Illustrating Your Ideas | Episode 15 Video Lecture | Business Communication: The Ultimate Guide

hey everyone thanks for joining us for
this week's lecture we're gonna take a
little bit of a break from our
traditional format that we use to go
over some of the material and we're
gonna have more hands-on approach this
week if you notice the material that
we're discussing is creating
illustrations specifically using those
to present our information in a more
useful way obviously there's more than
one way to present information before
we've been doing originally we've been
talking about utilizing our writing for
the purpose of conveying information but
also conveying it in a certain way and
as you'll find people generally find it
more appealing when you present
information in the form of an actual
illustration like a table graph or
something like that it's more
eye-catching and it's easier to
understand and it also is really
difficult if you're trying to display a
series of numbers in traditional essay
format there's a lot of information
going on and how do you know if the
person on the other end is actually
absorbing that particular material a
couple of things that we'll go over are
creating tables and different graphs as
well as process flow charts for the
purpose of actually communicating
specific material now before you go
forward any further and what I do
recommend is actually logging into
blackboard and downloading the PDF that
I just posted in our new learning module
here for week
4 chapter 7 which is gonna be labeled
illustration exercises it'll be in the
module for this week
and you're gonna use that just to kind
of follow along now obviously I'm screen
sharing Microsoft Excel at this point so
you'll be able to see the work that I do
and follow along but I can't I can only
share one thing at a time so you won't
be able to see the exercises on my
screen so make sure that you have that
handy so you know what it is that we're
doing and can follow along and the idea
here is that at the very least you
should be able to create some basic
charts and graphs and those types of
things so you can use in your own work
going forward so hopefully we can give
you a little bit of skills in those
particular areas now this is gonna be
really basic for the most part so we're
not going to go into any kind of great
detail specifically but I'm just trying
to make sure that we all have some type
of base knowledge to kind of work with
going forward
the first thing you can see here is from
the practice exercise sheet that I've
created for you is we have a series of
exercises that we'll get through the
first of which is going to be
surrounding creating a table in
Microsoft Excel so I have Excel open if
you don't have Excel you'll want to
access the computer that does it's very
easy to use very much considered to be
an industry standard although you can
use different spreadsheet programs or
spreadsheet software although that may
not be identical obviously to what I'm
doing as of right now so that may be
somewhat of an issue if you're using you
know numbers in Apple or a different
type of product so the first thing we
have here is we have a series of
information we have 2011 and 2012
product sales and we're given sales
figures for every month so it's our job
to present this information in the
manner that's very very easy to read
frankly now we don't have to necessarily
write out a long paragraph full of each
of the months and what their sales
figures is there's a much easier way to
convey the information that the reader
can actually grasp what we're trying to
communicate so the first thing that
we're gonna do here is create our table
and we want to have obviously headings
for each of the months on here first
you'll notice that as I type these in
and every cell and you'll want to do the
same on your end that I'm leaving a
little bit of space at the beginning or
on the top I should say and the reason
for that is you want to add a leave a
little bit of space so we can make any
changes we need to add additional
headings if we want to and all those
different types of things as well so
always leave yourself a little bit of
space so you can do some editing
afterwards don't necessarily worry about
the width of the columns at this point
notice that December or I'm sorry
September is a little cut off obviously
because the column is not wide enough
we'll change those things later on we
just want to get some words in the cells
at this point so we can make those
changes next thing you're going to want
to do is go ahead and key in the sales
figures for each particular month so I'm
gonna go ahead and do that
tabbing over works better instead of
hitting the enter key if you hit enter
notice it takes you to the original cell
for the row below that if you hit tab
it'll take you it'll continue to take
you all the way over to the right much
as you're seeing on my screen right here
so feel free and enter everything in as
I do
okay now what you can do and the reason
I didn't you may be asking why I'm not
putting dollar signs and commas and
decimals and all those different types
of things is I can key in just the
numerical data
much easier and then I can actually
highlight the entire area and go over
