovering your HUB? Do you know what makes you different from others offering similar product or service? The more competitive your industry the more important it is to emphasize even the smallest differences. Do you cater to a specific group of people? Are you better than others in addressing a specific issue? Do you guarantee your work? How about the one t
    bullet text, and let the indentation tell viewers the next line is a sub. The default templates often reduce subs into the unreadable zone.

    If you find yourself going to a second or (yikes!) third sub-bullet, you need to re-work your material. Perhaps by changing the headline to a shortened version of your first full bullet, or losing the first actual "bullet" to create a sub-head. I find that presenters often create a headline and hold it through an entire section. A full page "chapter" slide at the beginning of a new portion of material will allow you to then change each subsequent slide headline and make it more custom to the material in the bullets below. In a fluid presentation your audience won't forget your subject.

    "But, but, but... If you have the space, why not use it?" The answer is simple. Your slides are there to drive home or re-state important points, to help with keywords a note-taking audience member should jot down, and to preface or summarize your presentation or "chapters" within. There's nothing worse than having so much on a slide that you either cannot get through the material, or the audience cannot read everything because the font is too small.

    In an average presentation, a speaker will hit two to three slides a minute. That alone will guide you into choosing your words carefully to cover everything you put on the screen. If you don't plan on speaking about something, or assume you will skip through certain segments, remove that material from your slides. Bullet points remaining untouched will leave your audience asking mental questions instead of listening to you!

    Charting a Course to Success:
    Here is a pet peeve of mine I see far too often. A chart with so much information on it that nobody in the audience would be able to take it all in during the short time it is onscreen. Not to name names, but financial analysts and engineers with timelines tend to be the biggest offenders when it comes to charts! Granted, there is value to showing a trend-line over a period of time -- any stockbroker will tell you that. Obfuscation typically occurs when too many ticks are labeled. This can leave a junkyard of 10 point, aliased text that does nothing but look horrible.

    The fixes are easy. If your trend is over twenty years, just give us five year labels. We realize the spaces between are non-labeled years. If you have a particular peak or valley, call it out in the chart area rather than on the axis. Put a star at the peak or use a different colored line for emphasis. If your budget goes from zero to $1,000, just give us $0, $500, and $1k. Label your bars with "Show Value" instead. Trust me when I say anyone with particular questions about a chart will seek you out after the program, bring it up in Q&A, or e-mail you about it later.

    If you're the type to put a chart into your presentation then say onstage, "I know you can't read this, but..." Do something about it before hitting the podium. By admitting to the audience that your chart is useless, you're also saying you don't value their time. Dropping off some data and increasing the size of the remaining font should do the trick, and it doesn't take much work. For particularly complex charts and graphs, create two versions! With a simple on screen version and a complex, fully labeled handout version you have the best of both worlds.

    Another suggestion for charts and graphs is to remain flat. The 3-D options can look good in bar charts and pies, but in my opinion nothing beats a clean, flat 2-D chart with high-contrast labels.

    Fontastic Results:
    Fonts are a tricky beast. A creative font style you might find clever or

    Establishing Yourself as an Expert in the Eyes of Your Customers
    The most important aspect of a successful business is developing the correct mindset toward your customers. And this is not the over used phrase The customer is always right. Actually the correct mindset we are referring to here is to always think in terms of benefits for your customers. The highly successful businessperson thinks of ways to show interest in their customers even before they come into their store.They endeavor to educate the customer on the benefits of their products and services. They make their products and services stand out in their customer's mind. Some marketing experts think of this in terms of a USP or Unique Selling Proposition. Or what are the unique selling characteristics that separate your products and services and make them stand out from your competition. Here is an exercise I suggest you do and then repeat at regular intervals.Ask yourself the following questions and then write down in a list all the answers that you can think of.In my relationship or interface with my customers what items am I currently doing or could I be doing which provide benefits to my customers?What area of my relationship or interface with my customers which if I could improve would provide additional benefits to my customers?Is there something in my relationships with my customers that they may dislike?What special services do I provide my customers that benefit them?What benefits do my customers receive from the products I sell?Now from the list of benefits you create from questions 1, 4, and 5 above. Pick out the best benefits and compile them into a one-page sheet.This sheet will serve to educate your customers how you stand out from your competition. You can do a lot with this sheet. You can create a plaque, which you hang
    ker will hit two to three slides a minute. That alone will guide you into choosing your words carefully to cover everything you put on the screen. If you don't plan on speaking about something, or assume you will skip through certain segments, remove that material from your slides. Bullet points remaining untouched will leave your audience asking mental questions instead of listening to you!

