A sample PowerPoint slide.

No major biographical anecdote today. I’m sure I have plenty more of those coming, however.

Ah, memories …

But this is about the present!

I’ve been working away for the past few weeks on my upcoming book events in Kansas. I’m very excited about them. Four in all, and three have PowerPoint presentations incorporated to jazz up the proceedings and hopefully entertain the people who are kind enough to show up and listen to me prattle on about my book.

I’ve had a rude awakening, though. Being an Adobe After Effects animator for the past nine years (granted I’m no stellar award-winner, but still), I figured that PowerPoint was a giant step down for me. Simple stuff. Cut out a few images in Photoshop, design a cool background, and slide the graphics and text boxes around here and there. Point, click, and I’m done, right?

Well, yeah, right. I’m not a total stranger to PowerPoint (or Keynote, Apple’s sister program). I used it a decade ago in the corporate world. And one of my last projects at my old job involved me producing and supervising a team of on-site PowerPointers for a huge Paramount Pictures sales convention held in San Diego. You’d think I would have “gotten it” then.

PowerPoint is a relatively easy program, but you can also make it look terrific or lousy, depending on your designs and your timing for the simple movements and transitions. So, in addition to planning my speeches and slapping together some spiffy visuals, I’ve had to slow down and really study this deceptively friendly Microsoft program. Learn all the ins and outs. And raise the bar on the imagination and quality of what I was creating for “eye candy.”

I’m happy to say that they are coming along nicely now, and I should be in excellent shape by “showtime,” some six weeks hence. And the best part is that I’ve learned (or rather relearned) a very handy tool for speeches and events. And I have great respect for the people in the trenches who use PowerPoint every day in their work. Sure, it’s easy to create presentations. Not so easy to create good and stimulating ones, though.

Hopefully, I’ve done that. For all three of them! Time will tell.