here to this little dollar sign and it
will CH actually change everything over
to an accounting format essentially
which adds the dollar sign comma and the
decimals now notice that we don't
necessarily have anything after the
decimal point so one of the things that
you can do is if you look up here where
my cursor is you can actually decrease
the indent so in this case we're taking
off one zero and if I hit that again it
takes off that last zero obviously if
you had some type of figure after the
decimal point you probably want to
include that maybe you don't but at the
very least we can have that removed and
I just noticed here that October is
missing one zero that makes a big
difference okay so we have that all
ready to go so already we're starting to
look like we have at least some type of
information there it's organized
somewhat neatly now we're going to want
to go ahead and make some changes to
ultimately how it looks
um so the first thing we can do is we
obviously want our headings to stand out
a little bit right we don't like that it
blends together with the text so much we
want it to kind of pop a little bit so
you can go ahead and put that in bold
one of the two ways to do that of course
is you can scroll up here you see my
cursor and hit this bold icon and there
you go you can also hit control B on
your keyboard there and that will do
ultimately the same thing now that we
have kind of an idea on roughly how much
space we're going to take up because
notice when the word is Boldin it takes
up more space we can actually mess with
the column width here now you can click
on see how my cursor looks a little
different right now you can click here
and then drag to where it's more inline
or you can just double click on for
example the line between my C and D
columns and that will automatically
format it based upon what's in that
particular column and so much easier way
than worrying about exactly how much
space to allocate to individual column
it just
depends upon what's in the cells okay
next thing we want to do is we want to
Center it it's not so much of an issue
for the columns that have more text in
there because there's not enough space
to really tell but you notice like May
June and July they're obviously left
hand justified there so we want them to
all look pretty similar so we can go
ahead and Center those there that way
there's a uniform and consistent look
across the whole table here next thing
we want to do is give this guy an actual
heading right and so we want to give it
a title in this case we can just go
ahead and title it 2011 in 2012 product
sales now of course we need to Center it
I'm easiest way to do that is we can
make this entire area one cell and so if
you highlight this entire area right
above where it's from January here to
December over here we can actually
what's called merge and center that and
if you hit this button right here that's
exactly what's that's going to do
basically combines those cells into one
actual cell so when I click on this it's
basically treating it as it were one
cell so I can edit everything in here as
it were one actual cell so I can do
things like go ahead and change it to
bold I can even increase the typeface a
little bit so it stands out a little
more and then there you go
and so already starting to look a little
more presentable next thing you can do
is give it some borders borders are a
great way of allowing readers to be able
to distinguish between certain areas of
a table so the way I can do that is
obviously highlight all of the the
entire table I have here and I go up
here to this particular area if you
click this arrow that's facing downward
it'll open up a series of options for
you you can choose from and you can do
things like just stablishing all borders
in which case everything on the or in
that highlighted area will have a border
all the cells will if you need to go
back you just click this area highlight
everything and you go ahead and select
the option for no borders and it'll take
everything off now or we can maybe we
just want to do one large border for the
top here and then leave it at that so
you have one thick border and then
nothing down here there's a lot of
different things that you can do
depending upon you know how you want to
present the material you can do that and
then maybe just have smaller borders
here let me change this back here real
quick so a lot of different things you
can do here obviously I encourage you to
play around with it a little bit and see
what you like I do encourage you don't
necessarily take it too far
you know just because technology allows
us to do a lot of different neat things
that doesn't mean that you necessarily
have to and you don't want to detract
from what you're trying to present I
mean you don't want anybody necessarily
going on and on about the actual layout
you want them actually looking at the
material that's kind of what the purpose
is so don't change anything too
drastically but obviously it's a little
fun to go ahead and play around with it
and kind of make some changes and that
sort of thing so this is an example of
an actual table you can go ahead and
copy paste or drag into a Word document
and does a great job of presenting the
