Category: Powerpoint

The ability to deliver PowerPoint presentations online started with Office 2010, and the process got better and easier in Office 2016. This feature provides a simple solution for hosting a webinar or conference call quickly. It also does not require installation or registration for participants. In fact, people viewing your presentation don’t even need PowerPoint installed on their computer, just a browser.

Here we take a look at how to stream an online presentation from PowerPoint 2016 to remote viewers.

Stream a PowerPoint presentation online

First, open the PowerPoint file you want to broadcast online to your colleagues, and from the ribbon, select the Slideshow tab. Then, in the Start slideshow section, click Present online, and in the drop-down menu, select Office presentation service. It’s also worth noting that if you’re using a Pro or Business version of Office 365, you should also see Skype for Business As an option. You can also broadcast the presentation to your colleagues on this platform.

Then, a message will appear, prompting you to sign in to the Office Presentation Service. You can also check the box to allow remote viewers to download the presentation if you want. This will allow people on the other end to refer to the presentation as needed.

Wait until the online presentation is prepared and your system is connected to the Office presentation service. The time required will vary depending on the size of your presentation and connection speed.

Once everything is prepared and connected, you get a link to the venue for the presentation. You can then email the link, IM, or copy and paste it into social media.

Once you’ve sent the link to remote viewers, all they have to do is click on the link, and they’ll be able to view your presentation and follow along from their default browser as you browse your slides.

As a presenter, you have tools to help the viewer focus on the data provided by your slides, such as a laser pointer, pen options (with a Microsoft Surface or other touchscreen laptop), the ability to zoom, change display settings, highlight specific areas of slides, etc.

Do you use PowerPoint for remote meetings and broadcast your presentations online? Or do you prefer third-party services like Webex, GoToMeeting or Join.me. Leave a comment below and let us know.

Whether you’re looking to tell better data stories or want to improve the look of your charts, PowerPoint is a powerful and often misused tool. When you understand how to use PowerPoint’s features, you can unleash its true potential as an information design tool.

Directed by Adam Frost and Tobias Sturt from leading creative agency Add Two, this interactive course will cover all aspects of the presentation process, starting with finding and structuring your story, then examining how to design your charts and maps, and finally exploring how data stories can. be enhanced with iconography, illustration and photography.

Practical exercises are a key part of this course. You will be encouraged to bring your own data and presentations to work on, although sample materials are also provided. At the end of the course, you will have your own finished and beautifully designed deck, along with a variety of modifiable models that you can reuse for future projects.

Course content:

• An introduction to the principles of data visualization

• Using Copy in PowerPoint

• Structure a story on a deck

• PowerPoint as a design tool

• An understanding of the PowerPoint graphics library

• Create nontraditional charts in PowerPoint

• How to use iconography, illustration and photography

• Help tools and further reading

This course is for …

Please note that although you do not need any specific technical expertise to participate in this course, your learning experience will be richer if you have a basic understanding of the basic functionality of Excel and PowerPoint.

Week 1: The basics

• PowerPoint as a storytelling tool – dividing your story between words, visuals and onscreen text

• Guided tour of the main PowerPoint design features: selection, classification, grouping, positioning.

• Take a tour of PowerPoint’s charting functionality

• Set up PowerPoint templates and why they are important. Establish palettes, fonts, layout types.

Week 2: The essentials of the storytelling

• Principles of storytelling, cognitive load and wireframing

• Principles of Creating Charts: Matching Story Type to Chart Type

• Creating standard charts in Powerpoint

• Using colors in graphics

Week 3: Advanced data narration

Week 4: Visual improvements

• Work with SVGs and external tools

• Maps in PowerPoint

• Photography, iconography and illustration

• Constructions and animations

• Tips for testing and rehearsing

Tutor profiles

Adam frost was previously responsible for data visualization at the Guardian’s digital agency. He is now content director at Add Two, an agency specializing in data visualization. His work has been published in The Guardian, New Statesman, Buzzfeed and elsewhere. Adam has also produced infographics and interactive elements for a range of public and private sector clients including the Department of Education, Google and Unilever.

