Before we move on, I need to mention a few important topics. I’ll just get this right out there. We need to have a heart to heart discussion about the use of design templates, animations and clip art in professional presentations. Now I know it’s fun to have words pop up on the screen with zany background designs or add pictures of cute animals to make your audience smile. I get it. I personally love the screenbeans! So when I’m creating a fun training or a workshop, I always turn to the screenbean family of clip art and I may even go up to the Design tab and choose some funky backgrounds. However, in this setting, you want to use these functions sparingly if at all. Background designs, animations and cheesy artwork can take away from your message. They can be really distracting. We aren’t artists, we’re HR professionals and we want our sr. leaders to take us seriously.