Here’s the thing about internal PowerPoints: they’re just like PowerPoints you give to your customers only worse.  And let’s face it, those are pretty bad.  Bullet points?  Bad clip art?  Lots and lots of words?  Chances are your presentation skills overall could use an overhaul.  And it turns out that there is plenty of advice out there:

1.) Use Big Words

This is a summary of something called the Takahashi Method.  No images.  No bullets.  Just king sized text.  It’s intriguing because it’s so simple.  A little too simple…

2.) Lists

Guy Kawasaki said: “All of my speeches are in Top 10 format, because if you think I suck, I at least want you to be able to track my progress through the speech so that you know approximately know how much longer I’m going to suck.” This is great advice and really simple which makes it even greater.  Top 10.  The 5 Things.  4 Ways.  They all sound simple and finite which are both good things.

3.)  10/20/30 Rule

This is also from Guy Kawasaki and is equally as simple.  10 slides.  20 minutes.  30 point font.  You can read in more detail at Kawasaki’s blog, but you get the gist.

4.)  Photos

Really great intriguing photography is available everywhere.  At iStockphoto you can search for photos by topic and buy one for a buck.  Why use those little figures that Microsoft bundled with PPT back in 1991?

5.)  Other Stuff

There’s a really great post at 43folders.com by Merlin Mann call How I Made My Presentation a Little Better that does a great job at summarizing other tips and tricks out there.

So those are tips on presentations.   Here’s the problem.  They all seem geared toward CEOs presenting their companies latest product.  Or some tech guy speaking at a tech conference in front of techies wearing cool glasses and T-shirts.  What if you’re an accountant who needs to explain the new expense reports.  Or if you’re a manager who needs to explain the new commission system.  Or if you’re the IT guy who needs to explain how the new email system works.  Can you really follow these rules and still have a productive meeting?

Yes.  Yes you can.

Keep in mind that people need to hear the why and how of something.  The point of a meeting is to quickly disseminate that information to a lot of people and then get them back to work with them feeling that they’re better off than when they entered a meeting.  Doing it simply is going to bring clarity to the situation and help move things ahead.  Here’s a take on new expense reports:

Slide 1: New Expense Reports: Why?

Slide 2: Easier to Complete

Slide 3: Faster to Process

Slide 4: 3 Big Differences

Slide 5: 1.) Pull Down Menus

Slide 6: 2.) Client Tagging

Slide 7: 3.) Online Only

Slide 8: Here’s Where They Are

Slide 9: Practice

Slide 10: Help Daily: 1:30 – 3:30 My Office

Is it as good as Steve Jobs?  Are you going to entertain and tell a story and will they presentation end in applause?  No.  Probably not.  This is work and you’ve got a job to do.  But that doesn’t mean that you have to be ineffective. You’ve given information that people need, told them why, told them where, and left things open to move things along.  Could you get these slides done in less than 20 minutes?  Yes, and that’s a good thing!

So make your next meeting better by breaking the mold on PowerPoint.  And we’d love to see your best efforts here!  C’mon, we’ve seen enough PPT’s on new products or motivation talks — let’s see the ones on expense reports, new sales tools, and general company housekeeping posted here…

Michael Mauboussinn, on the other hand, urges us to think twice in his book…Think Twice.  Jim Hasket from the Harvard Business School Working Knowledge blog sums it up:

Now Michael Mauboussin, with his book Think Twice, makes the case for a more careful approach, suggesting that we place too much emphasis on intuition and personal experience as opposed to the “wisdom of crowds,” mathematical models, and systematically-collected data. He argues that “blink” serves us well in stable environments where feedback from previous decisions is clear and where cause-and-effect relationships can be identified. Unfortunately, in his view these conditions are more and more rare. As he puts it, “intuition is losing relevance in an increasingly complex world … more is different.”