Tobias Sturt was Chief Creative Officer at The Guardian’s digital agency and is now Creative Director of Add Two. He’s been working in digital storytelling for almost two decades using all kinds of media, from the web and TV to games and computer graphics.

You will receive a link to the webinar 2 hours before the start time of 2 p.m. (GMT)

Details

Dated: Four consecutive Thursdays, from Thursday February 24, 2022 to Thursday March 17, 2022
Times: 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. (GMT)
Price: £ 499 (plus booking fee)

2:00 p.m. GMT | 3:00 p.m. CET | 6:00 am PST | 9:00 am EST

This masterclass is available worldwide. If you are joining us from outside the UK, please use this time zone converter to check your local live broadcast time.

Guardian Masterclass Information

To contact us, click here. The terms and conditions can be found here.

By registering for this masterclass, you are helping to support the Guardian, and it allows us to keep our quality reporting open to everyone.

All Guardian Masterclasses are fully accessible – but please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

Return policy
Once the purchase is complete, we will not be able to refund you if you are not present or if you cancel your event reservation. Please see our terms and conditions for more information on our refund policy.

Among the world’s most popular UCaaS tools, Microsoft Teams has quickly taken the market by storm. Today more than 145 million people use Teams to fuel crucial conversations between staff members. To maintain this leadership, Microsoft frequently offers new features and functionality designed for the future of work.

Over the past year, Microsoft has discovered various wonderful ways to create engaging experiences for employees, even in an unpredictable hybrid environment. Microsoft’s Together Mode features have helped remote workers feel more connected, while bots and integrations create a single window for productivity. Now, two of the features announced at this year’s Ignite for Microsoft event are also integrated into Teams.

From now on, businesses will be able to access PowerPoint Live and webinar features from Microsoft Teams. According to a blog posted by Microsoft, the “Presenter View” feature, which will no doubt be useful for PowerPoint presentations and webinars, will also be rolled out in May.

What to expect from PowerPoint Live

Microsoft promises that PowerPoint Live, a new solution specifically designed for sharing PowerPoint presentations with Teams contacts, will help users deliver polished presentations and learning experiences remotely. PowerPoint Live transforms the content sharing experience with useful tools to improve engagement and user experience.

PowerPoint Live, combined with the imminent release of Presenter Mode in Teams, will allow anyone to deliver more professional presentations. You can use Presenter View to easily access information and notes alongside your presentation. You can view the meeting chat, slides, and keep an eye on your audience while you provide your information.

PowerPoint Live also supports features such as seamless transitions between co-presenters when multiple people need to take the stage. Participants also have the ability to personalize their experience by browsing the content and slides at their own pace. Soon, the slide translation capabilities will also allow attendees to select their preferred language and have the content automatically translated for them, without affecting other attendees.

The presenter mode feature makes you feel like you’re in the same room as your audience. There are different ways to customize your video feed and content with Presenter view, including Standout view, which displays your stream as a silhouette on shared content. There’s also Reporter Mode, which displays your content over your shoulder, and Side-by-Side Mode, which displays your video alongside your content.

New webinar experiences from Microsoft teams

Presenter View and PowerPoint Live are just two of the exciting new features now adding to the Microsoft Teams experience. Now users can also host interactive webinars and meetings for up to 1,000 participants in Teams. With end-to-end support from Microsoft webinars, you can develop a fantastic learning opportunity for your customers and colleagues.

Microsoft’s webinar solution includes personalized registration pages and rich presentation options, as well as attendee emails, host orders, and more. You can even take control of participant chat and video in a webinar or access post-event reporting tools. Analytics give you a better idea of ​​the overall level of participation in your webinar. Plus, you can track engagement and keep track of attendees.

For businesses that need to reach over 1,000 participants, Teams can support this as well. The Microsoft Teams meeting environment can now scale to accommodate a read-only broadcast for up to 20,000 people. According to Microsoft, it will be a valuable tool for companies exploring the new era of remote and hybrid working.

In the long term, Microsoft plans to offer a read-only streaming option to 10,000 people, but the company has doubled the allocation until the end of 2021 to support the remote working environment.

