A PowerPoint Blog

Convexion PowerPoint to Silverlight Converter: The Indezine Review

2010-02-04T13:43:00.003+05:30

With the proliferation of PowerPoint to Flash converters everywhere, you might have wondered why there are almost no PowerPoint to Silverlight converters anywhere. After all, Silverlight is considered by many as Microsoft's response to Adobe's Flash. Add the fact that PowerPoint and Silverlight are both from the Microsoft stable, and the complete absence of PowerPoint to Silverlight converters is like a puzzle with no solution!

Luckily, someone listened and created the first ever PowerPoint to Silverlight converters -- and in this review we are looking at Convexion, a PowerPoint add-in from Electric Rain.

Read the review here...

Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, silverlight

SlideShare Channels: Conversation with Rashmi Sinha

2010-02-04T07:33:00.000+05:30

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,

Microsoft Office has setup a channel focused on parenting topic (project done in collaboration with our partners, Federated Media)
Ogilvy has setup a concept channel for Pharma
Razorfish Marketing uploads about interactive marketing & technology
Pew Internet has shared a lot of their research reports about the internet & internet usage
Whitehouse is sharing almost 1000 presentations and documents

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

Presentation Tree: The Paul Tumey Interview

2010-02-03T13:53:00.003+05:30

Paul Tumey is the founder and director of Presentation Tree, a 10-year old PowerPoint design company in Seattle, Washington. Paul's background includes notable achievements in graphic design, writing, public speaking, publicity, and marketing consulting. In this conversation, Paul shares some wisdom about creating PowerPoint presentations, and talks about Presentation Tree, how it was founded and the type of work they do.

Read the interview here...

Categories: design, interviews, powerpoint

25 Million Brainshark Presentation Views: Conversation with Joe Gustafson

2010-02-02T14:38:00.000+05:30

Joe Gustafson, CEO of Brainshark, Inc., founded the company in 1999 to help knowledge experts accelerate the flow of information to their audiences in a highly effective format. Under Joe's leadership, Brainshark has become a leader in on-demand business communications and a successful Software-as-a-Service company, with more than 1,100 world-class customers, including a third of the Fortune 100. Most recently, Joe has led Brainshark to a series of significant company milestones � with Brainshark presentations netting more than 25 million views, and the company doubling its profits in the last year.

Geetesh: In a recent announcement, your company declared that 25 million Brainshark presentations were viewed since the launch of your flagship product, and 1 Brainshark presentation is viewed every 5 seconds by users around the world. Those type of stats would make anyone proud � what else does it mean to you?

Joe: Not only is it a great milestone for our company, but it�s indicative of how multimedia has become a part of the way people want to communicate and share information � in both our business and personal lives, it has become pervasive. And the most popular content of all on the Web is user-generated � not high production value content � but that which engages and is authentic, because it is created by everyday people who have something to say. And I think businesspeople like me look at this trend, or they see what their kids are creating and sharing over the Web and think, how can we leverage the power of this in business? If you make it easy for any businessperson to communicate in more powerful ways, and make it possible for their organizations to manage that process across their enterprise � and, at the same time, make it more enjoyable and convenient for their audiences to experience these messages � they will embrace it. That�s what those numbers mean to me.

Geetesh: With such a successful business model for a product that�s not free, what made you decide to go ahead with myBrainshark, that�s a free albeit less powerful version compared to Brainshark?

Joe: We think we�ve developed the easiest way for any businessperson to communicate using multimedia. But just seeing a Brainshark presentation doesn�t nearly illustrate the possibilities. We want you to try creating one. When you record your very first presentation, and hear your own voice coming back to you over the speakers while you watch it, you�ll see how easy it is to use and how fast it is to create. From that experience, we expect that many users will think about how this could be applicable to their business to get their message out quickly and cost-effectively. Some myBrainshark users will be interested in talking to us about our enterprise offerings � and some won�t; and that�s okay too! We hope they love our free site and tell their friends and colleagues about it.

Our goal with myBrainshark is to get more people exposed to our technology and to how it can be so powerful for business yet be so easy to use. And thousands already �get it� today � more than 1,100 companies whose names you�d recognize already use Brainshark across their organizations and to communicate to global audiences, along with thousands of additional myBrainshark individual users. More than 8 million minutes of content are viewed each month. In an economic climate where everyone is trying to do more with less, it�s silly not to use myBrainshark to tell your story.

