the Web Chef's e-Bytes

New Article in Wisconsin Technology Network - Conferences are brought to life with social computing tools

I've written another article for the Buzz Networks column that is published by Wisconsin Technology Network. The new article "Conferences are brought to life with social computing tools" describes the ways that web 2.0 tools can be incorporated into your meeting strategies to engage and connect with attendees.

Paul J Gibler

New article in Wisconsin Technology Network - "Ich Bin Ein Presenter"

My latest article "Ich Bin Ein Presenter" was just published as part of the ongoing column Buzz Networks that I write for Wisconsin Technology Network.  The article focuses on moving beyond PowerPoint with new Web 2.0 related tools for presenters like SlideShare, SlideRocket, authorSTREAM, PollEverywhere, while also suggesting enhanced software tools like PPTMinimizer, PowerShrink and image databases to bring your presentation strategy up-to-date.

I was also recently quoted in an article on Wisconsin Technology Network about Fiserv's MyMoney application for banks and credit unions.

Give me a call or e-mail me for help with your presentation strategies. 

Paul J Gibler
the Web Chef

The Disgruntled Employee, PowerPoint and Viral Marketing

Philebrity and The Globe and Mail have coverage of a PowerPoint presentation that was put together by a Comcast Customer Service agent explaining the "What doe CQE (Comcast Quality Experience) Really Mean" that highlights some of the significant problems that are being experienced by Comcast customers.  Philebrity actually posts the PowerPoint show, while Toronto's Globe & Mail comments on it.  While the presentation doesn't follow guidelines I'd suggest for an effective live presentation, it certainly serves as a tool for creating a story that you can read about CQE.

This story reminds me of other ways that PowerPoint and YouTube are being used to spread a message of dissatisfaction not only by employees, but even more importantly by customers.  One example of this that I saw several years ago was in a PowerPoint presentation ("Yours is a Very Bad Hotel")that a disgruntled customer created trashing their experience at a specific hotel that was part of a big chain in 2001.  Given that this PowerPoint presentation was created before the days of slide sharing tools like Slide Share and Authorstream the distribution occurred through e-mail and viral marketing of the slide show as it was re-mailed over and over again. 

Two points of interest - 1.) you can still find this PowerPoint presentation by doing an Internet search and 2.) when I gave a presentation in early 2002, I referenced this as an example of "negative viral marketing" and asked if anyone had seen or heard of this presentation.  In that audience of around 100 people 4 - 5 people had heard or seen the presentation.

Do you have examples of how PowerPoint has been used in this fashion that you'd like to share?

Presentations I'll be doing...

I've got a few presentations scheduled for the next couple of months, some PowerPoint related and others looking at e-business and technology.  Among the presentations currently scheduled:

• Wisconsin Leadership Seminars (a program for high performing high school sophmores)
  Topic: "Generation Immediate" trials and tribulations of the millenials.
• National Conference on University Conference Centers 
  Topic: "Buzz Networks - conference engagement through social computing"
• Magna Publications
  Topic: "Do's, Don'ts and Duhs - Classroom PowerPoint Tips and Techniques"
• CuSchools
  Topic: "25 Great Marketing Ideas for Your Credit Union"

Looking for a speaker or trainer? 

Please contact me for one of my standard or custom presentations on a broad range of marketing and communications topics.

Paul Gibler
the Web Chef

Private Beta Launch - SlideRocket, web-based presentations

Tech Crunch reported on the private beta launch of SlideRocket "a presentation app that wants to recreate PowerPoint in the browser and take advantage of the web's sharing and mashup capabilities."  SlideRocket is scheduled to launch this summer. 

I took a look at their online demonstration and capability descriptin to see that they are touting a wide range of features and benefits across a wide range of presentation phases including creation, delivery, managment, analysis and community.  In the demo show they reference the following:

• online libraries for styles and presentation assets
• effects, builds, transitions and animations (including several not available in PowerPoint)
• presentation asset tagging, searching and sorting
• hyperlinks within presentations
• stylizeable charts & graphs
• ability to share presentations online

I've submitted a request to be invited to test out the application and once I have more to report I'll do so at my other blog, PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques.

Paul Gibler

New Free Microsoft Office Competitor - IBM Lotus Symphony

IBM is joining the fray alongside Sun and Google to gain mind and market share among Microsoft Office users with the introduction of a suite of free products being released under the Lotus Symphony name according to The Wall Street Journal.  The product suite will offer competitive offerings to Excel, PowerPoint and Word according to the article.  The IBM web site brands these the IBM Productivity tools, that will be marketed under the sub-brands Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets, Lotus Symphony Documents and Lotus Symphony Presentations. 

The IBM website has a series of screen shots with an audio accompaniment under the Get Started with Lotus Presentations.  Interestingly the narrator describes the product as Lotus Presentations without any sub-brand of Symphony. 

Lotus Symphony is being created in the Open Document Format, an increasingly popular open standard.  Meanwhile the Office.org site offers a free presentation software called Impress.

YouTube Video Embed in PowerPoint

My fellow blogger and Power Point expert Laura Bergells at Maniactive has a great posting summarizing and linking to 4 video tutorials on embedding YouTube video into PPT presentations using either PPT 2007 or 2003 with the videos linked and inserted in PowerPoint when you are presenting offline or online.  I know that this is a hot topic judging by traffic to my prior postings on PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques that covered this topic with a link to step-by-step instructions for converting and inserting video at tiara.org.

I've taken the liberty of embedding one of the video clip instructions that Laura references on how to add a YouTube video to PowerPoint when you are planning to be online when you make your presentation.

I also experimented with the conversion directions in the YouTube video for offline insertions of presentation of YouTube videos using Video Downloader and ErightSoft's Super and found that it worked fairly well.

Kudos to reponzo01, a 24 year old YouTuber for his simple and well done instructional videos.

For more tips on creating Powerful Presentations that sing and zing, see my blog PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques.  I'd be happy to talk to you about my PPT - Powerful Presentatiojn Techniques Workshops and presentations.  Please give me a call at 608 266 4092 or e-mail if I can be of assistance.

Paul Gibler
the PPT and Web Chef   

PowerPoint & Presentation Resource Guide

Are you looking to improve your presentation skills? 

If so you might be interested in the updated PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques Resource Guide (Rev 2) that I've developed and released on my other blog.  The Guide includes links to articles, web sites and listing of books that business presenters should find useful.

Download ppt_powerfulpresentationtechniquesresourceguiderev2.pdf

Send me links to other articles and resources that you feel should be added to the resource listing and I'll update it for Rev 3.0.

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If your organization is looking for help with enhancing your sales and management staff's presentation skills and/or their effective use of PowerPoint, I'd love to talk to you.  Drop me a note.

Slideshare for PPT Sharing

Techcrunch announces the launch of Slideshare, a new online service that allows for users to "upload PowerPoint or Open Office presentation files and share them online through a You Tube-like interface" according to Michael Arrington.  Slideshare allows for the storing of a PPT slide presentation with a permanent linking address.

See my review of the service on my other blog -  PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques. 

Here's a sample presentation that I uploaded using Slideshare.

My other Blog - PPT

Take a look at my other Blog PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques, if you are at all interested in presentation skills and the effective use of PowerPoint.  In my role as a professional speaker on e-business and marketing topics, I often find audiences intrigued and interested in some of the techniques that I use in my presentations.  As a result, I've continued to develop my expertise in PowerPoint and refine my presentation skills to the extent that I now write PPT and also offer PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques workshops for corporate audiences, universities and others interested in refining their presentation skills and knowledge on the effective use of PowerPoint. 

Drop me an e-mail if you'd like to know more.