The new webinar and meeting experiences available from Microsoft Teams will be invaluable for businesses looking to host large events and conferences in a virtual environment. For businesses that don’t know how to implement their event strategy, Microsoft also offers a range of help options. The Live Events Support program, for example, enables customers to set up, manage, and deliver event experiences that are right for their customers.

Microsoft also offers Consulting Services for Virtual Events, which provide delivery and strategy support for organizations looking to move to larger conferences and personalized event experiences online. Microsoft’s trusted partners also provide solutions for the development, integration and transformation of your virtual event, regardless of its size.

Engage webinar and event attendees

PowerPoint Live and Microsoft Teams’ Webinar feature give today’s businesses more ways to engage and impress their audiences. The webinar solution also comes with helpful analysis and reporting tools, so you can continue to engage customers after the event is over. Users can easily access analytics and export analytics to their customer relationship management applications.

Starting in May, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing customers will be able to export attendee data directly from Microsoft Teams to create customer journey plans and campaigns. The integration of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing and Microsoft Teams will help webinar hosts deliver more engaging and retention experiences.

A particularly impressive point to note about the new features of Ignite in Microsoft Teams is that anyone can access them. You don’t have to buy a new product or a new language to enjoy it. PowerPoint Live and Webinar features are already included in the majority of Office and Microsoft 365 plans available to organizations today. Businesses can simply start experimenting with new presentation and event features whenever they want.

Microsoft has also released useful Webinar and PowerPoint Live Quick Start Guides for businesses who want to learn how to get the most from their new services.

Microsoft Teams is acquiring some important new features that were previewed but are now generally available. Specifically, the workplace communication and collaboration app receives PowerPoint Live and webinars. Microsoft adds that Presenter View will be widely available later this month.

In a blog post, Microsoft explains how Teams has grown more powerful over the past year. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the application has been enriched with many new features.

“Over the past year, we’ve found new ways to create engaging virtual experiences at work,” Microsoft’s Nicole Herskowitz writing.

Publicity

“We have transformed the spaces of our homes into offices, developed new skills for remote collaboration and, in some cases, adopted new technologies to get the job done. I often hear from our clients about the burden of using different tools to accomplish similar tasks at work. That’s one of the reasons I’m excited to announce new innovations in Microsoft Teams that give you more ways to use the tool you rely on every day for collaboration and internal meetings, now for webinars and external events.

Looking at what’s new for all users, let’s start with the webinars. This is a tool that allows Microsoft Teams users to host webinars for up to 1000 participants. It includes interactive tools, participant emails, personalized registration pages, presentation options, and accommodation options.

If you want to host a webinar with over 1,000 attendees, the app supports 10,000 read-only and 20,000 will be available by the end of the year.

PowerPoint Live and Presenter View

PowerPoint Live is now available to everyone. Live presentations allow PowerPoint users to set up presentations where users can interact more deeply with the details. When presenting online, guests can zoom in on slides, photos, and details in real time.

Presenter View, not to be confused with the Presenter Coach tool in PowerPoint, offers new customization options for presenters in Teams. It comes with three modes of use:

• “Standout mode displays the speaker’s video stream as a silhouette in front of the shared content.
• Reporter mode displays content as a visual aid over the speaker’s shoulder, similar to a newscast.
• Side-by-side mode displays the presenter’s video feed alongside their content as they present.

Standout mode comes first, by the end of this month. Reporter and Side-by-side will land a little later.

Tip of the day:

The default Windows font these days is Segoe UI, a fairly simple and convenient typeface that is used in many Microsoft products. However, while some like this understated style, others are looking to change the Windows font to something with a little more personality.

Fortunately, Microsoft allows you to change Windows fonts, but that doesn’t make it particularly easy. In our tutorial, we show you how to change the system font in Windows 10 or restore it again if you don’t like the changes.

Publicity

Microsoft Teams will support webinars and PowerPoint Live this week. The features make it much easier to present to a large audience of people. Microsoft describes all of the new features in a recent blog post.

You can present up to 1,000 attendees through interactive webinars or upgrade to read-only broadcasts for up to 10,000 people. Microsoft has temporarily increased the limit for read-only broadcasts to 20,000 people, as more and more people are working remotely.

