Hi again. In this lesson, we're going to talk about creating our own graphics. And we will consolidate some of the ideas from earlier lessons. The best presentations are those that are memorable. But sometimes our topics are so complex in the business world that expecting our audience to retain key aspects, or recall how all the pieces fit together can be a challenge. This is where strong graphical representation can help.

Now in our sample presentation, we really didn't have a conceptual model, but let's try and build one in this lesson. There are basically two choices for building a graphical model. The first is to use a tool embedded inside PowerPoint called SmartArt, which you can find under the Insert menu on the ribbon. Here you can find all sorts of pre configured graphics to support lists, processes, cycles and various other relationships. Slide nine of our introductory presentation I set up four parts to this course planning, design, visual aids and delivery enhancement. Let's pick among the smarter diagrams, the one that best conveys this sort of development methodology.

Because there's a bit of an ordering to the methodology, I want a graphic that says you need to do planning first before moving on to the other stages. Having picked the graphic, you can now add the text. And you'll notice that two new smart our tool menus have appeared on our ribbon. These tools allow you to pretty up your SmartArt graphic. This is a pretty good tool to get you started on making your own graphics. However, the downside is that it can be tricky to format and as it gets used more and more audiences are now beginning to recognize SmartArt as a PowerPoint tool, which runs opposite to our philosophy of making our PowerPoint presentations.

Unrecognizable as PowerPoint. So let me suggest another alternative, which is to create your own graphics. How do you imagine the content in your mind? What is your conceptual framework for this content, then use shapes, images and text as necessary to build this construct. And if it's really good, imagine other people repeating it, and sharing it to spread your ideas to others. Let's see what we can come up with.

I'll add five boxes and just make them different colors. I'll put arrows in between the boxes. And then here's some clipart that actually matches. Now the imagery isn't perfect, I appreciate but it's a little more interesting, then no imagery at all. And let's just put some numbers below the boxes to reinforce a four step methodology, which leads to PowerPoint excellence, the holy grail of presenting so what do you think you can leave a comment sharing your opinion? So in this short lesson, I've introduced to you the SmartArt tool for building graphics, which is a vast improvement over the bulleted list of text.

However, the more you think about your content, the more you may be able to create your own conceptual representation. The tools are not hard to use, and being a little creative can actually be a little fun. It'll take years off your age and make you feel like a kid again. In our next section of lessons, we're going to begin talking about some of the PowerPoint features that help enhance the delivery of your presentation. Until then,