365 Days to a Greener You

For those of you who are new to the site, no this is not my primary writing gig. I am an environmental super hero. By day I am the mild mannered regular guy who works for a well known mortgage company in default compliance as a technical writer/editor and at night I take off my glasses, put on my little green cape with matching tights and try to fix the world– one article at a time.

Well, not really–the mortgage part is right, but I do not have a little green cape and I can’t really see too well without some sort of vision correction. I also could not imagine myself in tights. Trust me, I am doing you a favor as well.

All kidding aside, much of my day is spent reading, editing and creating technical documentation related to how better to service loans that are in default before they go into foreclosure and how to recognize loans that are current that may be in trouble in the future.

I create all sorts of training materials in various formats, but today let’s talk about PowerPoint. Most everyone has seen a PowerPoint presentation in some form or another. It usually consists of a series of multiple slides shown on a screen to illustrate what a speaker is talking about. For my younger school age readers, a simplified explanation is sort of like the overhead projector with the clear sheets.

Do they still use them in school? Back when I was in school, we had records, actual film for our movies and maybe five TVs that we all shared–but I am getting off topic here.

For those of us who use PowerPoint we all know how much of a joke it could be at times. There too many to mention here, but my biggest pet peeves are slides that only have one word–like “Questions?” (this one usually is animated and spins in or something lame like that), cover sheets, and presentations that have hundreds of slides.

If you are responsible for creating these “Stop the insanity” (sorry about the Susan Powder reference). If you need to print these, set them up to print more than one slide per page, remove the cover page, and make each slide count. Oh, and if you can’t get to your point in five or less slides, then you either have a wicked hard job or you may be doing the PowerPoint overkill.

People will go to sleep on you in a heartbeat. I have literally seen people zone out on the handouts rather than listening to the presentation. So get to your point and you will have the power.