You can set up custom registration pages, rich presentation options, and host controls for your webinars. You can also view post-event reports to understand how attendees participated in the webinar.

PowerPoint Live presents content and information in a way that enhances the presentation. With it, you can see upcoming slides, notes, meeting chat, and audience all through one view.

While you present a PowerPoint, users can navigate the slides at their own pace and use features like high contrast mode and the screen reader to better absorb the content. Translations of the slides are not yet available, but will be available in the future.

Presenter Mode will roll out later this month. It allows presenters to select how their video feed appears to other people. Presenters can choose between standout mode, reporter mode, and side-by-side mode. Standout mode will roll out later this month, but you’ll have to wait a bit longer for reporter and side-by-side modes.

These new features are included in the Microsoft 365 E3 / E5, Microsoft 365 A3 / A5 and Microsoft 365 Government G3 / G5 plans. Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Microsoft 365 Business Premium plans can also use the features, but they are limited to a maximum of 300 participants. For the remainder of this year, all Teams users can try out the features with their existing subscriptions, but that trial will end before 2022.

Microsoft announced today that it generally makes available two new features for teams – webinars and PowerPoint Live. The webinar capability was first announced to Pro plan users via a message center notification in February. However, the mention of the “Pro” plan was later clarified as incorrect, with the company claiming it would launch the feature as part of the current subscription for businesses. PowerPoint Live started rolling out in March and is now available to everyone.

While Teams has primarily been a tool suited for internal meetings and communication, the company aims to make it more useful for external presentations and webinars. Webinars can be interactive with up to 1,000 attendees and include management features for organizers such as registration pages, the ability to control attendee flows, “rich presentation options” and post-reporting. event. Post-event reports can help organizers assess participation and gather feedback as needed. Starting this month, Dynamics 365 Marketing customers will also be able to export participant data directly from Teams for automatic campaign creation and customer journey mapping, thanks to the integration between Teams and Dynamics 365.

The company adds that users will be able to expand read-only webinars to 20,000 users through the end of the year, keeping in mind the increase in remote work during the pandemic. However, starting next year, the functionality will be limited to 10,000 read-only participants.

The other cool feature for Teams users is Presenter View for PowerPoint Live presentations. PowerPoint Live presentations allow attendees to interact with the presentations without affecting the presenter’s view, meaning that users can navigate between slides if they wish during a live presentation without disrupting the presentation itself. They can also use screen readers or a high contrast mode, which helps them consume the presentation at the desired pace.

Presenters also have the ability to view multiple slides, participant video feeds, and notes without affecting the presentation. The Redmond firm first launched this feature in PowerPoint for the web. The company says it will also add translation capabilities, allowing users to translate slides into the language of their choice during a live presentation.

Presenter views further enhance live presentations by allowing presenters to change the way slides are displayed on the screen. Users can overlay their video feed on the presentation in Standout mode, display the content as a “visual aid” over their shoulders in Reporter mode, or place the video and presentations side-by-side in side-by-side mode. The standout mode will roll out later this month, while the rest of the modes will be available “shortly thereafter.”

Microsoft will deploy all webinar functionality to Microsoft 365 E3 / E5, Microsoft 365 A3 / A5, and Microsoft 365 Government G3 / G5 customers at no additional cost. Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Microsoft 365 Business Premium plan subscribers will be limited to using the features for 300 users. The company adds that “all” Teams users can “try out” the webinar’s features as part of a “promotional period” until the end of 2021.

Microsoft PowerPoint has been around for a long time and so far it has served users well. However, since it is a paid program, not everyone can afford it.

Fortunately, there are many options available for users who want the functionality of Microsoft PowerPoint in a free package. In fact, some of them don’t even require any downloads and are completely web-based.

By far the most popular PowerPoint alternative, Google Slides shines when it comes to collaboration. Several people can work on a presentation at the same time and add new slides.

This is further reinforced by its availability. Google Slides works on your web browser and offers apps for iOS and Android.

