The proof is in the presentation - business presentation software

Nation's Business, July, 1991 by Lawrence Stevens

The success of an endeavor, many business people have discovered, may depend not just on the quality of a product or service but also on the elegance and clarity of the company's presentations to clients.

Whether it's a flip chart to sell insurance, a set of transparencies to persuade upper management to fund a project, or a slide show introducing a new product, a clear and well-organized presentation can be sizzle that sells the steak.

Convinced of that, entrepreneurs have been known to spend hours with stick-on letters and poster board to make appealing presentations, and executives have used outside help to do the same for them.

There is an alternative, however. Desktop presentation software enables do-it-yourselfers and executives alike to create presentation materials in-house. Such software can not only save a company thousands of dollars on a single project but also can give it tighter control over such projects.

Another benefit of presentation software is the time it can save, as Thomas Lewis has discovered.

Lewis, marketing manager of Tri-Valley Growers, a San Francisco-based fruit and vegetable packing company, regularly promotes the company's services to growers and explains new procedures to employees. It used to take him days with a computer drawing program to create attractive, easy-to-read transparencies. If he didn't have time to create transparencies that way, he would have them produced on a typewriter, he says, but the results were usually "plain vanilla and dull."

Now, Lewis can produce his transparencies in minutes rather than days. By using his IBM PC computer and CA-Cricket Presents, a desktop presentation package from Computer Associates, in Garden City, N.Y., he says, "in about 15 minutes, I can make a very nice set of transparencies from my notes. If I have a couple of hours, I can prepare a great set."

The advantage that Lewis finds in desktop presentation software is its extensive selection of formatted frames, or templates. (In the parlance of desktop presentations, "frame" refers to each unit of the presentation--whether it's a transparency, or a slide, or a flip-chart page, or a computer screen.)

When Lewis used a word processor to create presentations, he had to manually change the type fonts and other design elements over and over until he found a format that looked pleasing to him. Not being a designer, he could not be sure his presentation was nice and clear--even after hours of trial and error.

On the other hand, with desktop presentation software, each template is already formatted with borders, bullets, colors, and font styles and sizes that have been professionally designed to look clear and handsome in combination. The template sets are arranged to provide continuity of style from frame to frame.

For the sake of simplicity, Lewis chose three template sets, which he uses again and again. After typing the text of his talk into a word processor, he uses his computer to insert key phrases of the speech into the templates. The text automatically takes on the alignment, type style, and other formatting elements of the template.

Like Lewis, Robert Lucas also must craft presentations carefully--and sometimes at the last minute. Lucas is project manager of Applied Computer Services, in Simi Valley, Calif. The company, with 45 employees, is a software developer that sells turnkey computer systems to credit unions. Lucas' presentations generally are for experts in finance or high technology, so he is concerned with producing high-quality programs and maintaining control over production.

Lucas has been called upon to give presentations at annual meetings of Control Data Corp., the company that makes the hardware that his system runs on, and to professional associations of credit unions. He has to project a sophisticated, upscale image. Therefore, he takes his time in creating his presentations.

Before Lucas began using PowerPoint, a desktop presentation software package from Microsoft Corp., of Redmond, Wash., he would send scribbled notes to design firms describing the presentation frames he wanted them to create. But he didn't like relinquishing control of the creative process to anyone outside his company; he worried that someone would cause a delay.

Moreover, he says, the need to send the job out weeks before the presentation limited his ability to contribute to the process. "You're always getting new ideas, even the night before the meeting," Lucas says. "Now, if I get to work with a new idea in my head, I can usually make a frame or two in the minutes before the meeting begins."

For exceptionally important presentations, Lucas uses color slides rather than transparencies. A set of slides in a carousel projector can be easier to use than large transparencies requiring an overhead projector. PowerPoint's templates include color schemes, which, like text formatting, ensure that individual frames and the complete sets are attractive and harmonious. Lucas transmits his PowerPoint files over a modem to a service bureau, which returns finished slides in 24 to 72 hours.