Categories: brainshark, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint

Learn PowerPoint: Changing Chart Types in PowerPoint

2010-01-28T14:51:00.001+05:30

Learn how you can change your existing PowerPoint charts to other types -- for example, changing a column chart to an area chart. PowerPoint provides ample choices in chart types for almost every kind of graphical data representation. There are some basic chart types such as column, bar, line, pie, etc. -- and advanced charts like radar, surface, bubble, doughnut, etc.

Follow these steps change the chart type in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003...

Categories: charting, powerpoint_2003, tutorials

myBrainshark: Conversation with Andy Zimmerman

2010-01-22T11:02:00.001+05:30

Andy Zimmerman, VP of Business Development, is responsible for developing and managing strategic partnerships and programs for Brainshark, the leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution provider for on-demand presentations. Andy played an integral role in the launch of myBrainshark.com in September 2009 and continues to drive the initiative. Prior to Brainshark, Andy launched SaaS offerings for other software providers including Theikos, a leading Salesforce.com partner (acquired by Astadia) and e-billing provider Edocs (now part of Oracle). Andy earned his BA from Brown University and MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

In this conversation, Andy talks about myBrainshark.

Geetesh: Tell us about the raison d'�tre for myBrainshark � how did it evolve?

Andy: Brainshark has experienced substantial commercial success over the years � serving as a critical communication vehicle for more than 1,000 companies across industries. We conceived of myBrainshark as a way to reach out to a much larger audience of business professionals, enabling individuals to tap into the benefits of our product with absolutely no price barriers.

Registration is simple and free � then it�s an easy process to create and share on-demand multimedia presentations. You simply upload a PowerPoint presentation or other content, and dial a Brainshark-provided number to add your voice narration or upload MP3 audio. If you�d like, you can also add in video, survey questions and attachments to enhance your presentation. Then, it�s time to share it You can send out a link to your target audience, embed the presentation in your webpage or blog, or share it through social media tools including LinkedIn and Twitter. myBrainshark�s reporting capabilities also enable you to see when people are viewing your presentation, how often it has been viewed and even from where in the world it�s being viewed.

myBrainshark offers a way for people to communicate on and off the job � delivering far-reaching messages at no cost, but with maximum impact to promote themselves, promote their products/companies, and share expertise. We�ve been pleased with the site�s reception and with the creative ways people are using myBrainshark to showcase content �creating everything from sales and marketing materials to training content to �talking r�sum�s� to real estate listings to holiday greetings and much more.

Geetesh: How is myBrainshark different from Brainshark, and the other slide sharing sites like SlideShare, SlideBoom, authorSTREAM, etc.?

Andy: Among our key differentiators as compared to slide sharing sites is the ability to easily incorporate phone or MP3 audio � which has been one of Brainshark�s hallmarks throughout the last decade � helping users create high-quality, personalized presentations. Also, our service preserves PowerPoint animations, so it�s very easy to time your audio appropriately with those animations to deliver maximum impact.

Additional distinguishing features include our ability to support various media types � going beyond PowerPoint presentations to also include documents, videos, web pages and audio-only podcasts. In addition, myBrainshark enables you to incorporate interactivity � such as survey questions � within presentations, and see how your audience responds. With these analytic capabilities, you can even view dashboards showing how, when and from where people are engaging with your presentation Furthermore, presentation pages are search engine optimized � helping more people find your content.

Here�s another unique feature � through myBrainshark, users who are experts on business or training topics can apply online to become �Learning Providers.� As such, they can price their content if desired, while site visitors can preview and/or buy it. The premium content available on myBrainshark currently spans topics including leadership, selling skills, compliance and more.

Of course, myBrainshark is also backed by the Brainshark brand and proven infrastructure, meaning it�s built by a company with the highest standards of quality, reliability and security, which has been helping businesses succeed with on-demand presentations for more than a decade. In fact, this makes for a good transition into the other part of your question � concerning our commercial offerings and differences from myBrainshark.

Like our commercial offerings, myBrainshark has a powerful feature set that lets users differentiate and extend the reach of their communications. Use of myBrainshark is completely free, and content created on the site is publicly available � letting users easily communicate with a worldwide audience. Brainshark�s paid offerings, meanwhile, are geared toward organizations (versus individuals) that often need to share private or proprietary content with their own target audiences.