Plus, Google Slides keeps track of all the changes users have made to a presentation, and you can easily restore your slideshow to a previous version. While anyone with a Gmail account can use Google Slides, G Suite users enjoy additional data protection.

Compared to PowerPoint, the number of templates, animation forms and fonts is somewhat lacking. However, companies tend to overlook these shortcomings on a daily basis.

While Canva is known primarily as a photo editor and design tool, it is also a competent MS PowerPoint alternative.

One of Canva’s main strengths is its ease of use. There are plenty of beginner tutorial videos on the website if there is something that users don’t understand. Complete beginners can easily navigate the minimalist interface.

With the free version of Canva, you have access to over 8,000 presentation templates that exponentially speed up your workflow. Plus, Canva remains one of the easiest services for creating infographics and charts.

The only limitation with Canva is that it offers a basic set of tools and transitions available to users. It is obvious that the company places more emphasis on photo editing and the design aspect than anything else.

The Prezi presentation format is unique in the way it allows you to view slides. Instead of tackling multiple elements at once, Prezi gives viewers a single canvas that allows them to zoom into different parts of the presentation. It provides a much more immersive experience.

Similar to Google Slides, Prezi supports real-time collaboration of up to 10 users. Users can also add comments to indicate changes or report missing information. Prezi works in any modern web browser, and Android and iOS apps are also available.

Related: Powerful Google Chrome PDF Extensions and Apps

Prezi software also has an analysis feature that helps users optimize their presentation by showing them which slides were viewed the most as well as which ones were skipped.

Even though the basic version of Prezi is free, it doesn’t allow users to control the privacy of their presentation, which could be a big deal for many. Plus, because of the way Prezi works, there’s a steep learning curve associated with it.

WPS Office is the closest alternative to PowerPoint when it comes to functionality and user interface. Also, unlike other web services on this list, you don’t always need an active internet connection to use it.

With full support for PowerPoint files, users can easily edit existing PowerPoint documents in WPS Office. They can also embed videos and animate individual objects, just like in Microsoft PowerPoint. It also offers many templates, so that users can choose their favorite.

However, users should keep in mind that although the software is free, it is supported by advertisements, which can be a bit intrusive at times. In addition, collaboration is less easy than with Google Slides.

WPS Office is available on all major platforms such as Windows, macOS, Linux. iOS and Android. A web version is also available. You can also refer to this how-to guide to help ease your transition to Microsoft’s WPS Office.

Xtensio is one of the best options for business users. It has a lot of templates available regarding various organizational sections like marketing, UX design, etc.

Thanks to Xtensio’s user-friendly interface, even beginners can create professional-looking reports and presentations. In addition, they offer even greater flexibility in terms of design. You can modify each object in a template to suit your specific needs.

But it has a few flaws. On the one hand, users cannot export their presentations to PowerPoint format. Also, the free version only supports one user at a time with 1MB storage space.

LibreOffice is open source presentation software that does everything PowerPoint can do. While it lacks features like OneDrive integration, its PowerPoint-like functionality more than makes up for it.

LibreOffice has its share of useful features, such as the ability to import Keynote files. In addition, LibreOffice offers a large collection of free templates that users can use to create their presentations.

If that is not enough, you can download additional templates from the LibreOffice online repository. LibreOffice is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

There are several reasons to use Zoho Show for your next presentation. It’s a great presentation tool similar to Google Slides, but even better. Users can also import and edit all of their PowerPoint files in the online tool.

Users can create tables, infographics, and data charts in Zoho Show itself. On top of that, the service also has a built-in Google image search feature that lets you quickly find and insert images.

Related: Tools to Make Online Presentation From Anywhere

Additionally, Zoho Show supports real-time collaboration and multiple users can edit presentations. While there isn’t much to complain about in Zoho Show, many users would like to have more options when it comes to models and animations.

Worthy PowerPoint alternatives

Essentially, all of these tools and services work the same as PowerPoint without the cost. In addition, the web-based alternatives are more advanced, such as automatic backup and cloud storage.

Despite this, PowerPoint remains the leader in presentation software. As such, it is important that users know how to get the most out of its features.