    Charting a Course to Success:
    Here is a pet peeve of mine I see far too often. A chart with so much information on it that nobody in the audience would be able to take it all in during the short time it is onscreen. Not to name names, but financial analysts and engineers with timelines tend to be the biggest offenders when it comes to charts! Granted, there is value to showing a trend-line over a period of time -- any stockbroker will tell you that. Obfuscation typically occurs when too many ticks are labeled. This can leave a junkyard of 10 point, aliased text that does nothing but look horrible.

    The fixes are easy. If your trend is over twenty years, just give us five year labels. We realize the spaces between are non-labeled years. If you have a particular peak or valley, call it out in the chart area rather than on the axis. Put a star at the peak or use a different colored line for emphasis. If your budget goes from zero to $1,000, just give us $0, $500, and $1k. Label your bars with "Show Value" instead. Trust me when I say anyone with particular questions about a chart will seek you out after the program, bring it up in Q&A, or e-mail you about it later.

    If you're the type to put a chart into your presentation then say onstage, "I know you can't read this, but..." Do something about it before hitting the podium. By admitting to the audience that your chart is useless, you're also saying you don't value their time. Dropping off some data and increasing the size of the remaining font should do the trick, and it doesn't take much work. For particularly complex charts and graphs, create two versions! With a simple on screen version and a complex, fully labeled handout version you have the best of both worlds.

    Another suggestion for charts and graphs is to remain flat. The 3-D options can look good in bar charts and pies, but in my opinion nothing beats a clean, flat 2-D chart with high-contrast labels.

    Fontastic Results:
    Fonts are a tricky beast. A creative font style you might find clever or

    Symbiosis and the Client
    Working together for maximum benefit should always be part of a plan. When working together the ideal situation is to have a fifty-fifty split in the work. This is actually not a good idea; you should have one person take the lead on each project that you are working on. That way there is a person that is "in charge" and the final decisions can be made. My sense of fairness wants the fifty-fifty but through experience I recognize that someone has to take the helm to make the project work. When working together each of you will have your strengths and hopefully they are not the same strengths. A really good working relationship has people with complimentary strengths and the weaknesses are no longer a problem.The gaps that may exist when you work on your own are covered by having a good working relationship with another person such as a Power Team member. Alliances can work well this way too. I have a working partner that is great with editing and picking on all the details, he is a beaver type personality and I like the big picture and making the plans. I make faces and groan if I have to get into the detail and although I can do it, it is not one of my strengths. So when I am on a project that needs detail, I call in my Power Team member that can handle the detail with ease. What you need to do is find out what your strengths are so that you can plan your work appropriately. At the end of the chapter is a worksheet to help you discover what you like to do and what you do not.Finding the best working partner for any project requires a solid business relationship before you do any work. Determine if this person is the best fit for you and your strengths. Try not to get into a situation where you both want to lead and one of you wants to do the project on their own. Planning ahead will eliminate a lot of the problems.
    er than on the axis. Put a star at the peak or use a different colored line for emphasis. If your budget goes from zero to $1,000, just give us $0, $500, and $1k. Label your bars with "Show Value" instead. Trust me when I say anyone with particular questions about a chart will seek you out after the program, bring it up in Q&A, or e-mail you about it later.

    If you're the type to put a chart into your presentation then say onstage, "I know you can't read this, but..." Do something about it before hitting the podium. By admitting to the audience that your chart is useless, you're also saying you don't value their time. Dropping off some data and increasing the size of the remaining font should do the trick, and it doesn't take much work. For particularly complex charts and graphs, create two versions! With a simple on screen version and a complex, fully labeled handout version you have the best of both worlds.