So the debate is on: is it better to rely on our experience in today’s world, or make decisions based on based on all of the information you can get your hands on.  There’s a saying here that’s handy: Over analysis leads to paralysis.  Must be true, right? It rhymes.  The key to the phrase is “over”.  No one said the Analysis was a bad thing.  Gathering information, weighing the pros and cons and using all the information available to you in a reasonable time frame is just smart.  Just not too much of it.

Here are five tips and strategies to making a good decision in a timely manner:

1.)  You don’t have unlimited time…

When you’re buying a house, you have to weigh opportunity with timing with analysis of the market.  Can you look at every house on the market?  Probably not. You can look at healthy sampling and then make a decision.  As time passes, so will the opportunities to purchase houses you’ve seen.   Spending too much time on decisions can cost you opportunity.  The same applies to any business situation.

2.) Be prepared to back up a decision…

Sometimes things go badly and you have to answer for your choices.  Most successes and failures are made up of a combination of luck and careful planning.  Make sure when things go badly, you can show it was due to luck (or lack thereof).

3.)  Committees generally don’t make decisions…

Gathering together your colleagues to seek advice is a good idea, but these groups can sometimes just bog down the process because you’ll tend to focus on making everyone in the room happy.  You need to gather information, consider it, and then make a decision.  You won’t make everyone happy…except maybe yourself.

4.)  Don’t be afraid to make more time…

While time costs opportunity, time can also help you choose the right path.  Need more insight?  More studies?  More options?  More time to think?  Take it. Or take a reasonable amount of it to make a truly informed decision.  Sometime deciding to put off a decision is a good decision in and of itself.

5.)  See what other people have done…

This isn’t going to help all the time, but there’s no reason why you can’t do a quick search online to see what others have done in a similar situation.  Just remember, their outcomes are particular to their situation.  Yours may be different.  And then there’s always that luck thing…

Some may shrug and continue to hit send on big files.  Email may still go through but even modestly large files are problematic for several reasons:

1. Cumulative Size: This stuff builds up in your send box over time and a big “sent” folder can impact your PC performance.
2. Uncertainty: Did they get it?  Did they not?   If you’re sending over 5MB you don’t know.
3. Immobility: Large files don’t translate well onto Blackberries and iPhones.

Fortunately there are services out there can help.   Here are a few that each approach the problem differently:

Pando –  This works more like a hosting/streaming service.  For sharing video and photos, however, it’s a great way of ensuring you’re only sharing with a small private audience (unlike, say, YouTube).  It’s probably more involved than the occassional user but worth a look if sharing video and photos are often in your daily routine.

Send6 and Yousendit — Both are very really simmilar services.  We like Send6’s interface a little bit better, but they both offer essentially the same functionality.  These are good in a pinch because they are web-based and allow you to instantly send something.  They also offer upgrade service that help you add functionality if you need it.

Tonsho – This is an application that lets you send files from your regular account and magically takes care of the rest.  There is nothing to download or install.  As the website explains: “You send email as normal, all the clever stuff happens on our servers, recipient clicks link in email to download file.”   This would have the distinct advantage of getting around spam filters which is a danger of Send6 and YouSendIt.  However, having a program hover over ALL your email may be unnecessary and could cause some unforeseen problems with your system.  If you have time, give it a try.  But don’t if you’re in a hurry.

TransferBigFiles – Got something bigger to send?  Send it here.  You can send a file 2x bigger than other free services, but it has less functionality although password protection is an option.

Considerations

So which are the best?  Before we get there, you really should look at how you’re going to send a file.   Are you going to create an account or just use the service when you need it?  Are going to send a file or just a link to the file?  Is there a file that you regularly send that you would be better off hosting and sending a link?  Does your company have a policy on this kind of thing?

Finally, many companies already have in place FTP servers which get around the issue by taking on the hosting, uploading and downwloading essentially inhouse.  If this is what you have, you should take another look at if the FTP system is convenient and easy to use.  Some of these outsourced options may be a better choice.

The Bottom Line

For most casual users, YouSendIt and Send6 are going to be the best options.  However, Tonsho seems like a good option if you’re going to put some thought into the whole process.  It may be something to bring to management so a company policy can be created.  Finally Pando is interesting in the age of video where sending a video presentation to a small group of users is possible in just about any work environment.