Read more

About the Author

Suffering “death by PowerPoint” may soon be a thing of the past when it comes to video conferencing thanks to a new update for Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft has revealed that its online video platform will soon receive an upgrade designed to bring Teams and PowerPoint, with WindowsLatest become familiar with the new offer.

The new PowerPoint Live feature will allow presenters to start presentations right in a Microsoft Teams meeting without the need to share your screen with the public, hopefully removing compatibility and privacy concerns for good.

PowerPoint live

PowerPoint Live is now available for Office Insider users (although you will need an Office 365 E3 / A3 / E5 / A5 or Microsoft 365 government license), with a wider rollout slated for later this year. .

Starting a presentation is as easy as clicking the new “Show in Teams” button in PowerPoint, allowing the presenter to navigate on their device between different apps and windows without the audience seeing anything.

Presenters will also be able to use a single view to take care of their slides, notes, and chat in one view.

Accessing the chat window directly next to the presentation should mean presenters don’t miss any urgent questions or prompts, and also allows participants to click hyperlinks and videos in the presentation at any time.

The appearance of the presentation to the audience can also be customized, with speakers available to offer a grid review feature and see all of their audience in one place at once.

The news will be welcome for those featured in future webinars, and comes shortly after Microsoft Teams has made its plea to become the go-to online meeting platform.

An update to Microsoft’s roadmap appears to see Teams supporting interactive webinars soon for people inside and outside of an organization with up to 1,000 attendees.

The new Microsoft Teams feature will help users support fully interactive webinars from start to finish, offering tools like personalized registration, rich presentation options, host controls such as the ability to turn off the chat and video of attendees and post-event reports.

If the webinar exceeds 1,000 users, Microsoft Teams can move on instead providing a read-only broadcast experience to 10,000 people.

Going through WindowsLatest

Formerly a leader in its field, in the mid-2000s, the Scandinavian paper giant Stora Enso hit a wall. With the shift from print to online publication and the demand for paper dwindling, company management spent four difficult years, starting in 2007, embarking on several rounds of cost reductions – divestiture of factories and dismissal of workers – to stabilize the situation. It worked. But then they were faced with the challenge of shifting gears to innovate and create new growth markets.

In early 2011, the nine-person team – all male, all Norse, all paper industry veterans – realized they were ill-equipped to ask the kind of heretical questions needed to reinvent. the company. Jouko Karvinen, then CEO, recalled one particular meeting: “I just sat there listening and realized we were all telling the same old stories over and over again. “

Karvinen understood that they needed to bring diverse perspectives into the conversation. But instead of going the conventional route of hiring consultants with ready-made solutions, he turned to the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland, to help Stora ask better questions. , to stimulate his capacity for imagination and to co-create a solution.

Reinventing the future

The original idea was to establish a “shadow cabinet”, drawing on the next generation of Stora Enso executives to help the management team challenge their existing assumptions and envision new opportunities. After a series of talks with IMD, however, company management agreed to a more radical approach. Why focus only on the usual suspects for help? Why not open the opportunity to all employees? As former HR Director Lars Häggström said: “We wanted to have people who are passionate about pushing boundaries and who challenge[ed] literally everything.

With that in mind, they posted an ad on the company’s intranet inviting all newcomers to apply to the Pathfinders program. The announcement triggered 250 applications, and after a battery of assessments and interviews, 16 people were finally selected. Significantly, they included recent hires as well as established employees, and they represented a much broader mix of demographics, hierarchy levels, experiences, and personalities than what would normally have made up this team. Several of those selected were not even on the radar of the company’s talent selection system. Although the group was eclectic, its members shared a real appetite for change and were much better placed to think laterally than the incumbent decision-makers.

To help food their minds and enrich their perspectives, the group members were sent across the world for six weeks, from China and India to the United States and Latin America. To help free their minds, they were symbolically fired from the company, then rehired with a new mandate to question the mindset and working methods of the company. IMD also created a personalized program to expose them to new conceptual frameworks and allow them to conduct in-depth market research when visiting companies.