    Another suggestion for charts and graphs is to remain flat. The 3-D options can look good in bar charts and pies, but in my opinion nothing beats a clean, flat 2-D chart with high-contrast labels.

    Fontastic Results:
    Fonts are a tricky beast. A creative font style you might find clever or "cutting edge" while polishing your presentation on the plane is likely to come off as silly when it hits the screen. Creative fonts are also hard to read when used as body or even smaller headline text. An exception to using standard, clean typefaces like Arial, Palatino, or Trebuchet would be for large title slides or for Meeting Theme Logos (MTLs) which sit onscreen as your audience comes in to, and leaves the room. Other than those two situations, it's safer to stick with simplicity.

    How about using Times or New York for a typeface? Fonts with a serif (the little hooks and slants on the ends of the letters) are fine to use in larger sizes -- let's say 32 points and higher. The problem with using smaller serif fonts is that the thinner points in the ascenders and descenders (the lowercase j or top of the f for example) can basically disappear on-screen depending on the chosen face. Obviously, losing your type is not a best case scenario. Any font (or graphic device like an arrow shaft or the outline of a shape) which is thinner than 2 points, is very likely to disappear when projected, or to vibrate when shown on a standard NTSC video monitor. LCDs, LEDs and VGAs all do a better job compared to traditional video but it never hurts to fatten up those borders and edges a little.

    A second case for sticking with basic fonts has to do with the "font load." Every PC comes with certain universal fonts. As time passes, most PC users add fonts they find around the Web, or fonts are added automatically from programs they install.

    Unless you will be presenting from your own PC, be very wary of using any fonts outside that standard font load. Microsoft PowerPoint automatically replaces any fonts, which do not exist on the "show" PC with something simple. Your material won't disappear, but it may not look the same as it did when you created your slides.

    There are many times a font switch can go unnoticed – going from Helvetica to Arial is practically an even swap to the untrained eye. Other times, it can wreak havoc with your word wrapping; throwing previously "safe" text off the bottom of the screen in older versions of PPT, or making it size down in the newer versions. It's always a good idea to punch through your slides before presenting on the "show" computer.

    This is a good place to talk about size. I mentioned earlier why creating slides nobody can read is a presentation disaster. With fonts, bigger is better. There is undoubtedly a fine line between large, and "horsey," or too large. One old trick to check for readability is to pull up your presentation in the Slide Show mode, then lean back from your monitor and squint. This simple exercise will show you what your projected image will look like to someone in the back row of your audience. Screen sizes on location are chosen based on the size of the room so this works whether you're presenting in a boardroom, or a ballroom. The dynamics of screen distance to screen area are relative from a 32" video monitor to a 9' by 12' screen.

    In general, I find headlines between 34 and 40 points, and body text of 28 to 34 points usually show quite well. For title slides, I head to the 60-point range for names and 40 to 50 points for title, division and company.

    Table Times:
    Call me a neat-freak, but I'm a big fan of tables. Whenever you have information which needs to line up in columns -- use a table! Spacing out your columns within a text box might get it "close enough" but is that really "good enough?" Dropping a table onto your slide will ensure your decimal points line up, and using right justify on a left side column and left justify on a right side column will make comparisons or "versus" lists a cinch to read.

    Using tables will also help you avoid the formatting mess I mentioned earlier when dealing with missing fonts. Your sizing and style may change, but to borrow from Led Zeppelin... The table remains the same.

    Background Check:
    There are many presenters who use customized backgrounds and templates these days from royalty-free websites around the world. While I whole-heartedly support this idea, it should be said that a colorful photographic background might not be your best friend without some minor tweaking.

    Make sure your presentation text has high-contrast when using a custom background, template, or even a basic background color. If you have a dark color like corporate blue, maroon or purple, go with a light font like white or mustard yellow. A light background would call for darker lettering. A background color in the middle range (with a luminosity comparable to "middle gray" for you photographers out there) can often set off either a light or dark font. Contrast is the key!

    If you have your heart set on a busy photographic background, try creating a large semi-transparent text area in the center by using the drawing and fill tool

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