Brainshark�s commercial offerings also include other enhanced functionality for businesses. Through Brainshark, organizations can easily manage and organize content created by any number of users and manage their access permissions. The tracking and reporting capabilities available to our enterprise users also provide much more granular reports and viewing details. In addition, our enterprise editions provide numerous optional features such as learning management, marketing campaign management, content approval, content archiving, and offline viewing � as well the ability to integrate with CRM, LMS and other software applications.

With both Brainshark and myBrainshark, we continue to help businesses and individuals create far-reaching, high-impact communications that resonate in a measurable way with their audience.

Categories: brainshark, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint

PowerPoint Heaven eConvention 2009: Conversation with Shawn Toh

2010-01-19T07:57:00.000+05:30

Shawn Toh is based out of Singapore and loves to do advanced animation tricks using PowerPoint. He is a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP (Most Valuable Professional) and runs the PPT Heaven site.

In this discussion, Shawn discusses the PowerPoint Heaven eConvention 2009.

Geetesh: What happens as part of the PowerPoint Heaven eConvention 2009? Tell us more about this whole concept?

Shawn: PowerPoint Heaven eConvention 2009 is an annual online convention where PowerPointers get together to discuss, review and submit their latest PowerPoint works We have receive many great works such as games, artworks and animations from our members and PowerPoint communities in China, and also demos of their upcoming games.

There's also an eCon Award, which is a form of recognition to recognize a contributor for his hard work and effort for the previous year. The winners are determined through public voting.

Geetesh: How is the 2009 event different than the same eConvention in 2008? And what plans do you have for the next similar event?

Shawn: In this year's eConvention, TrainSignal has sponsored us with copies of PowerPoint 2007 Training Packages which we will giveaway as prizes to the winners. In addition, PowerPointers who have submitted their works on eConvention will also get a chance to win the prize. We will be looking for more sponsors on our next eConvention and if you are interested, start submitting your works on PowerPoint Heaven!

Categories: interviews, powerpoint

Campaign Against Death by PowerPoint: Conversation with Ellen Finkelstein

2010-01-13T12:35:00.000+05:30

Ellen Finkelstein is author of several PowerPoint, Flash, and AutoCAD books -- she has just launched a new campaign that she calls Campaign Against Death by PowerPoint.

In this conversation, Ellen talks more about this campaign.

Geetesh: Tell me what the Campaign Against Death by PowerPoint is, what made you get started with this one, and what you hope you achieve?

Ellen: The Campaign Against Death by PowerPoint is an effort to help presenters present more effectively, so that they meet their audiences� needs, instead of boring them and being irrelevant. I was working on my white paper--putting my thoughts and knowledge on presenting together with the results of a survey on people�s experiences with Death by PowerPoint. The results of that survey were especially thought-provoking and made me wonder why there are still so many poor presentations being given day after day, when there�s so much good knowledge available about how to present effectively. The survey responders were members of an audience and I realized that many presenters simply don�t know that they�re causing Death by PowerPoint. Without that knowledge, they don�t even look for information on improving their presentation skills.

So, the idea came to empower audiences to offer the white paper to presenters. In my personal experience, negative feedback has been crucial to spurring me on to realize I needed to improve and doing something about it, but no one ever offered me a resource to help. That would have been so appreciated and useful! So I decided that, in addition to offering the white paper � which is like a mini-course in presentation skills � free to anyone who was interested, I would reach out to audiences and suggest to them that they offer the white paper to presenters. It�s a very gentle and constructive way to indicate to a presenter that improvement is needed. That�s how the Campaign Against Death by PowerPoint started.

Geetesh: You do provide a full page invitation along with an ebook at the Campaign Against Death by PowerPoint site � tell us more.

Ellen: Yes, at www.tellnshow.com, anyone can download a one-page invitation to give to a presenter. The invitation invites the presenter to download the free white paper at www.tellnshow.com/whitepaper.html. Any presenter who downloads the white paper will find a great resource with advice on what to avoid and simple steps to take to improve presentations, including content, design, and delivery. You�re right, the white paper is more of an ebook than a white paper�it�s just over 40 pages!

Categories: interviews, powerpoint

PowerPoint 2010 Animation Engine

2010-01-11T17:02:00.001+05:30

The PowerPoint 2010 team has put up this new video on their YouTube channel that shows how effective the new hardware accelerated animation engine is compared to what you could expect in PowerPoint 2007. Very cool stuff!

