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While planning out our 2025 content calendar, our Social Media Manager noted that The PowerPoint Blog has a really (really) long history of rich PowerPoint content – but much of it is lost in the vastness of posts. The suggestion was to expand The PowerPoint Blog from its current schedule of 2 posts per week, to 3 posts per week. The additional post would resurface older PowerPoint content that is just as relevant today as it was when originally posted.

So… starting today with the first Friday of 2025, The PowerPoint Blog is returning to three posts per week! Each Friday will be part of our “Looking Back” series, where PowerPoint tips, tricks, and examples from previous posts are shared once again.

Troy @ TLC

As 2024 gets close to its conclusion, one of the behind-the-scenes technology shifts that we embarked on for TLC Creative Services has been the trifecta of “business” communication; telephone, fax, and a auto attendant that answers all incoming telephone calls. 

TELEPHONE 

We maintained our business phone number, but removed the desktop telephones – and really all telephones. A review of our phone usage over the past 5 years revealed we went from 1,000s of minutes of phone calls each month, both incoming and outgoing, to a pittance of use – under 50 minutes per month, and that is for the entire staff combined! 

Did our business volume decrease? No. Did clients stop calling and asking TLC Creative to assist with their design needs? No. On a business level, TLC Creative is as busy as any previous time. But business communication has shifted. Being a corporate entity for over 20 years allowed us to evaluate business volume and client communication. The information was clear, phone usage is out. Email, text and Teams/Zoom meetings are in. 

And we removed the ubiquitous Cisco & Yealink desktop phones. See the December 10, 2024 blog post “TLC Welcomes Teams Phone!”.  Our team now receives and makes phones calls through the Microsoft Teams app. 

FAX 

We cancelled the TLC Creative Services fax number after 20 years of being available. The fax machine had left years earlier as incoming faxes became PDF email attachments. All of this is something we had fun talking about in our December 5, 2024 blog post “So Long Fax Machine!”. Now I guess we need to update our business cards as they list the now defunct fax number… 

AUTO ATTENDANT 

The last item in our trifecta of business communication is that person who is the single point of contact answering calls, directing calls, or taking a message. The Microsoft Teams Telephone system has a pre-recorded “auto attendant” that answers each call and helps direct the call to information or someone’s extension. For the pre-recorded auto attendant greetings, we leveraged the Microsoft Clipchamp app. This video edit software has an amazing text-to-speech feature. No actual recording session or voice actor, it is now something our IT manager creates from a script document, loads into Clipchamp, exports the audio files, and programs the Microsoft Teams Phone auto attendant with! It is pretty amazing.  

TLC Creative is ready for 2025 design projects, new clients – and whatever the next trifecta of operations changes happens! 

At this time of year we love to have some “TLC” fun creating engaging and enjoyable holiday cards from TLC Creative Services! Over the years our holiday cards have featured new technologies we’ve adapted, or showcased the skills of our design team. One thing our cards often have in common is an activity or game to engage our clients, partners, and work friends. 

And while many of you receive our annual TLC holiday card, I know we’ve missed some of you, the post office just hasn’t bothered to return your previously sent card to us, or you’re one of the many blog visitors. And for the big reveal…please enjoy and have fun with the interior spread of our 2024 holiday card from TLC Creative Services, Inc. 

Wishing our clients, friends, and blog visitors a fun & joyful Holiday Season and New Year! 

From all of us at TLC Creative Services
 

TLC Creative has had its company phone number for over 20 years and that phone number has been with half-a-dozen phone companies during that time. For the past 6 years everyone at TLC had a corporate phone on their desk with their own extension. 

Looking at our phone call usage over the past few years, we went from 1,000s of minutes of phone calls each month to under 50 minutes of monthly calls. Yet the amount of our communication hasn’t changed…it now happens over Teams meetings, chat, email and yes, some phone calls.