The name Pathfinders, a nod to the Mars space exploration mission, gave the group a clear identity and captured its mandate, which was to discover new paths forward, explore global trends and alternatives without being weighed down by Stora’s long legacy, to bring business ideas inside and outside their industry, and to identify opportunities that lay between business silos.

Karvinen said, “I want a revolution. I don’t want PowerPoint presentations to give advice on what we could do. I want them to come back with ideas that we can implement. . . to start a new business.

In the end, the Pathfinders engaged the best team in deep and impactful conversations and made many strategic recommendations that were adopted. Their contribution has proven to be so invaluable that the initiative has been renewed every year and renamed “Pathbuilders”.

One recommendation that was followed related to where the new growth markets should be. While sustainability was already an area of ​​focus, the Pathbuilders insisted that sustainability and renewable materials be at the very center of the strategy, saying there was significant growth potential in this space. To develop this area more quickly, they made several recommendations, such as the appointment of a responsible for sustainable development within the executive committee and the acceleration of R&D for renewable energies both internally and with partners. This helped Stora Enso later make the “renewable materials company” its brand. In the Pathbuilders programs of the following years, new participants were tasked with setting the future direction of the business and coming up with ideas that would continue to push the boundaries of the organization, address pressing business challenges, develop new new activities and disrupt the internal organization of the company.

Revolutionary changes

Eight years later, the impact of the Pathfinder / Pathbuilder program on innovation has been immense, transforming Stora Enso from a traditional paper and board producer to a global renewable materials company. Its strategic focus has shifted to new value-creating areas such as fiber-based packaging, innovation in biomaterials and bio-based chemicals. In the same period, its share price has tripled, and two-thirds of sales (and three-quarters of profits) now come from growing companies.

Beyond the focus on results, the program has also reshaped the entire culture of the company, as evidenced by surveys showing that employees are more engaged and innovative than ever. In addition, the self-selection mechanism has re-energized the workforce. It was seen as a sign of trust in the employees and a chance for anyone to make an impact. Of those who served as Pathfinders or Pathbuilders, more than 70% were promoted or changed jobs within six months of completing the program.

This is a legacy of innovation that is now part of the future leadership of the company.

This article is an excerpt from Alien Thinking: The Unconventional Path to Revolutionary Ideas (Public Affairs; March 16, 2021) by Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux and Michael Wade.

No matter where you work, meetings all have one thing in common: PowerPoint presentations. If you are using Zoom, you can easily present your slideshow to participants by sharing your screen. Here is how it is done.

Grant access to sharing screens in Zoom

If you are the host of the Zoom meeting, you will be able to share your screen without any problem. However, if you join a meeting that you are not the host, you may need to request permission from the host to be able to share your screen.

As a general rule, we recommend that hosts turn off the screen sharing feature for participants by default for security reasons. If you are not the meeting host, be sure to contact the host in advance to request permission to share your screen during the Zoom call. Hosts can still activate the feature during the call, but it’s always good to be one step ahead.

If you are the meeting host and someone requests permission to share their screen during the meeting, click the up arrow next to “Share screen” at the bottom of the window.

In the menu that appears, click on “Advanced sharing options”.

The “Advanced Sharing Options” window will appear. In the “Who can share” section, click on the bubble next to “All participants”.

All meeting participants can now share their screen.

Screen share of a zoomed PowerPoint presentation

To screen share your PowerPoint presentation, go ahead and open the PowerPoint presentation you want to present. However, before you put the presentation in Slideshow mode, you’ll want to share your screen. At the bottom of the Zoom meeting window, click “Share Screen.”

If you’re using only one monitor, you’ll immediately start sharing your screen. If you are using two monitors, you will need to click on the screen where your presentation will be shared. In our case, it will be “Screen 2”.

To start sharing this screen, click “Share” in the lower right corner of the screen selection window.

You are now sharing your screen. Now in Microsoft PowerPoint, select the “Slide Show View” icon at the lower right corner of the application.

From there, make your presentation as if you were standing in front of a live audience.

---

If you’re doing a big presentation through Zoom, you’re not going to jump right into it. You may need to speak to the audience a bit before you share your screen. If so, here are some tips to improve your appearance during your Zoom call.