information in a very very neat and
succinct way as well so let's move on
and take this information and create a a
line chart out of it
the first thing that we need to do is we
actually need to highlight the
information that we want to turn into a
chart so most people will go ahead and
highlight the actual numerical data and
what you want to do is also highlight in
addition to the numerical data the
months because obviously this sales
figure is tied to January and this sales
figure is tied to February so on and so
forth and that's what you want to tell
the computer program is that those
numbers are tied to those months
otherwise it's going to create a graph
with only sales figures and you're gonna
have no basis for comparison or not know
what months they correspond to so I've
gone ahead and highlighted the area that
I want to turn into a actual chart next
thing you want to do is click insert and
you have a couple of different options
in this area of your screen right here
and what we're gonna select is line and
once again we have a lot of different
options um one thing I do recommend is
never do 3d charts they may look really
cool but it's really difficult to see
the information once they're created if
you don't believe me try selecting it
and kind of see what happens um so it
doesn't look very good
stick to the additional 2d charts those
look much better
more commonly used you want ready to run
to any issues there so let's select the
basic 3d or 2d line chart here which I
just did and automatically a chart will
pop up and this automatically syncs the
area in the chart with the months below
that it'll automatically create
different values right here on the side
which is great so you kind of have some
frame of reference on okay you know
where's the line in comparison to that
particular area and you have a legend
over here which explains to you what
does one line mean obviously isn't so
important if you only have one
particular line right because people are
gonna automatically assume what that
means but if you ever get into
presenting more than one of something
let's say if you have four or five
companies and you're comparing their
sales over a certain period you are
gonna want to distinguish between okay
at red is Dell green is Apple blue is HP
and all those different things so you
can also do a lot of different things
with the chart itself um you can play
around with ultimately the look of it
the layout you know what how the font
the type of the font a lot of different
things you have a lot of different
resources or options at your disposal
here to ultimately change things one of
the things that I always like to do is
change the color of that particular line
because it always defaults to that
really funky blue color which I never
really like let's do that just double
click on the line go here to line color
you can select solid and then you can
change the line to whatever color you
would ultimately like it to be in this
case I'll go with the traditional black
color here and then you can change the
size of it if you want to make it a
little larger if you want to change the
series here you want to give it an
actual name you know you have to do is
right-click go to select data right here
and on this screen
you're gonna see a couple of options
here but if you see series one this is
the name that you're giving to that line
on your chart there and if you edit it
you can change that to whatever you want
so in my case I'll change it to sales
figures okay and there we go
automatically it went ahead and changed
what's on the legend of my particular
chart notice it also changed the heading
of the chart you can click in this box
it's just a text box and then you could
change what's in here as well you can
change the font if it's bold or not all
those different things you have a lot of
different resources to make changes here
but this is an example of a really basic
line chart here that we've gone ahead
and created all right if you need any
additional info on that feel free and
you know rewind and go through it again
I do apologize if I brushed over
anything but I try to go slowly to make
sure that you had you know everything
you needed to get going so let's move on
to exercise C we already went through a
obviously creating the table B was
creating a line chart from that
information let's go on to exercise C
which is specifically related to market
share so I'm gonna scroll down here in
Excel and give us some some more space
to work in an exercise C is very similar
only that we're dealing with percentages
specifically percentages of market share
for in the US PC industry or personal
computer computing industry so we have a
number of different market shares the
first thing that we have to do is create
a table in Excel so we can use to create
our pie chart which is of course
exercise D so let's go ahead and put
that information in there real quick the
first thing I'm going to do is actually
create our headings for the companies
that we're working with here let me
start a little lower so we have HP Dell
Acer Apple Toshiba and then the other
category and now we want to go ahead and
enter in the information we're working
with here so I usually enter everything
