Creating a convincing PowerPoint presentation begins with a convincing story. Before you get to work on your next presentation, first think carefully about what exactly you want to tell. Creating such a storyline is done very easily in the form of a mind map. A mind map is a spider's web of words that are connected to one another because they have a certain relationship with each other. By connecting the key words of your argument to one another instead of making full sentences, your presentation gets a clear structure. After you have noted down the most important parts of the presentation, you can go on adding words per part. That is then the concrete filling-in of your story and your presentation. It is very visual and very clear. And because you link only words to this structure, you cannot make the mistake, in the final PowerPoint presentation, of putting full sentences on your slides. In this way you build up your story on the basis of a chain of words instead of writing down full sentences.

The simplest way to create a mind map is with the help of a sheet of paper and a pencil. You write the words and draw the connecting lines. But if you want to share your storyline then a digital solution is a good deal handier: Mindomo, Mindmeister, Mindmanager and freemind are a few examples of this. At SmartPresentations most storyboards are made in Mindomo. It works very intuitively and the mind maps can be shared online for further additions.