Categories: animation, powerpoint_2010

myBrainshark: The Indezine Review

2010-01-11T15:28:00.001+05:30

Almost everyone these days is comfortable creating a set of slides using PowerPoint, but tell those same users to create online presentations or e-learning content, and you'll find them not too happy! myBrainshark is a free online application that makes it easy to create on-demand online presentations with just your PowerPoint slides and a phone connection to add voice-overs -- it all works very intuitively, and you can create your first online presentation in less than an hour.

So how does myBrainshark fare? Read on to learn more...

Categories: brainshark, online_presentations, powerpoint

think-cell: Conversation with Markus Hannebauer

2009-12-22T10:47:00.000+05:30

Dr. Markus Hannebauer is think-cell�s Managing Director and in-charge of Marketing, Sales, Operations and Finance. Markus has studied computer science and business and holds a doctoral degree in Artificial Intelligence from the Technical University of Berlin.

In this conversation, Markus talks about how think-cell chart can help PowerPoint users create effective charts.

Geetesh: Tell us about think-cell, and your PowerPoint add-in products.

Markus: While working for a well-known consulting firm, my colleague and co-founder Arno Sch�dl faced a lot of problems in creating data-driven charts using PowerPoint. The consultants often struggled with small details like integrating graphical elements into charts and getting label-placement right. Arno and his colleagues were also frustrated because at that time, there was a dearth of decent tools which would alleviate this daily grunt.

Eventually he asked me if I was interested in building something to make the consultants� lives easier. Arno is my friend since school and we knew each other very well; besides this, his idea sounded really convincing to me. Thus in the year 2002, think-cell was born.

After carrying out experiments at various partner firms, we launched our first product called think-cell chart. The users were happy with the fact that they could create various PowerPoint charts like Gantt, Marimekko, waterfall and many more within their well-known working environment with minimum effort. What they appreciated most was that after chart creation, it was really easy to edit them and to share them with colleagues and clients. Presently, we are working on a new tool to automate the entire layout of conceptual slides, where the layout is automatically calculated by understanding the user requirements and constraints.

We have come a long way since 2002. An excellent development, support, and sales team is responsible for think-cell�s spectacular growth. Over the last three years we have continuously been featured in Deloitte�s annual Technology Fast 50 ranking, securing the fourth place in 2009 with a revenue growth of 3,154% over five years. Four out of five top consulting firms and a majority of the companies in the Fortune-100 are think-cell�s customers.

This journey has been our reward and the best satisfaction is helping people solve real world issues with our software. think-cell�s users are our greatest assets since their feedback helps us craft our products to a high quality. Arno and I believe that supporting students and non-profit organizations is a good way to give back to our user community. Moreover, this also prepares students for future consulting and related career paths. Licenses of think-cell are available free of charge for students and researchers.

Geetesh: How easy is the think-cell chart product to use, compared to creating the same charts in PowerPoint or Excel alone without using think-cell chart? Explain more.

Markus: The main difference to traditional PowerPoint charting is the user interface and the degree of automation. This is where we put all our efforts, because it makes our software easy to learn and quick to use. A very influential customer once desired some changes in a particular user interface component of think-cell chart. We had to alter and field-test the respective component at-least five times, but finally we achieved the perfect solution. Experience gathered by our users is taken really seriously and we always try to go the extra mile to help them enjoy their work with think-cell.

Claims do not carry much value unless there are measurements to support them. So we conducted case-studies with some of our customers to see if think-cell really improved the users� PowerPoint experience. A test set containing business data visualization tasks in PowerPoint was supplied to a sample group. Using PowerPoint with templates and macros alone required more than ten hours of work. Less than three hours were invested to finish the same tasks using PowerPoint with think-cell chart.

Consequently, after six months of experimenting, it was confirmed that even PowerPoint veterans achieved efficiency gains by factors of 3 to 5 by using think-cell chart as compared to their chosen existing methods. Today, thousands of users trust our products in their day-to-day work and we intend to continue the tradition.

You can start using think-cell and get proficient using the program even if you are using it for the first time. Making a chart with think-cell chart is like scribbling the same on a piece of paper or whiteboard. The documentation and screen-casts on our web site will help you quickly in getting started with think-cell chart.

