PowerPoint Blog
Labels: interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
Rashmi Sinha is cofounder and CEO of SlideShare, the world's largest community for sharing presentations. She manages design and business development at SlideShare. Rashmi blogs at www.rashmisinha.com about social software and running a startup.
In this conversation, Rashmi talks about the new Channels feature on SlideShare.
Geetesh: What exactly are SlideShare Channels, and how can they help target content for an audience?
Rashmi: SlideShare channels are custom branded spaces for businesses and brands. If you have content on SlideShare, this gives you a place to have all your content in one place in with a highly customized look and feel.
Channels are less about targeting and more about branding. The targeting is a core part of SlideShare - you put up a piece of content. It reaches people who are interested in through tags, search, sharing on networks. Channels let you have more control of the exprience people have when they land on your SlideShare page and content.
Geetesh: Can anyone create a Channel? Or is there a process that involves approval?
Rashmi: Channels are for businesses and brands who want to have a rich presence on SlideShare and interact with the community. Right now, you do need to talk to us in order to setup a channel. Each is a custom project based on the needs of the business.
The channels available now range in variety of content and organizations. For example,
We're also rolling out topical Channels that are curated by our content team. For example we have channels on Cloud Computing and Social Media. These types of channels will be curated by our content team. You'll more of them in the coming months as we roll out new topics.
Categories: interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: interviews, powerpoint, slideshare 
Peggy Duncan is an international conference presenter, personal productivity expert, consultant, and author. She’s also the founder of The Digital Breakthroughs Institute, an Atlanta, Georgia (USA) training center whose mission is to improve technology and productivity skills of small business owners and professionals. Media appearances include CNN, Today, O-The Oprah Magazine, Smart Money, Fortune Small Business, Black Enterprise, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many more. Links to free articles and her award-winning technology blog are at www.PeggyDuncan.com.
In this discussion, Peggy discusses her Shameless Self Promotion concept, and how it has a PowerPoint angle.
Geetesh: Tell us more about what you mean by Shameless Self Promotion, and how it helps?
Peggy: At first glance, you might think I mean boasting to everyone who will listen about how wonderful you think you are. But I'm referring to promoting what you know, and doing it online, to boost your search engine rankings.
This whole notion started when I continued to get emails and calls from journalists wanting to interview me and public relations agencies wanting to hire me for their clients as a product spokesperson. They all mentioned finding me in Internet searches for my expertise (personal productivity expert, time management expert, email overload expert). Hmmm. I hadn’t realized that I was on the first page of major search engines.
When I started to investigate to see what was showing up, I realized that my how-to tips were getting indexed. I started writing and publishing more, using good keywords that people would actually type into the search engine.
I had no idea of what search engine optimization or SEO was, but I knew that whatever I was doing was working. I’m now sharing my do-it-yourself tactics in seminars, Webinars, and an ebook. I totally enjoy discussing how all this happened, and audiences love it that I offer ways to improve their SEO without spending one, red cent.
Geetesh: I remember you recommending the upload of PowerPoint presentations to sites such as SlideShare as a way to increase popularity on search engines -- can you tell us more about this concept?
Peggy: Popular Websites such as Slideshare.net show up well in search engines because of the number of incoming and outgoing links. When you post your content there, it gets indexed quickly by search engines because they like fresh, topical content. I recommend that people take articles they’re giving away and turn them into PowerPoint slides, tagging them with appropriate keywords. Before you know it, you’ll start to get rankings for that topic.
Plus, when visitors view your slideshow, they’ll see a link to your Website or blog for more information.
There are many do-it-yourself ways to boost your search engine rankings. For the same reasons as mentioned above, you should also have a blog, online press releases, and full and active social media profiles. (It’s not important anymore to publish your content to the thousands of article sites you’ve probably heard of.)
Categories: interviews, powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, presentation_samples, slideshare
SlideShare's annual presentation contest continues showcasing changes in PowerPoint design -- and also design in relation to SlideShare's social media evolution. The winner for this year's World’s Best Presentation Contest is a presentation called Healthcare Napkins All, created by Dan Roam with Dr. Tony Jones.
You can see all the winning entries on the SlideShare site.
Finalists were chosen by a panel of judges comprising Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco, Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, and David Armano, founding member of Dachis group and author of Logic + Emotion.
Also, read SlideShare CEO Rashmi Sinha's thoughts on this contest in this Indezine exclusive interview.