in decimal forms first and then I
changed them to percentages just because
Microsoft Excel sometimes gets a little
finicky if you don't do it that way when
you're trying to multiply
sells together so here we go and then
I'm gonna go ahead and highlight this
area and click this percentage button to
change everything of percentages it
defaults and not including a decimal
point so like we did last time you can
actually increase the indentation or
increase the decimal and add that last
decimal back in there since we don't
want to necessarily round next thing I
can do is I can add a a header here so I
want to put market share for this guy
maybe I want to double click on this
line here so it's formatted correctly
and then like last time I can create an
overall header for the entire the entire
table so I can put something along the
lines of Us PC industry market share
well I kind of kind of sounds a little
redundant let me just put us PC industry
and then I do want to go ahead and merge
and center these so it's all one cell
it's much easier to edit if it's just
one cell and then we can go ahead and
play around with the formatting in the
text and everything let's say I want to
make this a little bigger so it stands
out maybe I want to bold
I'll bold this one too and then we can
go ahead and change the actual
configuration with borders so there we
go and so we just successfully created a
basic obviously table in Microsoft Excel
presenting some of the information that
we obviously want to convey to people
actually looking at whatever it is that
we're presenting so we have that there
so let's take this and let's create a
pie chart from it similar to how we did
an exercise B where we created that line
chart we're gonna select the area that
we want to create a chart with so we
have to actually select the headings as
well because it's gonna tell Microsoft
Excel ultimately which percentage
corresponds to which particular company
next thing we're going to do is go back
up to insert and you notice there's an
option for pie charts so select that
drop-down box and you have a couple of
different options here let's go with a
basic 2d pie chart you can also utilize
this exploded pie chart which is great
if you're trying to highlight a certain
area in our case we're not really
to highlight any area we're just trying
to show the percentages of each
particular company as they compared to
the entire PC market so once I select
that here or instantly given a an actual
pie chart that breaks up each of these
companies in certain areas you know this
is a great way to present information
specifically because you don't have to
present the actual percentages I can
just see what portion HP has and infer
roughly what percentage they have it's
probably a little more than 25% based
upon the actual chart here same thing
with Dell Dell it looks like is roughly
about 50 based upon how much of a
position they have out of this pie chart
so although we don't have to communicate
the percentages we're giving our readers
a good depiction over how large of a
market share this company has out of the
entire hole now if you want to include
the percentages all you have to do is
right click on the chart as I just did
and click add data labels and once you
click on that it's going to go ahead and
add those percentages in there if it's
something that you want to include you
can do a number of different things to
the actual pie chart on top of that as
well
double clicking on it will bring up some
options for you you can put borders on
it you can fill certain areas you can
even change the colors of different
areas obviously Microsoft Excel doesn't
automatically produce the most visual
appealing visually appealing colors but
you have a number of different options
you can choose from noticed up here you
have different chart tools as well so
you can select on this and change kind
of the configuration of the charts you
want to go with something like that
makes it look a little stand out a
little more point being you have a
number of different options at your
disposal so toya round with those kind
of see what you like what looks good
what doesn't look very good that's the
best way to find out if something
doesn't look right just start clicking
on different buttons and seeing
ultimately what they do
that's how a lot of people learn best so
but congratulations you just
successfully created a pie chart in
Microsoft Excel
all right the last thing that we're
going to do here obviously is exercise e
on which we're going to create a
decision tree and in this exercise we're
creating a decision tree to help a
hiring manager evaluate a job applicant
decision trees are great for a series of
sequential events specifically if you're
trying to outline something in a very
easy to read fashion so that you want to
make sure that the person that's looking
at your work is going to understand what
they need to do and if they don't
they're gonna you know it's it's gonna
be on them pretty much so you don't want
to necessarily leave it up to their
interpretation if you look at your PDF
file with exercise II I've already
outlined some of the things that we're
going to go ahead and do and those are
listed under exercise II items one
through six but notice that I've listed
