Streamline Your Slides
Ten Pounds of Data in a Five-Pound Slide: We all have heard this one before, but often choose to ignore it -- too much content on a single slide. Slide overload reduces your audience's ability to comprehend your message. As attendees struggle to make sense of a busy slide, they are not listening effectively to your presentation.

This problem is worse in a Web seminar than in a live one because your slides are usually a little smaller (in numbers of pixels), so busy slides become even messier.

Slides are not meant to be the script of your presentation. Slides serve two purposes: 1) to highlight your key points succinctly; 2) to graph or diagram key data. Here's a good rule of thumb:

• No more than 8 bullets per slide
• No more than 8 words per bullet
• Always try to substitute a diagram or visual for text
• Editing is hard work, but essential for superb communication.

Review Your Slides
Load 'Em Up Before You Move 'Em Out: In the flurry of activity before a Web conference, you may be busy coordinating audience registration, speaker training, fulfillment, and a hundred other details. Luckily, you've reviewed the presentation slides in PowerPoint, so at least the content is ready, right?

Not necessarily.

Almost all Web conferencing platforms will alter your presentation slides for delivery and viewing through a browser. The slides are likely to become smaller in size, and then compressed through an algorithm designed to make the file sizes as small as possible. As a result, slides that look fine on your desktop can look fuzzy, muddy, and unprofessional in the conference.

The best prevention for this is to review the final slides within your chosen platform. Do this several days before the event so you have time to make and review modifications. Use the following rules of thumb as well as you are preparing your content. Consider them guidelines, not definitive rules, since different content and conferencing technologies may require different approaches:

• Colors -- restrict the color palette to 256 colors or, even better, the subset of Web-safe colors. Avoid really bright colors and busy background images.
  
• Text -- Write in short phrases emphasizing your key points. Use eight or fewer bullets on each slide. Avoid using any type less than 18 points in size. Try to use clean, san-serif fonts.
  
• Images -- An informative picture or diagram is better than words. But understand that photographic and other continuous-tone images can increase download times during the conference. Fine details will be lost when the slide is converted by the conferencing platform. Remember, you can emphasize key points verbally or using mark-up tools.

Use Introductory Slides
Warm Up Your Audience: Many web conferencing platforms will allow you to put up a set of slides that will "cycle" automatically. Such "intro slides" give you a great opportunity to educate and update your attendees while they are joining your event. You have a captive audience that is ready to pay attention to you anyway!

The intro slides can do several things:

• Serve as commercials for upcoming products, services or events
• Remind people how to use the technology and interact with the presenters
• Provide teleconferencing and help support numbers
• Provide hints or previews of the material to come
• Since you have also logged on early as the presenter, don't forget to hit your mute button if you have an interruption or need to take another call

Suggestion for your first PowerPoint slide
To assure participants they have arrived at the right place, at the right time, put the following important message on the first slide of your presentation:
"Welcome. The meeting will begin shortly."

Check the web sites on your web tour
Before your event, check the accessibility of each web site and the links you plan to use during your web tour

Start your event early
Start your event at least 15 minutes early so that your participants can join before the scheduled start time.

-Tips submitted by the Web Seminarian