So, after much planning, testing, and discussion, TLC Creative Services has ditched our desk phones and has gone virtual! The same TLC company phone number is active and when someone calls, the auto-attendant answers and routes the call, or provides information (such as our website, or how to email the team). The big change is now everyone makes and receives phone calls either through their computer using the Microsoft Teams app, 

or on their mobile phone, through the Teams app there.

Receiving voicemails, transferring calls, and all the other “telephone” features are there, just accessed through an app, not a physical telephone. 

For everyone here at TLC, it has been an easy transition to “virtual” phones, especially because we are constantly on Teams “calls” with each other and clients. Transitioning to using Teams as a traditional telephone is just a different tab in the same app we have all become familiar with. We just don’t have that many phone calls which I am certain is a major business trend; companies have fewer traditional telephone conversations, and rather, are communicating more over email, text, and virtual calls (e.g. Teams/Zoom meetings). 

And yes, the accounting department is happy. The overall budget line item for the company phone system is lower, even with more staff and extensions. The one feature we are anxiously awaiting is SMS, or text messaging, integration into the Microsoft Teams phone system. 

Side note: see our December 5 post “So Long Fax Machine!”, which was another big communication change implemented here at TLC Creative Services this year. 

-Troy @ TLC

I have an unusual announcement to make. It’s quite novel, really. And yet I can’t imagine anyone scrambling for a sticky note so they can jot this down, but here it goes: 

TLC Creative Services will no longer support fax communications. 

If anyone (and I mean ANYONE) feels they will be impacted by our decision to discontinue our fax number, please reach out to me (Lori)!  

Actually, there is one person who has faxed us consistently over the years. There is a company selling refurbished supply vans. We get the same fax twice a year. It’s a black and white fax featuring clip art images of vans and lots and lots of text. Hmmm…I might have some insight as to why they’re having a hard time selling those vans! 

I do, however, remember a time when we utterly relied on a fax machine, mostly for design proof approvals. Back in the (cough, cough, two-thousands, cough…) we relied on couriers to send proofs back and forth to clients for approvals. Federal Express was the go-to, but we also used local couriers…a lot. Yes, we had fax machines then, but a black and white thermograph piece of paper didn’t give an accurate proof. Did you know there was a very short period in the technology timeline when there were color fax machines?! And yes, TLC Creative had one. However, the dawn of the color fax machine, though expensive to use at the time, cut down on those courier expenses dramatically. And now, almost all proofs are sent digitally via email, efax, or some sort of download link. Ah how far we’ve come! 

While we haven’t had a physical fax machine connected for many (many) years, we still bid adieu to the fax. Your technology was much appreciated and will (not) be missed.  

-Lori 🙂

The 2024 Presentation Summit conference has concluded, with separate in-person and virtual editions. This year marks the end, or as it was labelled, “The Last Hurrah” of the in-person conference, with only a virtual conference scheduled for next year.

Both events were fantastic to attend. And after some reflection, here are 5 of my favorite memories of the conference this year.

1. SUNSETS AND STARGAZING

• Enjoying a venue in California that’s directly on the Pacific Ocean with a sandy beach, palm trees, and the Channel Islands as our view was wonderful. With temperatures in the 70s made for amazing sunset gatherings each night! Having the once in 80,000 years “A3” comet on the horizon just after sunset – and being surrounded by people that figured out how to take long exposure night photos, at just the right location in the sky, so we could really see the comet – was truly cool!

2. TLC CREATIVE WAS THERE

• TLC Creative Services was happily in many places during the conference.
  • We sponsored the event t-shirt swag.
  • We showed up with “Hello” stickers to accompany the event shirt and many had fun with them.
  • We hosted a PowerPoint Microsoft MVP podcast recording (and wine tasting).
  • Lori dazzled with a session showcasing real-client work (no NDA content revealed!).
  • I presented with a demo for 9 Microsoft PowerPoint add-in tools, showcasing real-world client formatting examples (ironically, 20 years ago I spoke on PowerPoint add-ins for design productivity!)

3. THEN AND NOW

• Conference Director Ric Altman insisted on a session entitled “Then and Now”. And it was, to my surprise, an overflowing room of people! The talk went great, and everyone had a lot of fun looking at the past and comparing it to the present.