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, presentation_samples, slideshare
Labels: interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint, presentation_samples, slideshare Rashmi Sinha is cofounder and CEO of SlideShare, the world's largest community for sharing presentations. She manages design and business development at SlideShare. Rashmi has a PhD in Cognitive Neuropsychology from Brown University. She did a PostDoc at UC Berkeley in Human Computer Interaction. She blogs at www.rashmisinha.com about social software and running a startup.
Geetesh: Three presentation contests in as many years – how has SlideShare’s World Best Presentation Contest evolved over the years?
Rashmi: The first year, it was a straightforward contest - to identify great presentations. But we realized that there were different categories of presentations and introduced categories (Tech, Education, About Me, Business, Creative / Offbeat), the second time. This time, we have new judges - people who are social media experts and understand the power of presentations as web media. And that is the focus of the contest this time: Presentations as social media.
Geetesh: Tell me about the winner?
Rashmi: The winning presentation is one of those that that makes an impact on you straight away. Health care is such a complex issue. Its really hard to get one's head around it. Dan Roam has done a remarkable job of summarizing how health care works in America in 57 slides. Its quite impressive.
I wish there would be a series of such presentations explaining complex topics in simple terms.
Geetesh: Tell us more about the Best Acrobat Presentation subset that’s being organized as part of this contest.
Rashmi: Adobe is helping make the contest happen on a much larger scale than before. We have been able to organize it on a bigger scale, offer some great prizes for SlideShare users - all thanks to Adobe. Adobe recently introduce Acrobat 9, a new platform for creating presentations, and we wanted SlideShare users to have a chance to explore this new platform.
See Also: The World's Best Presentation Contest 2008: Conversation with Rashmi Sinha
Categories: interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint, presentation_samples, slideshare
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
SlideShare announced the 3rd of their successful presentation contest series -- this one is called the World's Best Presentation Contest '09. 
You need to submit your presentation as part of this contest that runs from August 3rd to September 8th, 2009. There are three contest judges: Padmasree Warrior is CTO of Cisco, David Armano of the popular Logic + Emotion blog, and Guy Kawasaki, a well known author. There are exciting prizes to be won, including an Apple MacBook Pro, an Amazon Kindle DX, and an Apple iPhone 3GS. There are also 5 category prizes comprising copies of Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro software.
More info here...
Categories: online_presentations, slideshare, powerpoint
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare, templates
At last count, I found that there were at least 3 PowerPoint presentation contests happening online.
Picture Courtesy: Shutterstock
On the top of my list is Microsoft's own PowerPoint Template Contest called Create a Spark. The rules are simple enough:
The second contest from SlideBoom is called the SlideBoom Presentation Contest 2009. They have fewer rules, but that's not always an advantage:
The third contest is from SlideShare, and is called the Tell A Story Contest. They seem to be offering the best prizes! The rules are:
So if you have created a cool presentation that you can share, there are at least three places that they can be uploaded to -- wish you all the best!
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare, templates
Labels: powerpoint, slideshare
SlideShare announced the very interesting Tell A Story in 30 Slides contest that invites participants to submit a story about themselves, their travels, or something they love. Just tell it with words and pictures and in 30 slides.
Everyone who enters the contest gets a free Fuze Meeting account ($270 value). Learn more about how to enter contest here...
Jonathan Boutelle of SlideShare adds: "We launched a new contest yesterday that will be of interest to your readers. The theme is "tell a story", and the top prize is $5000. The judges include Om Malik, Pete Cashmere (Mashable), Ann Handley, Don Tapscott, and Tony Hsieh (Zappos). There's already some really nice entries up, and I think the theme is going to elicit some very interesting work this time (PowerPoint as narrative device).
Categories: powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: authorstream, online_presentations, opinion, powerpoint, slideboom, slideshare
You can easily boost your business and your SEO / SEM efforts with the help of an old friend: PowerPoint. All you need to do is pick a topic that you want to relate your business to, prepare a presentation on that topic and then publish it on presentation plattforms like SlideShare, Slide.com, etc. You can then bookmark your online content and enrich it with keywords and descriptions to further promote your content and boost your SEO / SEM efforts.
Jörg Hahn tells you more in this Indezine exclusive article...
Categories: authorstream, online_presentations, opinion, powerpoint, slideboom, slideshare
Labels: microsoft_office, online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
SlideShare, an online presentation sharing site now ups the ante by supporting more file formats including:
And all sorts of PDFs and PowerPoint presentations can still be upoaded -- a few months ago, SlideShare added support for Apple Keynote presentations as well.
All such documents can be easily embedded in WordPress and other blog platforms, as well as on LinkedIn networks.
