So first off, what software should you have? Well for all presenters, Microsoft Office 2010 of course.
I have found that for the majority of presentations, whether on screen or on paper, I will use PowerPoint, Word, and/or Excel at some point in the process.
PowerPoint, in addition to being a great on screen presentation tool, is even better for creating handouts during presentations. Think of it as a blank canvas that you can use to mix and organize text, data, and graphics. In fact one of the best practices I will be talking about in an upcoming post is how to use a single printed PowerPoint slides to help bring to life complex issues and scenarios.
Excel is the standard for pulling together data and showing it off. I have also used it as the actual presentation tool many times.
Word is the tool I use to drive deep discussion. It lends itself to deep intellectual exploration of key issues. Almost 100% of the time I use Word at some point in the MPM process.
Now for those of you that are 200 and 300 level presenters I always recommend Microsoft Office 2010 as a core set of tools, but if you stay tuned for later posts I have some additional cool tools for you as well.
DK
modernpresenter 