I’ve been impressed by an online video editing and archiving tool that lets you create a
“private label YouTube” - check it out.
http://members2.viditalk.com/view/?id=9DGHQ6GWTSYT34RF6B7S1
Posted by Tom Bunzel at 4:45 PM .
February 22nd, 2008
New Event/Presentation, Coaching and Marketing Tool
February 5th, 2008
PowerPoint Effectiveness Assessment
One of the websites I poke around in is Dave Paradi’s “Think Outside The Slide.”
In addition to many excellent articles he has a very cool personalized assessment for PowerPoint based presenters. Take the assessment here.
……………TD
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 2:48 PM .
March 6th, 2007
Article on Planning Presentations
I recently published an article on CIO.COM on presentations strategy and planning. Some of you may find it of interest.
Posted by Tom Bunzel at 6:26 PM .
December 18th, 2006
The PowerPoint FAQ
If you’ve never come across this before you should add it to your favorites or bookmarks. Steve Rindsburg of RDP Slides and the PowerPoint MVP folks have loaded the answers and solutions to almost everything PowerPoint related. Many of the responses in the PowerPoint Discussion Group refer to this site: www.pptfaq.com
RDP Slides is also the home of the very useful PPTools - PowerTools for PowerPoint
…………..TD
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 3:18 PM .
December 13th, 2006
Link to my Office 2007/Vista training webcast
A week or so ago I did a webcast for Microsoft on the newer features in Office 2007 and Vista that are of interest to business owners — the link to it is:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=927550
Posted by Tom Bunzel at 8:30 PM .
October 31st, 2006
PowerFrameworks for Visual Analogies
For those interested in presentation best practices the issue always arises what is the most effective way to avoid stale bullets and sameness in slides. Inevitably the issue of creativity and resourcefulness leads to the concept of metaphors and analogies - using images or diagrams. The problem for non-artists or designers like me is where to get the nuts and bolts building blocks of these types of tools.
Recently a colleague, Gene Zelazny, the author of Say It With Charts! put me together with an entrepreneur who has launched an interesting site in this space. PowerFrameworks is an online gallery of conceptual metaphors in the form of PowerPoint shapes, professionally designed and ready to download into your presentation. The site also features concrete examples of how the metaphors can be implemented, and even a best practices section mirroring many of Zelazny’s own principles.
Kathy Villela, the site’s founder, actually worked at the consulting firm where Zelazny has worked for decades before beginning this site. Her concept, and what I like about the site, is that it is more than a gallery of shapes or clip art; it is also well constructed and searchable and mentally stimulating.
Posted by Tom Bunzel at 2:49 PM .
October 14th, 2006
Read My Book Online
My new business book about PowerPoint is now available to read online. “Solving the PowerPoint Predicament: Using Digital Media for Effective Communication” is not a book specifically about PowerPoint, but the use of the program with third party tools to convey a message for business, academia or religious content. You can also buy the book on Amazon.
Posted by Tom Bunzel at 1:00 PM .
August 24th, 2006
Making War with PowerPoint
If you want to pick up some tips about using PowerPoint with real bullets, read Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas E. Ricks, and/or visit Arms and Influence where the editors highlight the role played in the Iraq conflict by Microsoft’s infamous software. Bloggers at Crooked Timber add to the discussion with a long, lively and fascinating series of posts that are well worth reading. Of course, the core of the issue is more about flawed visual communication styles and techniques than about the warmongering tendencies of presentation software, but it is soberingly apparent from the citations and discussion that visual illiteracy is as rampant in the military as it is in business. The main difference being that in business when a project bombs no one dies (usually).
Posted by Robert L. Lindstrom at 2:06 PM .
August 22nd, 2006
The Wow Factor… Multiple Monitors
I’ve struggled with the dual-screen (multiple) monitor feature in Windows for the past year. After a coworker showed me this feature on a job I was working, I was anxious to learn how to do it because it looked so cool! Well I found out that it wasn’t such an easy task… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Mary Waldera at 9:40 AM .
