PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques

How Twitter is Being Used at Conferences

09_edumedia

New Article at IBMadison - Advancing by Retweeting

Are you interested in learning how to use Twitter as part of your social media strategy?

If so, you might find my new blog posting at IBMadison -"Advancing by Retweeting" interesting.  The posting gives you 12 key steps to get going with Twitter.  It also analyzes some of the local, national and international businesses in Madison, Wisconsin that are using Twitter and briefly looks at some of the credit unions around the United States that are using Twitter.

Still confused about Twitter terminology? 

See this very informative post "The Non-Fanatical Guide to Twitter" from Deanna Zandt, that defines a tweet, retweet, #hashtags, followers, following, direct messaging, etc.  For additional resources related to Twitter see Scott Williams' blog posting "105 Twitter Tools".on BigIsTheNewSmall and for ideas on how to use Twitter in business, see Meryl Evans posting "62 Ways to Use Twitter for Business" at Web Worker Daily.

Happy tweeting!

Paul J Gibler, MBA
the Web Chef
@thewebchef

Screen Capture Software - Free and Fee

It is often useful for marketers and presenters to show a web page or some other visual representation in their PowerPoint slide show, training manual, white paper, etc.  One tool that helps facilitate this is a screen capture program.  Most of these tools allow you to capture an image; edit, enhance, annotate or modify the image and generate output in multiple formats for your intended use.  

I use Techsmith's SnagIt, but there are also various other software packages and online services that you might consider for this task. 

Among the other tools that are out there are the following:

• Balesio TurboDemo
• Hyperionics HyperSnap
• Inbit FullShot
• MoodySoft SPX Instant Screen Capture
• !Quick Screen Capture
• ScreenToaster
• Solid Capture
• Techsmith SnagIt
• Wisdom ScreenHunter
  

Update
LifeHacker has reviews of two other free Windows compatible screen capturing software packages including PicPick (review) and SiteShoter (review).  Others that have been identified include FastStone Capture, MWSnap and Gadwin PrintScreen.

New IB Madison Voices Blog Posting - Trends in Internet Use

Interested in finding out more about trends on the Internet?

Check out my new blog posting "It's the norm, not just for porn" at IBMadison.com. The posting tracks some of the latest research results on trends and directions in the use of the Internet. Included are reports showing that 48% of Americans use the Internet at least one hour a day, 82% increase in Social Networking utilizing and 339% increase in video utilization since 2002.

AMA New Commercial (a spoof), plus YouTube enhancement

Interesting to see how on YouTube you can now choose the size of embedded video plus select one of several border color options as I've done with this embedded video spoofing the American Medical Associaton.

New Online PowerPoint Competitor? Adobe Presentations

Adobe has released an online competitor to PowerPoint called Adobe Presentations according to ZDNet and many other online sources.  The web-based tool jumps ahead (by release date at least) of Microsoft's plans for web-based tools in their Office 2010 release according to the blog posting.  The web-based tools could provide advantages for those with multiple devices in terms of version control.  The tool also allows for shared authoring of a given presentation.

ZDNet blogger, Zack Whittaker, talked to Acrobat staff who told him "Presentations is only at 40% whereas PowerPoint would stand at 100%, so by their own admission the tool has a ways to go.

To use the tool you need to have the latest version of the Flash Player installed.  You can sign up to test it out at Acrobat.com. 

Here's a screen shot from their promotional slide show showcasing one of the advantages of the service:

Yahoo! Image Search Engine - Creative Commons Search

Research Buzz reviews the Yahoo! Image Search Engine and it's capability to search based on Creative Commons License - a great benefit for presenters looking for images with the appropriate license for use.  The search engine allows you to search for images that allow for commercial use and to filter out adult images as well.

Meanwhile at Google you can search for an image with a particular color according to the Google Blogoscoped. 

Zamzar PPT File Conversion

Lifehacker reports on a free service provided by Zamzar, where you can upload a PowerPoint presentation and have it converted to an image file.  The process involves 4 steps:

1. Select the file you want to convert and upload it
2. Enter the type of file you want it converted to (.PNG)
3. Enter your e-mail address
4. Select convert and wait for the file location to be e-mailed to you.

Image 1 - Screen Shot of Zamzar Website
 I decided to try out the service by uploading a 9 slide presentation on branding architecture that I've been experimenting with. After completing Step 4, I waited for a few minutes while it converted the presentation. Zamzar in turn sent me an e-mail telling me that the file had been converted and giving me the location on their site where I could download the file.  I proceeded to download the file as a .zip file, unzipped it and found that each of the slides in my PowerPoint presentation had been converted to a .PNG file. 

Image 2 - Title Slide Re-formatted to Landscape
Here was the title slide from the slide presentation that I converted to a .PNG file.  I'm not sure why it rendered in portrait format and I didn't see an option to select landscape or to have landscape be the default.  All of the slides in my deck converted to portrait format picture.  This meant that I had to use an image editing software package on each of the slides to rotate them to the correct landscape orientation. 

This looks like it could be a useful tool and for those willing to purchase the full service, a faster and more robust service is promised without the advertising experienced with the free beta service.

Presentation Tidbits - Online PPT Sharing

Another player has joined the online PowerPoint sharing space - Slideserve.  The service is similar to those offered by other players:

• .docstoc – http://www.docstoc.com/ (all types of document sharing)

• Empressr – http://www.empressr.com

• Flypaper – http://www.flypaper.net

• Freepath – http://www.freepath.com

• Scribd – http://www.scribd.com/ (all types of document sharing)

• SlideBoom – http://www.slideboom.com

• SlideRocket – http://www.sliderocket.com

• SlideServe - http://www.slideserve.com

• Slideshare – http://slideshare.net/

• SlideSix – http://www.slidesix.com/

• 280 Slides – http://280slides.com/

• Zoho Show – http://www.zohoshow.com

Once you upload your slide presentation, you can use the embed code to insert the presentation into a blog or website.  Here is the second most popular presentation on the site (the first was a compilation of photos from the USAir plane that went down in the Hudson River). 

PPT Remote Control for the iPhone

The New York Times reported that touchscreen smartphones like the iPhone have found new utility as universal remotes for televisions and for projectors using PowerPoint.  According to the article "Senstic makes a $9.99 PowerPoint remote application for the iPhone (and the iPod Touch) called i-Clickr. The application connects to PowerPoint on a PC and displays the current slide and the control buttons on the iPhone’s screen." A video I found on the Senstic site demonstrates the i-Clickr in action.

PCWorld author Zack Stern, in a February article referenced the iClickr and two other tools that allow you to convert your iPhone or iPod Touch into a remote control for PPT - the iPresenter and the mbPointer.  Of the three tools, he rated the iClickr #1.