I can only invite your readers to try think-cell themselves and see their productivity go up while creating PowerPoint charts. Once at a party in Berlin, Arno came across a consultant who really liked an add-in she was using to create charts in PowerPoint. He let her talk about it for a while and then responded with a smile: "Glad you liked it, that�s us!"

Categories: add-in, charting, interviews, powerpoint

Poll on PowerPoint 2010

2009-12-11T12:18:00.003+05:30

I created this poll for all of us to know how many have tried the new PowerPoint 2010 beta, and if others are considering playing with this new beta version -- so do vote and see what every one is responding with!

As one respondent on my LinkedIn group responded: "Yeah, my company is on 2003, and here I am with 2007 at home, and beta testing 2010 :)"!!!!!

Vote and view responses here...

Categories: powerpoint_2010

Speech-Over Professional 4: The Indezine Review

2009-12-08T13:41:00.001+05:30

It's often very time-consuming and expensive to record voice-overs with professionals -- of course you can record your own voice these days but not everyone is entirely audible and has the proper pronunciation, vocal control, and confidence to do that. And trust me -- lots of users want to add high quality narration to their PowerPoint presentations so that these can be shown as a sequential walkthrough without a live presenter. Fortunately, a product that we have reviewed in the past has been updated to make this task automatic, easy, and usable!

Read our review of Speech-Over Professional 4...

Categories: add-in, powerpoint

XL-Addin: Conversation with Aurelian Laic

2009-12-08T13:34:00.001+05:30

Aurelian Laic has worked in software development and IT consultancy since 1997 creating many business and enterprise applications. He's been working as consultant for large companies listed in DAX and M-DAX and has been writing articles for various security magazines. He is now the owner of a software company that creates XL-Addin.

In this conversation, Aurelian talks about how XL-Addin can help PowerPoint users.

Geetesh: Tell us about your XL-Addin product and how it works with PowerPoint.

Aurelian: XL-Addin is an Excel add-ins suite designed for business and enterprise use.
All components are designed for business users, not experts or technologists, but the results will look as made by experts. The main purpose of XL-Addin is to improve the productivity by spending less time involved in tasks that could be easy automated.

One component of XL-Addin is Export to PowerPoint, a feature that automates the export of Excel ranges into new or existing PowerPoint presentations. Export to PowerPoint allows user to transform Excel workbooks into professional PowerPoint presentations with progress bars, content slide, navigation etc. using existing presentations or new presentation.

Geetesh: What are the scenarios in which this Excel add-in can be useful to PowerPoint designers -- how does it make their work easy and their workflow faster?

Aurelian: XL-Addin is helpful especially when you regularly have to create or update PowerPoint presentations using data stored in Excel workbooks (financial or budgeting data, monitor HR changes; sales data, project management data).

Normally this operation is done manually, by copying the ranges and charts from Excel and then pasting it to PowerPoint slides. But this operation is time consuming and the quality of the export is poor in many cases.

By using XL-Addin the copy/paste procedure became totally automated and the user can create large presentations in less than a minute. For exporting to PowerPoint, XL-Addin uses a different approach: it saves the ranges/charts as images, process them and then inserts the images into slides. This technique assures a good compression level keeping the quality of the images very high.

Furthermore the user is able to set exactly the format, position and sizes for each exported range. A special feature of PowerPoint exporter allows the user to visually adjust the position and size using a preview of the slide where the export will be done. Anything can be customized: the user can create custom presentations by selecting the slides to be exported with just a few mouse clicks; the slides/page order can be changed very easy, the picture format or sizes and positions for all slides can be adjusted/changed quickly. All settings for export are saved and stored in workbook for later use.

Categories: add-in, excel, interviews, powerpoint

Get 50% off Wildform Products Only Today and Tomorrow

2009-12-08T09:18:00.001+05:30

After they put on a similar sale last week, I convinced our friends at Wildform to offer the same great deal to Indezine subscribers -- and they agreed!

So, for the next 2 days you'll get 50% off on everything in the Wildform store. This offer ends at midnight on Wednesday, December 9th. At the store you'll find the Flair Deluxe Bundle, which includes everything you need to create Flash movies from your PowerPoint presentations (including controlling each individual aspect of the PowerPoint to Flash conversion!)

More info here...