Categories: microsoft_office, online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare, youtube
SlideShare announced the capability to embed YouTube videos within SlideShare uploaded presentations in an open beta. Embeded YouTube videos show up as separate slides inside the SlideShare player. The embedded demo below explains the entire process.
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare, youtube
Labels: keynote, online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
SlideShare, a leading site that lets you upload and share PowerPoint presentations now supports Apple Keynote files too. All you need to do is zip up your Keynote presentation files and upload.
There's an interesting tutorial on the SlideShare site that's embedded here:
You should also read this announcement on SlideShare's blog...
Categories: keynote, online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint, presentation_samples, slideshare 
Jeff Brenman (pictured to the right) is the founder and director of Apollo Ideas, an award winning presentation design and consulting firm based out of North Carolina. Jeff regularly works as a communication consultant to top executives in corporations around the globe, empowering their business communications with better visual storytelling. His presentation won the last The World's Best Presentation Contest held by SlideShare -- and he won it again this time!
Geetesh: How does it feel to win consecutively for the second time?
Jeff: Surprising. There were a lot of great presentations entered in the contest this year, so it's an honor to have been chosen as the winner by such accomplished judges. Honestly, I was more concerned with entering the dialog than entering the competition this year. The SlideShare contest is a fantastic way to bring good design to important issues, and spread critical messages to people around the world.
Geetesh: Tell us more about the type of research you did on the topic – also what made you choose Water as the topic of your presentation.
Jeff: Everybody drinks, but hardly anyone is talking about water. The fresh water crisis is a fascinating topic because it's one of those things not a lot of people know about, but is going to affect all of us very soon. In my opinion, that also makes it a perfect topic for a web-based educational presentation.
The water crisis is a big issue, so to do it justice required spending a lot of time researching the storyboard. The full list of books, articles, and news stories that went into THIRST can be found at http://apolloideas.com/thirst.
Putting together a presentation is kind of like making a pizza. There are dozens of delicious toppings you could add to a pizza, but you have to be selective and choose just a few. A pizza with every topping imaginable wouldn't taste very good. In the same way, a presentation with every piece of research you discover isn't going to be very interesting — it'll be overwhelming. You have to be selective with the information you include.
THIRST is far from comprehensive, but intentionally so. It doesn't offer a list of suggestions for how to conserve water. It doesn't get into the politics of who controls the water resources around the world. It doesn't even go into detail about the problems surrounding the bottled water industry. Instead, THIRST is a conversation starter, designed to inspire people to explore the topic deeper on their own. As a story, THIRST was created to act as a beginning, not a beginning, middle, and end. Based on the feedback it has received so far, I'm proud to see it's working.
Categories: interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint, presentation_samples, slideshare
Labels: powerpoint, slideshare
You can now add PowerPoint presentations to your LinkedIn profile through the new SlideShare integration feature. First upload your presentations to SlideShare, and then sync your LinkedIn and SlideShare profiles so that all your SlideShare presentations will start showing up on LinkedIn.
SlideShare has put up a tutorial that shows you how -- play it to learn more.
Categories: powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
SlideShare announced the winners of its The World's Best Presentation Contest -- and the results include some really amazing presentations.
The overall winner is Thirst, a presentation that brings alive the impending worldwide water shortage that's staring at mankind. Interestingly, this presentation was created by Jeff Brenman (pictured on the right) -- he also won the first prize in the last contest that SlideShare held. Indezine interviewed Jeff last year for his Shift Happens presentation.
Footnotes, a photo slide show that documents Melanie's journey through photos of her feet, won the second prize for its novel theme while the third prize was won by a presentation about the crisis in Zimbabwe.
The judges for this contest included Guy Kawasaki, who conceptualized this entire presentation contest concept -- other judges were Nancy Duarte, Garr Reynolds, and Bert Decker.And at Indezine, we have something exclusive for you -- an interview with Rashmi Sinha (pictured to the left) of SlideShare. Rashmi talks about this contest, her favorite entries, and more.
And here are some statistics: the contest this year attracted 2415 entries and 22,000 votes from voters in 130 countries. There are 3 overall winners, 6 category winners and 9 honorable mentions. The first, second and third prize winners will receive a MacBook Air, Amazon Kindle and iPod Nano respectively. Winners in each category will receive an iPod Touch.
