2 2
3 3
The next slide in our presentation will have the shape of a timeline. It will summarize in a nutshell 4 4
the most important events in KInemax's history. The scheme that we will create here will allow our audience to become familiar with the 5 5
various stages of development that the firm went through. 6 6
It is fundamental to describe a company's history, before addressing its future. 7 7
Get excited as this exercise will be applicable in a number of projects that you'll face in the future. 8 8
Going through the information source we can delineate several types of events that were described historically: 9 9
international expansion and office openings, 10 10
the acquisition of Moviez (a UK based company), 11 11
three rounds of financing received by a private equity investor. 12 12
In addition to that we have information about the firm's plans for future development. 13 13
Kinemax intends to start operations in three new countries in Europe and will introduce a new service line in its existing locations. 14 14
The main element in the slide that we will create will be a horizontal line, which will represent the development of time. 15 15
Around this line will be organized the events that occurred. 16 16
Furthermore we will include the company's future plans, but they have to be well separated from historical events. In order to obtain a clear 17 17
structure, we will place all country openings on the top side of the timeline 18 18
and the other types of events below it. 19 19
In "Course materials" you can download a very useful file containing a number of specially designed shapes and objects that you won't 20 20
typically find in PowerPoint. You can save this file and use it for your future presentations. 21 21
In this lesson we will take one shape from there. Let's copy and paste this line to our presentation. 22 22
I'll place it in the center of the slide 23 23
and organize the rest of the content around it. 24 24
In the upper part of the slide we will show all country openings. 25 25
I will insert two shapes: 26 26
a tiny circle 27 27
and a line. 28 28
Let's open the Format Object menu. 29 29
I'll use a dark blue color 30 30
another thing I would like to do is remove the circle's line color. 31 31
I will click on it and select 32 32
"No line". 33 33
We want to convey to our audience 34 34
easy and clear messages. Icons are great way to facilitate the comprehension of the point 35 35
that is being made. Try to use them as often as you can. 36 36
In this case I will insert an icon that resembles an office building. 37 37
My aim is to reinforce the message that Kinemax opened an office and started its operations in a given country. 38 38
Let's position it above the line that points at the timeline. 39 39
The first office opening was in France, which was in fact where the company was founded. Let's insert a picture of the French flag 40 40
for the same purpose - 41 41
facilitating the comprehension of our audience, 42 42
and position it above the office building icon. 43 43
The next thing I'll do is to insert a text box. 44 44
I'll adjust the font size of the text in this box to 10 and type inside the date 45 45
when the company was founded: 46 46
"June 2009". 47 47
Let's copy this text box and place the copy above the original. 48 48
I'll use a font size of 12, 49 49
which will be in bold 50 50
and in dark blue color. 51 51
We have to change the text as well. 52 52
It will read "Company was founded". 53 53
Let's center the text, because right now it is not symmetric with respect to the other elements. 54 54
Very good. This is our first element. 55 55
Kinemax had five other office openings and three more are planned for the future. 56 56
Given that we can reuse many of the elements from this first block, let's select them, 57 57
excluding the French flag, 58 58
and group them together. 59 59
I will select all of the elements and use Ctrl + G. 60 60
Let's copy and paste this block five times. 61 61
We can select these boxes and use the "Distribute horizontally" command. 62 62
Then we can select all of the grouped elements and align them to the top. 63 63
The next thing to do is to ungroup the six elements, 64 64
in order to modify each of them individually. 65 65
I will hold Ctrl, 66 66
Shift and press G. 67 67
Ok. 68 68
First of all we want to modify the text, 69 69
which stands on top of all elements stating "Company was founded". 70 70
Let's substitute it with 71 71
"Country opening". 72 72
I can easily do that by typing once and then 73 73
copying and pasting for the rest of the cells. 74 74
The other thing that we need to change is the date below each of the country openings. 75 75
Kinemax started its international operations in Italy in February 2010. 76 76
After which it started doing business in the UK 77 77
in November 2010. 78 78
The German office of the company was opened in March 79 79
2011, 80 80
while it entered the Turkish market in July 81 81
2011. 82 82
Finally it went on to form a joint venture in order to access the Brazilian market in November 83 83
2012. 84 84
In order to facilitate our audience we'll add the flag of each of these countries. 85 85
We have Italy. 86 86
Followed by the UK. 87 87
Next is Germany. 88 88
After that will add that Turkish flag. 89 89
Finally we'll insert the Brazilian flag. 90 90
I'll select all flags and order them to the top. 91 91
Let's group each of the blocks. 92 92
As before I am using the Ctrl +G shortcut in order to group the items. 93 93
This will facilitate their repositioning on the timeline. 94 94
Let's insert a box on the right side of the sheet. 95 95
I will right-click on the box and open the Format Shape menu. 96 96
Once there, I'll change its color to gray 97 97
and remove its borderline. 98 98
We can close the menu 99 99
and make another right-click on the box in order to apply the "Send to Back" command. 100 100
This shape will indicate the events that are planned to occur 101 101
in the future of the company. 102 102
Let's clarify this message by inserting an additional box, in which we will write "Future developments". 103 103
I'll right-click on the box and change its font size to eleven, 104 104
put it in bold 105 105
and remove its outline. 106 106
Let's do some additional formatting. 107 107
we can change the fill of the box to dark blue 108 108
and introduce a shadow effect, which is transparent at 80%. 109 109
Ok. Much better, right? 110 110
Kinemax plans to start operating in the Netherlands, Spain and Norway. 111 111
Let's show that on the timeline. 112 112
I'll select the office building icon and the line element and group them with Ctrl + G. 113 113
Then we can copy and paste the block three times - 114 114
once for each of the new offices. 115 115
Let's position these elements in the future developments area and align them. 116 116
Once we've done that, we can insert the flags of the three countries. 117 117
I'll insert Netherlands' flag, 118 118
the Spanish flag 119 119
and finally the Norwegian flag. 120 120
This completes the upper part of our timeline.