4. 45-IN-45 and UNICORN FARTS

• Seemingly non-related session topics, all connected by presentation design, makes every memory of the Presentation Summit conference perfect. Nolan Haims, in a 45-minute session, delivered 45 absolutely amazing PowerPoint formatting tips! And the (in)famous Stephy Hogan took her AI session about creating presentation content to realms never imagined by a conference director (unicorn farts as an energy source)!

5. 22 YEARS

• Finally, as I reflect on my Summit attendee badge with 19 stars, each star representing a Summit I attended, I still believe I should have 21 stars! (Yes, I was technically a guest at a San Diego summit for a half day on my way to Montreal for a client meeting, and I’m still searching for proof of the other star…) Regardless, over the years I’ve enjoyed some fantastic sessions, had amazing offsite dinners with large (10+) and small groups of other presentation people, and in general having the opportunity to be around so many amazing presentation people.

The 2024 Presentation Summit with ~200 presentation designers, trainers and speakers is a great place to be this week! In addition to being directly on the California beach with amazing sunsets, we heard from amazing presenters from Guy Kawasaki to Sally Koering Zimney. We have been with many, many amazing presentation designers, we’ve being geeky and gathering around computer screens to see the presentation work of others, we’ve enjoyed group dinners, and even star gazed to try and get long exposure photos of the Comet A3 just after sunset.

Troy & Lori @ TLC

It is the unofficial rule holiday decorations are okay until the end of January – right? Well, that is the rule I am going with as we near the end of January. I am sharing the TLC Creative Services 2023 Christmas card that was sent out to many of our friends and company’s we get to work with.

And a quick look at the house all lit up for the holidays.

Troy @ TLC

Have you ever looked at a slide that’s clearly been repurposed and feels unbalanced? Modifying existing slides for new content is a great shortcut and time saver, but step back and look at the slide. Is the layout balanced? Are elements aligned to each other? Does the slide look “correct”?

I had the immediate feeling of looking at a repurposed slide when I stepped into my hotel room (this is really a hotel room I recently stayed in – but no brands or cities named). Instead of noticing all the nice things this hotel is offering, my mind was distracted (like an audience member being distracted by a poorly designed slide):

• Why is the art not centered on the wall?
• Did the room originally have just one bedside table on the right so the bed would be centered under the art when the furniture was centered on the wall?
• Was this just a bad art installation, or was the art here first and a new bed installed later?
• If the art was here first, what was the furniture like before that would make an off-center art piece look good?
• Wait…is there a problem with the wall that it cannot support the art if mounted in the center? Am I safe sleeping under this unstable art!!?

Moral – don’t create slides that let your audience get distracted with formatting questions. And don’t question the hotel room furniture and art choices, you are there for a short stay and will soon forget it (unless you use a photo of it for a blog post and then can be reminded of how odd it was for years-and-years!).

Troy @ TLC

I have been enjoying time in Madrid, Spain touring museums. Two days ago, Lori and I spent the majority of the day at the Prado National Museum – doing the 3-hour self-guided tour in just over 6 hours. Yesterday was spent at the Thyssen-Bornemisza, also part of the National Museum, where tired feet prevailed, and we did the 2-hour tour in just over 2 hours!

Within the massive Thyssen collection is a fantastic nineteenth and early twentieth century section of art covering impressionism, cubism, art nouveau, and whatever we call Picaso-ism. And in this specific area of the museum (basically an entire floor), my mind shifted to work and graphic design. Photoshop is part of my creative process, along with using many image filters. But looking at these artists from a hundred years ago (that was epiphany number one, art from the 1920’s and earlier is now 100 years old!) – what was their inspiration? Beyond mastering painting technique, they were inventing image styling that today we easily achieve with digital filters (epiphany number two!).

The art in Madrid is amazing. The museums are amazing. The people, food, and drinks of Madrid are all amazing! Amazing!

(all images take at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional).

Troy @ TLC