Here are embeds of the three winning entries:
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare Rashmi Sinha is cofounder and CEO of SlideShare, the world's largest community for sharing presentations. She manages design and business development at SlideShare. Previously, she founded Uzanto, a user experience software company, that worked with companies like eBay, iFilm, AAA and Blue Shield. She also lead the team that created MindCanvas, a rich online survey platform for customer research. Rashmi has a PhD in Cognitive Neuropsychology from Brown University. She did a PostDoc at UC Berkeley in Human Computer Interaction. She blogs at www.rashmisinha.com about social software and running a startup.
Geetesh: Tell us how the idea of The World's Best Presentation Contest evolved.
Rashmi: The idea of the contest came from Guy Kawasaki. We had toyed about with the idea of a contest earlier. I met Guy at a conference and he mentioned that he had always wanted to organize a PowerPoint contest. We continue talking and discussed several ideas before finalizing on the World's Best Presentation idea. It was Guy's idea to keep it general (not focused on any one topic) and not limit to slidecasts (slides + audio) which we considered at one point.
Geetesh: How is this contest being held in 2008 different from the previous one.
Rashmi: The 2008 contest is bigger - 1670 entries so far compared to 400 last week. Partly its simply because SlideShare has grown. But also, the results of the contest last year captured the imagination of many people and this year they have decided to participate as well.
Also, we were inspired by global contests and events like Oscars and Olympics. We really wanted a sense of scale (all the world participating), but we also wanted an openness that you can only have on the internet (anyone with a computer and internet connection can participate). PowerPoint is a people's medium. We wanted a people's contest.
Its really great to see that come alive as the contest captures the imagination of people the world over. We see slideshows from all across the world. We see blog posts and Twitters from all across the world. Its really quite cool.
Also, we have six category prizes this year that we did not have last year. Finally, we have participants form many more countries (it is truly an international contest).
Geetesh: Tell us about some entries that you find unconventional, strange, funny, or just different.
Rashmi: Here are some interesting ones this time in the contest; one interesting trend is that last time, the contest was the first time -- and so many of the entries were from the early adopters; this time the audience seems to be far more broad-based.
There's a bunch of presentations on green, environment etc. and they are all very popular (getting lots of votes)
About a social issue
A love story
Categories: interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
Doing makeovers of slides is such a satisfying task – maybe that is because removing the ugly and replacing it with near perfection is a reward in itself. Over the years, I have understood that the approach required to do any actual makeover is never the same – in the same way as the fingerprints of two humans don’t match, the approaches required to do various makeovers are dissimilar.
Suggesting makeover approaches is a large part of my work – that’s why I find it amusing to hear new schools of thought in the presentation sphere that promise to be a solution to all slide problems. These beliefs range from the no-bullet approach for slides to the total denouncement of slideware. Then there are opinions about keeping things simple and clean – and of providing more visual content. And there’s another school of thought that looks at creating diagrams, charts, and other info-graphic content in a way that’s more effective as is the debate between linear and linked presentations. Each of these approaches is unique and very useful in their own way – and properly applied, each of them may make a difference. But in the same way that a physician will not prescribe a drug for common cold to a patient suffering from body pain, the makeover artist will first examine the slides and then suggest an approach that may use, discard, or combine these approaches.
Read more of this guest post I authored on the SlideShare blog...
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideshare
I love using SlideShare because it's a one-click process to upload and share my PowerPoints. However, SlideShare did lack the audio streams that make YouTube and iFilm so popular. And so people want to create YouTube movies from their PowerPoints. Not any more -- since SlideShare has added a cool new feature called SlideCasting.
SlideCasting is cool not just because it adds an audio stream to SlideShare's online presentations but because it does this in such a well implemented process:
Check out this walkthrough by Jonathan Boutelle...
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideshare
Labels: interviews, powerpoint, presentation_samples, slideshare Jeff Brenman (pictured to the right) is a graduate from Northwestern University where he studied psychology and business. It was pretty early on in his college experience that he became disenchanted with the conventional presentation styles, and started to independently study the theory behind what makes great presentations great. It wasn't long before he was helping out professors and student leaders on campus with their slide decks, eventually having a position created for himself with the university as a presentation design consultant. He started a design firm called Apollo Ideas, based out of Chicago that specializes in presentation design and consulting.
Geetesh: Tell us more about Apollo Ideas, and the type of presentation related services you provide.
Jeff: Apollo Ideas was created from the collision of a huge demand in the market for innovative communication methods and my personal passion for creating and developing stories and presentations. I first started presentation design consulting while in college, working for professors and lecturers who were speaking at academic conferences and delivering grant proposals. After I graduated, I branched out from the academic market into the business markets, forming Apollo Ideas and building a team of people who share my passion. We're a storytelling company. Services range from taking an existing slide deck and restyling it (similar to what was done to Karl Fisch's original presentation for ShiftHappens), to a full consulting process in which we help generate the original content for the slides, working with the client to design the story from the ground up.
