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Tips for Getting your Speakers' Powepoints Organized

By Prokopis Christou

Nowadays, many speakers use Powerpoint as visual aid for their presentations or speeches. The challenge is how to save time and have smooth transitions between speakers. The standard solution at conferences is the budget breaks and extra time between speakers on the conference agenda and to ask all speakers to provide their Powerpoint files days in advance so that the audio visual technician will load them on laptops in the meeting rooms.

When I started organizing seminars and workshops, my events occurred in the same room and were of two types. The first type of events had multiple speakers. The second type had only one speaker-me-but multiple presentations. One of my guidelines for the events was to minimize the transition time between speakers and topics in order to keep the overall length of the event to the minimum possible. I experimented with various options, and here's what I recommend as the best option for situations where the event organizer will be in control and all presentations will occur in the same room.

Again, you will need to get the speaker's Powerpoint files in advance. Use only one laptop computer for projecting all presentations in the meeting room. Create a folder on the laptop computer for storing all Powerpoint files. Rename each speaker's Powerpoint file to the speaker's name (e.g., Doe_John.ppt) or each topic sequentially ( e.g., topic1.ppt). Create a Powerpoint with an agenda slide listing each speaker or topic in the order they will appear, include breaks and speakers or topics without Powerpoint. Name the file agenda.ppt. On the agenda slide, hyperlink each speaker/topic to the corresponding Powerpoint file. At the event, slideshow the agenda slide at the beginning of the event. To launch the presentation for the first speaker/topic click its hyperlink. The slideshow will return to the agenda slide after the last slide of the presentation. Repeat the process for the next presentation. Leave the agenda slide on during breaks to remind the attendees of what's next.

Now, what happens, if a speaker revises a Powerpoint file after you load the file to the laptop? Simply, upload the revised file to the event's folder keeping the filename convention to overwrite the original file. Your agenda slide will automatically launch the updated file.

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