each of these things in numerical form
indicating that there's a certain
sequence of events specifically and a
lot of times this will work in terms of
how it's being presented but if we
wanted to illustrate this in a much
easier to read fashion we can use an
actual decision tree to illustrate the
idea much more successfully and this is
gonna send a lot simpler than you think
it's not a very difficult thing to do
although it does take a little bit of
work but I'm gonna show you a basic way
to create your own decision tree one
thing I will tell you was a lot of
software programs are designed to do
this very thing I'm so you can get into
much more kind of intricate and complex
things if you're utilizing a software
and there's different ways you can do it
I'm going to teach you a very basic
approach that is very easy to use and
you can plug and play real quick it's
not going to take a whole lot of you
know researching and doing all those
different types of things so without
that or with with that said let's go
ahead and get started here so let's
create our decision tree here to help
this hiring manager evaluate a job
applicant the first thing I want to do
is we want to start putting text boxes
here text boxes are great for
establishing certain areas that we can
apply text to and then we can kind of
move that around based upon what we want
to do so if you clip click up here on
insert you're going to have a couple of
options that actually come up on your
screen if you follow my cursor we're
going to go all the way over here to
where it says text box and then once we
select that
to give us a couple options there are a
number of different text boxes that you
can choose from we're gonna go with the
simple format just to keep everything
pretty basic and then we can actually
type our text in this particular box
here um so let's start with the first
thing that we have here our first step
is asking if the applicant has the
availability to work for that time
period so let's go ahead enter that in
here make sure I can spell everything
correctly perfect we're not going to
necessarily worry about formatting and
all those different types of things you
can do that kind of on your own and use
some of the skills we've been talking
about over the course of the semester
here we're gonna go ahead and move this
over here and so we have our first one
that's already done and so obviously
with a decision tree you're trying to
give the reader an idea on what to do so
we have to give them some decisions so
there's one of two things is going to
happen either it's going to be a yes or
no of course so let's say for example if
it's a yes we want to create a new box
here
and if it's a yes they're gonna scroll
down to their next option which is does
the applicant meet the minimum
experience requirements and I'm going to
put all these boxes on here first and
then we're going to go ahead and edit
them at one time just so we make sure
that we're efficient not having to do
things more than once okay and if you
wanted to be really fancy too you can
just go ahead and click on one of those
boxes hit ctrl C to copy and then hit
control V and then you'll actually go
ahead and just recreate them like that
much easier to do much quicker don't
have to but if you're trying to be more
efficient you can certainly do that okay
got that one I'm going to create one
more
and we cut our fixed fifth box here
notice I'm not necessarily worrying
about where they're placed I'm just kind
of putting in in the general area that
they're going to go once I create my
decision tree just make sure we
highlight that
you may be wondering what a Wonderlic
test and behavioral interviews are don't
necessarily worry about that that's not
the point of the exercise I'm just
trying to get you used to seeing how you
can create a actual text box here so we
have everything down here that we are
going to be using we can obviously move
these around where we want and all those
different types of things as well
most software's usually will allow you
all this one's not doing it will tell
you when you're kind of in line with
certain areas that way you don't have to
necessarily wonder if you're you know
obviously running parallel with
something or if how far you wait are you
away from it will just kind of have to
use our you know kind of a rough
estimate so to speak but but usually a
lot of different software will tell you
when you're the same width apart from
each of the boxes so it has the same
same look to it although I don't see
that kind of coming up in here but we do
need to go ahead and add some arrows
obviously first because this is a
decision tree so we're trying to show
not only as sequential steps obviously
but where to go after you complete the
step above it so what we can do is go
once again to insert here and you're
going to see that we have some shapes so
click on shapes and we're specifically
going to be looking at these arrows
right here arrows are a great way
obviously to show what to do after you
go to one particular event so let's put
an arrow pointing down here and there
you go now we can drag this a little bit
of course if we want to put it somewhere
else remove it over here to the right a
