PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques

New Article published on Wisconsin Technology Network - "Nowhere to hide"

2008-08-18T11:48:12-05:00

I've written another article for Wisconsin Technology Network in the ongoing series in the Buzz Networks series of columns. The article "Nowhere to hide: buyer behavior in a connected world" discusses the impact of the Internet on buyer behavior.

Paul Gibler

PowerPoint & Presentation Tidbits - Guides, authorSTREAM, PPT2Flash

2008-08-11T09:00:00-05:00

TechRepublic author Susan Harkins has a good reminder on using Guides in PowerPoint. The shortcut of grabbing a guide and using the Ctrl key to replicate the Guide is explained in this recent article .

Mashables reports on how authorSTREAM, an online slide sharing tool like SlideShare now has the capability for direct server-to-server transfer of AuthorSTREAM presentations to YouTube. In addition to YouTube transfer, the authorSTREAM site refers to the ability to transfers a presentation format that can be displayed on your iPod.

Conaito offers PowerPoint to Flash conversion software called PPT2Flash SDK.

Enhancing Your Meetings and Conferences With Web 2.0 Tools

2008-08-08T12:51:34-05:00

Are your meetings and conferences fully utilizing web 2.0 tools to connect and engage with customers?

I had the pleasure of presenting a keynote on ways to incorporate these tools into your meeting armamentarium at the 2nd Annual National Conference on University and College Conference Centers that was held earlier this week in Tuscaloosa, AL. I've posted the slides here using SlideShare to showcase one way that your meetings can be enhanced i.e. osting and sharing your meeting slides using a slide sharing tool like this. Beyond online slide sharing, there are many ways that your meeting and conferences can be enhanced using web 2.0 tools like online video, photo sharing of meeting attendees, blogs, wikis, social network site groups, etc.

If you'd like help with figuring out how to incorporate these concepts into your next conference, drop me a line or call me in the U.S. at 608 255 4092.

Buzz Networks:conference engagement with social computing tools

View SlideShare presentation (tags: social computing conference tools)

Beyond presentations - resources of interest

2008-07-23T13:53:00-05:00

Here are a couple of links to articles and resources that I thing you'll find interesting.

Beyond Blogs - Business Week writers and bloggers Heather Green and Stephen Baker refresh their popular 2005 cover story "Blogs Will Change Your Business" with "Beyond Blogs", a refreshing look at some of the many tools of social computing that are having an impact within the enterprise and among consumers.

Photo Sharing Sites - Looking for photo sharing sites beyond Flickr? Check out this listing and evaluation on Photography Bay of 45 sites.

For those of you with event planning responsibilities, you might find Pictoma worth checking out.

Nibblets - Web 2.0 Ready Conference Presentations

2008-07-16T13:47:27-05:00

CNET has an interesting article "How to Survive the Next Generation Confab" talking about how presenters need to be prepared for the "backchannel" discussions that are going on during their presentations. In the past these conversations or audience feedback were often not clear except through chatter generated after the presentation; through attendees exiting the venue, chatting or demonstrating boredom during the presentation; through questions asked or through formal presentation evaluations post-conference. Today these activities are being supplemented by real time chatter through tools like Twitter, through live blogging and other web 2.0 activities. Attendees are expecting to be heard and to participate more actively in the session.

One recommendation is that there be a moderator that is monitoring the conversation so that if the presenter is off track they can be brought back to the topics of interest to presenters. Another interesting idea that I think would be somewhat problematic and distracting is to have the chatter projected on a screen.

New Jib Jab Film

2008-07-16T10:54:18-05:00

the Web Chef

Animators Social Network

2008-06-20T09:00:00-05:00

Are you interested in animation? If so, you might want to take a look at MyToons.com, a social network for people interested in the animation industry. There could be potential applications for corporate presenters looking to "spice" up their presentations with an appropriate animation from one of these very talented animators.

Here's a recent animation "Awareness" that uses claymation that was posted on the site.

Video Insertion in PowerPoint - YouTube Video Download and Conversion and QuickTime Conversion

2008-06-19T09:00:00-05:00

In today's multi-media era, audiences expect to not only to hear from presenters but to see the "moving pictures" that help tell their story. With the explosive growth of YouTube, users can often find clips there that can help meet this objective. Unfortunately, the lack of transparency on how to download YouTube video files and format incompatibilities between YouTube .flv files and Microsoft acceptable video files don't make this the easiest task. In addition to YouTube videos, many presenters are recording their own videos that are created in QuickTime and struggling to convert these for use in PowerPoint presentations.

