It’s very likely that everyone reading this is familiar with presentations— either as the presenter or a member of the audience. Most presentations people consume are in a professional setting between conferences, meetings, and business pitches. Presentations are also extremely popular in the educational space used in curriculums or training courses. They’re an integral part of today’s society from grade school to careers, and everything in between.
In fact, experts estimate that over 30 million presentations are created every day. We have to assume that the majority of those are professional presentations, but presentation decks extend far beyond the classroom and office. They can be a great tool for personal use cases, too.
Here are 7 unexpected, creative ways you can use presentations.
Event planning
Presentations are the new Excel sheet— but more digestible. Imagine planning a party or major event and having to toggle between multiple documents to find design inspiration, budget details, guest lists, etc. Instead, professional planners, or party enthusiasts, might opt to use presentations to manage ideas, to-do lists, or vendors. Using a presentation makes the little details more engaging and easier to reference throughout the process.
Trip itinerary
A lot goes into planning a trip, from location and accommodations to excursions or activities. Plus, if you’re planning a trip with multiple families or a group of people, coordinating everyone’s travel information and preferences can be overwhelming. What better way to keep everything in one place than a presentation? You can include things like photos of your destination and hotel, flight itineraries, budgets, links to restaurant menus and reservations, or excursion packages. You can use the deck to compare prices, pitch ideas to travel companions, share plans, or to organize your trip details in a more visual way.
PowerPoint Night
By now you’ve heard of PowerPoint night, a term coined by millennials and Gen Z that involves friends giving presentations to one another on cheeky topics. It’s a phenomenon that took off in 2020 on TikTok, and has been popular among young adults ever since. TikTok PowerPoint nights are the epitome of using decks for fun, as opposed to for work. There is no limit to how random or off-the-wall PowerPoint Night presentations can be. In fact, we’ve compiled a list of 50 creative ideas to help get you started.
Interior design
Mood boards are a common use case for presentations. But generally speaking, professional teams are creating mood boards for branding or product development purposes. What if you used a presentation for personal inspiration like interior design? This could serve solopreneur interior designers helping a client with a remodel, or individual homeowners looking to refresh their space. An interior design presentation can include multiple variations of a room’s new look, with different furniture, paint, and decor options. By having several layouts and mock-ups of each room, it can help people picture how the final setup will look before committing to purchases.
Weddings
Whether you’re newly engaged and trying to choose between wedding venues or you’re a wedding planner pitching services and ideas to a potential client, a presentation is a great way to organize a lot of information in one central place. With the option to include links, photos, and a calendar slide, a wedding presentation can help make the planning process more seamless and efficient.
Fashion
Fashion is a form of creative expression, so why not use visual presentations to help? A presentation deck can help people plan outfits by piecing together items for a big trip or event and having it all in one place. Similarly, personal stylists might use a presentation to share outfits or inspiration with clients before buying items. And just like any entrepreneur, a young fashion designer or label can utilize presentations for things like business plans, ideation, and pitching their collection to department stores for retail.
Games
Believe it or not, presentations can be fun, too. You might use a presentation deck to facilitate games like trivia, would you rather, or two truths and a lie. This can be used as an icebreaker during a conference, at a happy hour, or as a team bonding session. Once you build the deck, you can present it to your audience or send a shareable link around to attendees for an in-person or virtual gaming experience.
