In order to best convey our ideas to our audience, we have to take a moment to understand how they think. Especially how their brains work... indeed how all our brains work. Specifically, we need to understand how people process information and remember it long-term.

When you're thinking about why you're presenting, you also need to think about how you might want your audience to feel about your message.

This course will help you avoid the dreaded death by Powerpoint. By practicing the Triple-A method of creating your slides, you'll be able to deliver messages that are clear, interesting and memorable.

Bottom line on top is about stating your aim at the beginning of your presentation, and at the top of each slide. (We'll talk more about effective headlines in another video.)

Before you write anything, ask yourself: what am I trying to do? And write down in the answer in a sentence, including an active verb. I need to persuade my manager to adopt this new process.

It can be helpful to create an audience profile before you start drafting your slide deck. It will tell you what content is going to be necessary, what language you might use, what tone you might take with them, and what level of detail you might go into.

If you're having trouble creating an audience profile, or answering the questions from the previous section, that means you have more homework to do.

No two people are alike. So it follows that no two audiences will be alike. So you need to take a moment to consider who you're presenting to, before creating your slide decks.

The amiable personality type tends to be non-confrontational. They are friendly and often a quieter presence in the office. They'll chat about life outside the office with you, and will likely make requests in a softer, less direct style.

Analytical personalities tend to be detail-oriented. They prefer to have a lot of information so they can fully understand a situation. They also need time to process all of the data before they feel comfortable taking action or making a decision.

Drivers tend to be very task-oriented people. They're decisive and like to be the ones in control. They don't need a lot of personal rapport in order to get business done. Likewise, they also don't need much detail in order to make their decisions.

Expressive personality types tend to be the big idea people. You might find them in the Sales and Marketing departments. They are often big-picture thinkers, and effective team builders. Personal rapport is very important to an expressive.

We all fall into one of 4 personality types based on how Extroverted versus introverted and how task-oriented versus people oriented we are. Our personality type will often determine how we like to communicate and what type of information we like to process.

Now that you've collected all of your ideas about a presentation, you can now start to organise them by putting them into an outline form.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Or so the saying goes. But Is that true?

Trying to get started on a big presentation can be daunting. The two biggest obstacles we face are not knowing where to begin, and wanting to create the perfect first draft. This list of dos and don'ts will help you get past those obstacles and on your way to creating your slide deck faster.

Here are a few more things you can do to help you draft more efficiently, and set yourself up to succeed.

Here are some simple guidelines to help you create clear and memorable slides, and to avoid information overload. To help you remember them, we‚'re using the acronym SHAIK.

We're going to show you some slides and ask you if you think you can tell what they mean and what the key points are...

We looked at the do's in the last video. Now here are some dont's...

We've talked about knowing your aim and your audience. This section is about streamlining your approach to the creation of the slides themselves. We'll give you some tips to make drafting your presentation easier and faster.

It's common for us to use vague language in slide decks. Of course, you know what you mean, but depending on your audience, it might create confusion.

Delegates often ask us about the magic bullet of slide creation: how to create a single slide that will satisfy those audience members who love detail, and those who emphatically don't. This video shows you how to satisfy both requirements.

Having white space on your slides is crucial to making your slides readable, and your audience engaged. This video shows you how to create white space in your presentations.

Why are we hearing so much about creating stories for business? Because our brains are wired to process information better in story form. We need a logical series of facts and events that teach us some kind of lesson.

Humans process information very efficiently when it's presented as a story. No-one knows exactly why, but something about the narrative structure of a story is memorable, appealing and clear. Here is one way to create a story line using four steps.

You've probably heard the principle, less Is more. In other words, keeping things as simple and clear as possible. Uncluttered visual design is just as important as well-edited content.

Einstein said, 'If you can't explain it to a six-year-old, you don't understand it yourself. And while we're not typically presenting to anyone quite that young at work, it's really helpful to be reminded of the value of simple, plain language.

There are three questions we're trying to answer for our audience as quickly as we can: What are the facts? What do they mean? What do we do next?

This final video is a quick reminder of everything you've learned on the course. Now you know the principles for creating a clear and engaging slide deck, it's time to PRACTISE. Take time to define your aim. Think about your audience. Create an audience profile and look at past slide decks to see...