July 19th, 2006
Screencasting Tips for Beginners
Cool Presenters University article by TechSmith’s Betsy Weber.
Screencasting Tips for Beginners
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 11:31 PM .
July 5th, 2006
PC Mag Article on HD Video
For those of you considering a move to HD video in your presentations check out a short and sweet piece in PC Mag “Are You Ready for HD?” Besides the Sony HD camcorder referred to in the article, I also suggest a look at some offerings from JVC. Ulead software has a plug in to work with HD content on your desktop but the article mentions the big problems using these gigantic files. Those who worked with digital video years ago will think they’ve been down this road before.
Posted by Tom Bunzel at 1:18 PM .
June 13th, 2006
Images are king
From “Top Ten Truths About the Digital Ecosystem“, a recent post on the Dealing with Darwin blog:
“10. Images are king. Verbal content, by virtue of its sheer volume, is increasingly perceived as noise. We are entering a new era of collage, where the mind of the viewer is the assembling artist. Verbalization happens post facto, the residue of headline skimming and subconscious synthesis. The esthetics of digitally enhanced images will become increasingly powerful as a vehicle for cutting through the clutter. Manipulating semantics or semiotics via images will become increasingly sophisticated, both in the private and public sectors. High-definition displays and portable form factors will be popular mass markets. Indexing and searching images, on the other hand, while technologically interesting, will be of peripheral impact.”
Posted by Lee Potts at 8:00 AM .
May 4th, 2006
Present with Your Fly Open
There is an old story, probably apocryphal, about the renowned presenter who was asked what he does to 
prepare himself just before going in front of an audience. His reply: “I check to see that my fly is zipped.” Good advice? Or missed opportunity?
Shock. Surprise. Humor. Suspense. There are few things that grab attention like an unzipped zipper. And isn’t attention the primary and necessary ingredient in the persuasion process? Without it a presentation is the sound of one hand clapping. Without it a presenter is the guy in the burning room on the tenth floor balcony yelling for help while 2,000 people watch a parade pass by.
Attention is a precious commodity these days. The problem is not that our attention spans have biologically eroded. (We are still thinking with the same 3-pound lumps of gray Play-Doh that we have used for millennia.) The problem is that a large, fast-changing, information-rich and media-saturated society sucks up attention like a seven-year-old downing a milkshake. Our capacity for attention is a constant. The demand for our attention is an exponentially increasing variable. The phenomenon is well-documented and regularly addressed by sociologists, psychologists, biologists, politicians, ad agencies and…what was I saying? Oh, yes. Attention.
Driven to Distraction
Despite all the attention being paid to the attention shortfall, there is no reason to expect the situation will improve. If we wish to capture attention, our only course of action is to enhance our attention solicitation skills. And I don’t mean learning to scream ever louder. Many presenters and presentation professionals pride themselves on their ability to win the attention of an audience. But how many actually take the time to study, learn, practice and improve attention-grabbing skills the way, say, a comic juggler, teenager, fashion model or deranged psychotic might?
I’ve sat in on more than my share of presentations over the years, and in that time I have seen a stunning array of attention-getters: presenters riding onstage on motorcycles, flying in from the ceiling, appearing in a puff of smoke. I have seen prestigious and respected individuals wearing funny hats, wigs and costumes of every sort. Fireworks, cannons, light shows, circus animals, marching bands, chariots, space ships, rowboats, you name it, it’s been used to yank attention. I have seen presentations that start with grabbers, such as “The world will end in exactly five minutes.” (It didn’t) I have seen presenters start by throwing money into the audience. (Real money.) One guy started his sales motivational speech by intimating that he once slept with Kathy Lee Gifford. I once saw a presenter begin by having someone shave his head. (He lost a bet.) Come to think of it, about the only thing I haven’t seen is, you guessed it, someone with their zipper open.
Obviously, the most extreme examples of attention-grabbing tend to be gimmicks or stunts that have little relevance to the meat of the presentation. A purist might argue that a truly great presentation with a powerful message is so grippingly relevant that gimmicks are superfluous.
