Boris Hristov

Founder of 356labs

Founder of 356labs
and PowerPoint MVP.
Speaker, Trainer & Author.
A guy that loves to do sports, have fun and enjoy life. Gallery / Blog / Contact

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Podcast: Presentation Design, 356labs and a Bit of SQL Server

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It’s a podcast after podcast, after podcast! This time I was invited by a friend of mine from the SQL Server community – Chris Bell to talk about my shift from the world of databases to the world of presentations and presentation design. We chatted for an hour and discussed a ton of things around what it takes to become a successful speaker and how to create stunning slides that differentiate you as a presenter. I shared quite some really practical advises, so go ahead, click the link and enjoy listening!

Podcast: Successful Presentations, Starting a Company and More

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Madeira Podcast

Here we go again! Again?

A few months back I was invited to join my friends from MadeiraSQL – Matan Yungman and Guy Glantser as part of their podcast and this time we talked not about SQL Server! This time we focused on my new adventure – 356labs. However, the podcast turned out to be not just on presentation design and why it matters, but incredibly practical. I thought it would be really cool to share a ton of seriously practical advices and so I did! 

Enjoy listening as this is probably one of my best podcasts ever!

Train the Trainer!
A Collection of 50 Posts For You!

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A few months ago I got a chance to train and mentor a group of 20+ future IT trainers as part of a Train the Trainer course at the Software University in Bulgaria. Back then I decided I will take notes of the mistakes I see and then blog about them thus creating a small library of useful knowledge that can help everyone who is or wants to be a trainer at some point in his career.

Below are the 50 blog posts that I wrote on my company’s site that I am sure will make you both better trainer and speaker in general!

Enjoy reading and in case you want me to come and train you and your team, you obviously know how to reach me now!  😉

Mistake 1: Phones Ringing
Mistake 2: The Dying Battery
Mistake 3: Not Using Your Own Machine
Mistake 4: Not Using a Presenter(Pointer)
Mistake 5: The Screensaver
Mistake 6: The Notifications
Mistake 7: Busy Demos
Mistake 8: Equipment Problems
Mistake 9: Projector Problems
Mistake 10: IDEs Not Demo Ready
Mistake 11: Your Name, Please
Mistake 12: EXCUSES
Mistake 13: Weak Start
Mistake 14: 0 Experience!?
Mistake 15: Reading From Your Slides
Mistake 16: The Watch
Mistake 17: Notes In Your Hand!?
Mistake 18: Timing Issues
Mistake 19: Skipping Slides
Mistake 20: Too Much Stuff
Mistake 21: Acronyms
Mistake 22: “As You Know”
Mistake 23: Foreign Words
Mistake 24: Filler Words
Mistake 25: The Wrong Approach!!!
Mistake 26: No Audience Involvement 
Mistake 27: Slide Mix
Mistake 28: Thinking You Are A God!?
Mistake 29: Staying Behind Something
Mistake 30: No Eye Contact
Mistake 31: Hands Behind The Back
Mistake 32: Talking Fast
Mistake 33: Irrelevant Demos
Mistake 34: Summarize The Demo
Mistake 35: Not Sure In Your Demo
Mistake 36: Writing Code Live
Mistake 37: No Data Source Referenced
Mistake 38: Spelling Errors
Mistake 39: Weak End
Mistake 40: The Microphone
Mistake 41: Too Much Text
Mistake 42: 16:9 not 4:3 
Mistake 43: PowerPoint Templates
Mistake 44: No Text Animation
Mistake 45: Weird Animations
Mistake 46: 3D Stuff
Mistake 47: Images Everywhere
Mistake 48: Different Fonts
Mistake 49: Color Combinations
Mistake 50: Slideshow, please!

You read them all? Let me know what you think in the comments!

Speaking at ITCamp 2016, Romania

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itcamp_romaniaI am happy to share that I will be speaking at the IT Camp 2016 Conference in Cluj, Romania on 26th and 27th of May. IT Camp is one of the major community technology conferences in Romania and it’s a privilege for me to be invited to speak there.

My topic is: “Live Presentation Transformation: From Boring to Effective” and my plan is to do something a bit unexpected and more or less unusual. I want to share and actually show an approach that everyone who is presenting, for one reason or another, can take and then utilize when preparing his slides because let’s be honest – aren’t we sick from the typical boring PowerPoint presentations? I think we are and I believe it’s high time to change that. So what you can expect from my session is to see how the typical slide deck becomes something effective and not boring. And yes, that is a session for IT people / Managers. Not for graphic designers!

I am already looking forward to spending almost 3 full days with the Romanian IT community, so in case you see this blog post and you are coming, let me know in the comments and I would love to chat with you in-person! 🙂

Update: The team at IT Camp published an interview with me. In case you may want to read it, it’s here. 

Update 2: Recorded a teaser video for my session! You can watch it below! 😉

Update 3: A few days after I got back from Romania, I can easily say that this was one of the best events I have spoken to. The logistics, the venue, the audience, the sessions and the attention to the detail in every single aspect were almost second to none. I had around 60 – 70 people in my room and that’s a pretty decent number for a presentation talk on an IT event with 5 tracks running in parallel! My favorite moment from my session is definitely this one and for all of who you were in the room – I promised the materials, I deliver them to you. Everything I showed and shared is below! Thanks again to the IT Camp 2016 team for inviting me and I hope I will see you all guys next year too!

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Speaking at ABLE Mentor Season 5

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Boris_Hristov_at_Able_Mentor_3ABLE Mentor. An organization that is doing something pretty cool – helping students succeed by providing them mentors from the real world who teach them on the skills they will need in their future careers.

I was happy to be invited to deliver a 3 hour and a 3 part seminar on presentation skills and presentation design and what can I say – it was great fun! The group was of 50 – 60 incredible young people, opened and eager to learn and you guessed it right probably – whenever you are surrounded by a group like this, you have no other option, but to enjoy it, have fun and deliver for them!

To the students – all of the materials we used and I promised to you are here! Photos -> here!

@ABLE Mentor, thank you once again for inviting me! It was a pleasure!