There are literally hundreds of sites and applications out there that deal with this issue.  If you have a resource we haven’t listed here, let us know.  Also, if you’ve had an experience, good or bad, with these services (or not using one) comment below!

Creating a unique work environment is a careful balance between how you see your job and career, and how the rest of the office sees you. While you may work well in an atmosphere of controlled chaos, someone may look at your organization and leadership skills with a dubious eye if every surface of your desk is strewn with paper and take-out containers.

Desktops are wildly different depending on your profession, but here’s a general rule of thumb: Create a space that makes you feel comfortable and confident. But also create one that makes others feel the same way about you.

Here’s what advocates of Inbox Zero believe: While it may appear to be risk-free to keep everything, you are much more likely to not act on something if you let it sit in your inbox and get buried. In other words, the really important stuff gets thrown under all minutia and nothing is important, nothing needs action, and nothing really gets done.

Think about it, do you save every phone call and every voicemail? No. Partially because it would be very difficult to do, but mostly because it makes no sense. With email we tend to save, revisit, file, flag, open, shut and then archive. All of that takes time.  And it all takes the same amount of time: urgent or not.

So is the answer a complex filing system that let’s you organize by category and sub categories? The Inbox Zero advocates say no. That also takes too much time. So what do you do? Throw stuff away. Read a message, act on it, and then throw it away. If you can’t bear the thought of that, create an “archive” folder and throw stuff in there. That way it’s there if you need it…but you probably won’t need it.

Actually, the whole process is outlined at 43folders.com.  Merlin Mann, the creator of the site, is a big advocate of work simplicity and letting technology work for you…instead of letting it drive you crazy.  Below is a quote from a post where he outlines a simple way to get started:  Creating an Email DMZ.  You can read all of Mann’s posts about Inbox Zero here: Link

But here’s a question:  what methods do you use to stay organized in email.  Is this even a problem for you?  For your boss?  Let us know by commenting below under the quote.  Maybe the next big idea in email is yours!

From  43folders.com:

Like a lot of the best fresh starts, this one’s a total psych-out; also, like most of the best ones, you won’t believe how well it works until you actually try it for yourself.

• Open your email program and create a new folder called “DMZ”
• Go to your email inbox and Select All
• You might alternatively choose all email older than n days
• Drag those emails from your inbox into the DMZ folder
• Go, and sin no more.

Is this the email equivalent of covering your ears and singing loudly? Not really. You still need to deal with all the emails in your DMZ folder (personally I’d recommended “archiving” anything older than 21 days), but, most importantly, you’re drawing a line in the sand. You’re saying “Okay, starting this minute I quit letting ‘being behind’ stop me from making good decisions now and going forward.” Hence the “fresh start.” Get it? Tomorrow morning you arrive to a spanking fresh inbox and the chance to start anew. Of course, using your fresh start to develop an actual new habit is entirely optional, but it’s certainly more reachable than ever now, right? Right.Basically, this works at accomplishing the one thing you need more than anything else right now: to stop digging.

Think about it: how much stuff in your life has gotten unmanageable simply because you decided at some point that you were too behind to ever make a difference? More than anything you need a way to recover these projects from the brink – to find the handle that lets you stop making it worse and start seeing a way back toward daylight.

But here a radical idea: suppose you didn’t organize you emails. Suppose you didn’t even save them. That’s the theory espoused by Merlin Mann at 43folders.com. The idea is simple: once you’re done with an email, there’s no need to actually save it. Just throw it away. Or throw it away in an ‘archive’ box that doesn’t require organizing. It’s just gone:

Once you eat the peanut, the job of the shell is done. So lose it. Ditto dead email. Never organize what you can simply discard; and if you can’t discard it, throw it onto one big pile.

You can read the full post here: Link

Of course, we’d love to hear more from you about dealing with email. Any problems? Solutions?  Success stories?  Comment below, please!