Good Attention. Bad Attention.
Big event or small, overt or subtle, the real trick, the essence of the craft, is to become expert at not only getting attention, but getting the right kind of attention.
Good attention is the kind that not only peels eyelids back over foreheads and superglues audiences to their seats, but also heightens receptivity and reinforces the message. Bad attention is the kind that distracts the audience in such a way that all they can remember afterward is that the CEO wore a gorilla suit.
I once interviewed a young and successful dotcom founder who at the time sported a full beard. It was just after lunch and as soon as we sat down I noticed a speck of something stuck in his facial forest just beneath his lower lip. I struggled to keep my eyes from darting down to his chin, but the speck drew my gaze the way a vole grabs the attention of a barn owl perched 100 feet up in a pine tree. Whether it was courtesy or cowardice, I resisted telling him, but I could barely keep my mind on the interview. Eventually, he turned his head to pick up something. When the light caught his face at a different angle I saw that the speck was a tiny metal stud in the piercing below his lip. I assume that, as with most body jewelry, he put it there to draw attention. But, in that context, he generated the wrong kind of attention…and never knew it.
Ten-hut!
If I still have your attention, here is a selection of resources that pay attention to attention. If you have other resources to recommend, please add them in the form of a reply. If you are a presentation developer, you might also care to share one of your most (or least) successful attention-getters.
This site from a course at Webster University and based on the 1986 book Principles and Types of Speech Communication (43 cents on Amazon) by Douglas Ehninger, lists nine fundamental attention-getting factors and a few attention-holding factors.
This academic reference taken from a 1997 book, Designing and Delivering Scientific, Technical, and Managerial Presentations by Peter Hager and H.J. Scheiber (89 bucks on Amazon) has a credible, if mundane, list of opening techniques.
If they are really a tough crowd, why not try this teacher tip on your corporate audience.
The Web, and particularly the blogosphere, sometimes seems like one huge scream for attention. Millions of people wearing funny glasses and making armpit farts. (Okay, yes, I am posting this to a blog, but solely for purposes of professional development.) It may be that we are seeing on the Web the evolution of a new paradigm in attention-getting. This post from Flickrnation offers ten tips to get attention on Flickr. [scroll down] Give it a look. Many of the tips apply to any sort of presentation activity and may well provide clues as to how to snare the attention of the Flickr Generation.
Check out this straightforward quote by Caterina Fake, (her real name?) one of the founders of Flickr. “What is more thrilling than an entire hall of expectant eyes, what more overwhelming than applause surging up to us? What, lastly, equals the enchantment sparked off by the delighted attention we receive from those who profoundly delight ourselves? - Attention by other people is the most irresistible of drugs. To receive it outshines receiving any other kind of income. This is why glory surpasses power and why wealth is overshadowed by prominence.”
Read about ADT (attention deficit trait) in this C/Net News article by Alorie Gilbert.
Or, maybe we should all read Dr. Hallowell’s book: CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap - Strategies for Coping in a World Gone ADD.
On this blog a venture capitalist talks about the Attention Crisis. I wonder if he’s working on an ADD IPO.
In the fields of psychology, education and advertising, attention is one of the most heavily studied human cognitive functions. For those of you who would like to learn more, but have a short attention span, Wikipedia has a brief history of the study of attention and some useful links.
Quote: “The best way to get attention is to give it.”
Thongs get attention. (video)
And, if all else fails, there’s always the zipper.
Posted by Robert L. Lindstrom at 6:08 PM .
April 27th, 2006
“Rocketboom Online Video Tool List: See all video, edit all video, create all video “
“Instead of going over all the options here, I’m going to highlight the tools and some of the methods we use to create Rocketboom because, consequently, I have amassed what I would call not just a killer app, but a killer briefcase filled with lots of killer apps that all together allow us to see all video, hear all video and speak all video, not to mention create, tweak and seek. I haven’t been stopped by a file yet (knock on wood).
“This is what we use to make Rocketboom: “
Posted by Lee Potts at 9:51 PM .