little bit just so it's centered and
then what you can do is go ahead and
copy so and then paste that so we can
use that as well and that is a great way
to also to find out roughly if your
boxes are actually you know the same
width apart and notice here that I'm
able to move a little quicker because
what I've done is just gone ahead and
copy that once and then I'm continuing
to hit control V which is just a fast
way to go ahead and pay something
and last one there we go okay
so we have all of our arrows here let me
change this real quick this is just
gonna bug me if it's not exactly right
there we go all right so of all our
errors here pointing down now we do have
to obviously have some arrows that
indicate if we don't move on right
because if the applicant has the
availability right for a time to work at
the time required it can be a yes or no
and if it's a yes we obviously want to
move that person further along and
obviously if they don't meet the next
one like the minimum of experience
requirements they essentially get
siphoned out of that applicable pool but
if they continue to pass the
requirements they move all the way down
to that next particular process here but
if they don't there has to be something
that we can do to get them out of there
so one of the things we can do is you
want to create one more last text box
here for what happens if they don't move
on so let's put that over here and then
if they don't for any reason move on in
the application process we can say send
out formal denial thank you letter it
sounds kind of funny formal denial thank
you letter denying and saying thank you
at the same time obviously this is the
type of letter that you receive from a
company that does not move you on in the
hiring process hey thank you so much for
applying we encourage you to do it going
forward unfortunately your experience
didn't match the qualifications and what
we were looking for blah yadda yadda so
on and so forth so we want to send that
letter obviously to thank people for
applying because we want them to feel
appreciated we want them to apply again
if they're qualified but they just
wardens weren't in this particular case
so now we need to go ahead and set some
arrows up for this particular area of
the decision tree so we'll go ahead and
do that here I'm gonna go ahead and have
one arrow starting in this box and going
all the way over here
I'm going to go ahead and duplicate that
particular arrow here because I'm going
to use it for all of these other areas
as well so I'll do the same here same
here and here and there and then one
more although this next one we're not
necessary going to need for it to be so
long so what I can do is then drag that
back over here and then there we go
and now we have to have obviously one
last arrow which just kind of shows the
linkage between everything so going all
the way down here to this particular box
and if you really wanted to you can go
through and change all these to make
sure that they touch Oh kind of like so
alright so there we go now we want to
give the reader an idea on what to do in
certain situations here so the number of
different ways that you can actually do
this usually in Microsoft Word it will
allow you if you want to type some text
if you double click on the area that you
want to go ahead and put text in if it
should take you to that particular area
and so this would be obviously you know
same thing here let's see if we can go
down one more I'll put it right there
and so what this basically means is when
asking the question if the result is a
No then the person that's basically
looking at this decision chart would
follow this process over and then send
out that formal denial thanking them for
actually applying if for any reason
let's say for example they have the
availability then we obviously want that
to be a yes and we want them to continue
to move down in this area so I want them
to continue to go on to get evaluated
for experience we want them to be
evaluated based upon their educational
requirements
want them to obviously evaluated based
upon their skills want them to go
through the Wunderlich and then moving
on and so forth so obviously this is a
great way to illustrate the process for
something not just for the hiring
process per se but anything that has a
number of series of steps this is great
for troubleshooting obviously a lot of
companies use this they'll post
documents similar to these actually on
websites so you can troubleshoot and I
will say did this work yes in that case
you're done no then move on to this step
over here so once again great way for
illustrating a lot of different steps to
a process and helping someone come to a
particular decision it only took us
about 10 minutes to set that up and in
my opinion it actually lays everything
out much more simply and easier for me
to understand versus going through a
series of bulleted lists and figuring
out if they have each particular thing
so hopefully you found that useful in
terms of exercises what we'll be doing
is something very similar to that so if
you need to clarify if you need a
refresher feel free and review the video
again if I went over any of the steps
too quickly for you so thank you for
joining and have a great week