Geetesh: How did your prize winning entry in SlideShare's World's Best Presentation Contest evolve -- and what do you think set it apart from other entries in finally emerging as the winner.
Jeff: I came across Karl Fisch's "Did You Know" presentation online, and thought the content was fantastic. I had just finished reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, so the globalization themes in Karl's presentation resonated hard with me. I decided to re-stylize the presentation as a challenge to myself, to re-make it how I'd like to see it. I am glad ShiftHappens has received so much attention through SlideShare because the reality of the 21st century is a subject we all ought to know about.
I think what set ShiftHappens apart from the other entries was its visual style and the power of its content. At over 50 slides the presentation contains a lot of information. It was a challenge creating a visual style that would be bold but still stay visually interesting in a stand-alone presentation with so much content.
Categories: interviews, presentation_samples, powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: interviews, powerpoint, presentation_samples, slideshare 
Scott Schwertly (pictured to the right) Founder/CEO of Ethos3 has loved giving and hearing presentations since he gave his first big speech in the 7th grade. Scott has spent the last eight years working for television network affiliates helping them create story-telling visuals and doing marketing for both the private and public sector. He has a B.A. in Communications and an M.B.A. from Harding University. Helping others design and deliver captivating presentations is his passion.
Geetesh: Tell us more about Ethos3, and the type of PowerPoint work you do.
Scott: Ethos3 Communications is a presentation design and training company. We essentially help businesses and individuals with building, designing, and delivering better presentations. Therefore, our focus covers three main areas:
This includes everything from theme development to slide design to non-verbal presentation tactics. Under our design services umbrella, we offer our clients services such as basic slide design, video production, audio enhancements, storyboarding techniques, and much more. Presentations can be delivered in any format and in as fast as 24 hours.
Geetesh: Your entry to the World's Best Presentation Contest on SlideShare won a prize -- tell us more about how this presentation was different from normal presentations, and what sort of planning and storyboarding went into developing the concept and slides.
Scott: Together, Cheree and I created the Meet Henry presentation.
The concept of Meet Henry was inspired by the need for a presentation revolution which happens to be the name of our Ethos3 Communications blog -- Presentation Revolution. Today we live in a business culture that abuses the art and science of presentations and public speaking every day. It is a sad reality when every presentation is an opportunity to make a difference, to make an impact, to change the world. Thus, Ethos3 believes that if we can help others change the way they present, then they will be empowered to present change to the world. This is the message we wanted to articulate through the characters of Henry and Erica.
All in all, creating Henry and Erica was very simple. All images were found via Google or iStockPhoto and the entire presentation was done in Apple's Keynote. After everything was gathered, we wanted to simply state the problem (Henry) and then offer a solution (Erica). Presentations are not about egos, fancy suits, or MBAs. Presentations are about hard work, diligence, and practice. If someone simply focuses on every facet of their presentation - content, design, and delivery... then they are set-up to succeed. This is the story we wanted to communicate.
About Cheree:
Cheree Moore, Creative Director, brings five years of professional experience to Ethos3 Communications. She has worked in several different types of companies, acquiring her skills as a graphic designer. Cheree's combination of knowledge, marketing and design experience will help make your presentation memorable. Cheree also heads up the design services that Ethos3 offers.
Categories: interviews, presentation_samples, powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: powerpoint, presentation_samples, slideshare
The results of World's Best Presentation Contest on SlideShare is now up on the site. Two of the three top presentations won in both the judges and people's choice award sections.
See the results here...
Categories: powerpoint, presentation_samples, slideshare
Labels: powerpoint, slideshare
SlideShare.net's Jonathan Boutelle told me about this awesome contest they have on their site. It's called the "World's Best Presentation Contest", and all you need to do is upload your PowerPoint presentation to the SlideShare.net site.
Thereafter, a selection of judges comprising presentation gurus will decide the winners. The judges are Guy Kawasaki, Bert Decker, Garr Reynolds, and Jerry Weissman.
"The point of this contest is to shine a spotlight on well-designed presentations and to highlight the creative and effective use of PowerPoint. If you've got a killer slide deck, this might be your chance to make it big!" said Rashmi Sinha, CEO of SlideShare.
Read more here...
Categories: slideshare, powerpoint
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