So how can you solve these problems? Here are a few recent suggestions that are worth exploring:

The Star Bulletin Tech Writer John Aksalud has written an article "How to Use YouTube Effectively" that delineates the two steps in the process to saving and converting a YouTube video for offline use in your presentations. He provides links to 3 video download services (Keepvid.com, Savevideodownload.com and Savetube.com) and 3 conversion services ( Pazera-Software.com, Flv-to-mp3 and Prism Video Converter) to help you with this task.

San Francisco Chronicle author David Einstein has another technique for downloading YouTube videos in a recent Q& A column where he references typing in the word "kiss" in the YouTube video URL right after the www. and before youtube in the address. This takes you to the Kiss YouTube site where with one click and the word kiss you can download your YouTube video in .flv format. This video can format can in turn be converted using a tool like Videopiggy. Interestingly the Videopiggy site says that their software will do this in one step, so it appears that the "kiss" aspect of the assignment might be avoided.

I watched a couple of YouTube video in their How To series that provides examples of server based video download and conversion services like MediaConverter.org, Vixy.net, Convertyoube.com, Modifyvideo.com, vconvert.net and flvix.com along with examples and benefits of downloading and converting at your desktop using the services like those referenced elsewhere in this posting. Here's one of the videos that I watched.

Meanwhile, The New York Times Personal Tech columnist J.D. Bierdorfer offers tips on how to convert QuickTime videos to a format like .avi that are supported by PowerPoint by using either QuickTime Pro or services like RAD Video Tools or MediaCoder.

Look elsewhere on this blog for other references for how best to accomplish this task.

Good Presentation on Death to Bad PPT

2008-06-18T11:55:35-05:00

Alexei Kapterev has put together a good presentation that is available on SlideShare providing some guidelines to making your presentation more effective. He suggests focusing on 4 items -

Significance
Structure
Simplicity
Rehearsal

The slide show provides a quick view of 61 slides that you can watch here.

| View | Upload your own

Hat tip to Seattle PI, The Biz Bite blogger Whitney Keyes post "How to Give a Great Presentation".

It's my birthday... and I'll reminisce if I want to

2008-06-13T09:00:00-05:00

Today's my birthday. I'm 52.

I thought it was only appropriate to take a step back and review how the world of technology has shaped our presentations.

Overhead Transparencies
Technology that supports presentations has changed dramatically since I started my post-graduate career in 1980. When I started my career, platform time was spent with transparencies and an overhead projector. You felt really advanced if you had typed overheads (usually created by a Secretary with access to a typewriter) or some sort of image on the transparency. If you were really cool, you got your marker out and marked on the overhead as you spoke to the audience. You always wanted to make sure you used erasable markers just in case you wanted to re-use the transparency.

35mm and the Word Processing Center
The next phase that I recall was 35 mm slides. We used a production house called 35 West here in the Madison, WI area at 3512 West Beltline Highway. It was a clever play on words and their address.

Getting from our thoughts to the final 35 mm presentation involved a detour through the Word Processing Center. Do you remember Word Processing Centers? If so, you're probably at least 50. I can remember writing up the words that we wanted on slides and having the Word Processing Center type up the notes. Our center was made up of 3 women with their Wang Computers and I think with Office Writer. You'd drop off a handwritten document and they'd type it up for you. You'd mark it up and return it to them for correction.

35 West would prepare our slides always with a dark blue background and yellow and white type. Our template was pretty clear on this. I don't remember what we paid for each slide, but it wasn't cheap. Our slide shows were used by our sales reps and in some cases we did some cool things with muliple projector slide shows for tradeshows using our trays of 35mm slides.

D-I-Y Presentations
Needless to say our Word Processing Center probably lasted for about a year in my early career when the 3 ladies were displaced with the arrival of our brand spanking new computers. We now had the first generation tools to create documents, presentations, etc. While 35 West and 35 mm slides didn't disappear immediately, they were on a rapid trajectory of decline.

In the Harvard Graphics and PowerPoint era, where you had the tools to create and re-create content as you wanted. Clip art was so much fun! You could throw in the spinning figures, cartoons and lots of words to make your point.

What about today? Death by PowerPoint has entered the popular lexicon. We've moved into the multi-media era. Audiences are bored by bullet points, tons of words and monotonous presenters. They are used to watching YouTube and listening to audio clips and expect to always be entertained.

As you look at your history and experience as a presenter using different technology how do you see the future evolving?

Paul J Gibler
the Web Chef