Categories: powerpoint_flash, wildform

Better Beginnings: The Carmen Taran Interview

2009-12-05T12:42:00.003+05:30

Dr. Carmen Taran's presentations and workshops help business professionals to use communication and presentation skills to increase revenue, train or motivate others, and overall to stand out from too much sameness in the industry. A published author, Carmen is frequently invited as a keynote speaker at various conferences. In this interview, she talks about her book, shares ideas about creating better presentations, and then discusses imagination and sincerity.

Read the interview here...

Categories: books, design, interviews, powerpoint

Create a Presentation the Steve Jobs Way

2009-12-01T12:08:00.003+05:30

Carmine Gallo is a communications coach for the world�s most admired brands. He is a sought after speaker and author of the new book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience.

In this Indezine exclusive article, Carmine discusses how you can create better slides, and become a better presenter -- all techniques are inspired by Apple CEO Steve Jobs' presentation skills.

Read Carmine Gallo's article here...

Categories: books, opinion, presentation_skills

Learn PowerPoint 2007: Text Placeholders vs. Text Boxes

2009-12-01T10:13:00.001+05:30

I already covered this concept using PowerPoint 2003, and now will be exploring the relationship between text boxes and text placeholders in PowerPoint 2007. But maybe someone just said stop, and asked me these questions: Aren't text boxes and text placeholders the same? Are they really different? And why should I bother even if they are different?

All these are valid questions, and the answers to them form one of the most important foundations in learning to create more structured presentations.

Read more here...

Categories: outline, powerpoint, powerpoint_2007, text, tutorials

Learn PowerPoint: Text Placeholders vs. Text Boxes

2009-11-30T13:34:00.003+05:30

Aren't text boxes and text placeholders the same? Are they really different? And why should I bother even if they are different? All these are valid questions, and the answers to them form one of the most important foundations in learning to create more structured presentations.

In PowerPoint slides, text can be found in many places: text placeholders, text boxes, tables, charts, Notes pane, and more places. However, the text within a text placeholder has characteristics that set it a class apart from all other text. So what exactly is a text placeholder, and how is it different from text within a text box or anywhere else?

Learn more here...

Categories: outline, powerpoint, powerpoint_2003, text, tutorials

Learn PowerPoint: Slides / Outline Pane in PowerPoint 2003

2009-11-30T10:24:00.002+05:30

In the PowerPoint 2003 Interface page, I already showed you the different parts of the program interface -- in this page, we'll focus on one particular area of the interface: the Slides/Outline pane, and it is normally placed on the left side of the interface. The Slides tab is normally active, but to get to the Outline tab, all you need to do is select the second tab shown in the pane.

Learn more here...

Categories: outline, powerpoint, powerpoint_2003, tutorials

PowerPoint Cool Stuff: Create a Slide Show That Really Slides!

2009-11-28T13:02:00.002+05:30

Ellen Finkelstein is the author of 101 Advanced Techniques Every PowerPoint User Should Know. This book contains several, cool PowerPoint tips, and one of them is excerpted on Indezine as an exclusive. Recently, it occurred to Ellen that the words "slide show" came about because early presentations looked like they were sliding as the slides were moved on and off the screen. Here's a technique that makes your presentation look as if it's sliding.

Learn more here...

Categories: animation, powerpoint, techniques

Dump that Text! Transform Your PowerPoint Slides into a Visual Feast

2009-11-27T12:09:00.004+05:30

"Oh, no, not again! Don�t tell me I have to sit through another boring meeting staring at line after line of text on a wall," she mumbled. "Why can�t these people learn how to make their PowerPoint presentations more interesting?" We've all wondered the same thing, but monotonously bullet-pointed, text-filled slides continue to be the norm in most presentation venues. Be different: Show, don't tell.

This article by Robert Lane and Dr. Stephen Kosslyn provides you with better options that will allow you to dump so much text! Learn more here...

Categories: opinion, powerpoint

Brainshark Insurance Network: Conversation with Irwin Hipsman

2009-11-25T16:46:00.001+05:30

Irwin Hipsman is the director of customer community at Brainshark, a leader in on-demand presentations. He has more than 20 years of experience in the cable, conferencing and collaboration industries, and has worked with communications technologies including with multi-point video conferencing; audio, video and Web conferencing; and distance learning via satellite. Prior to Brainshark, Irwin was involved in the management of public access cable television stations.

In this conversation, Irwin talks about the Brainshark Insurance Network.

Geetesh: Tell us about the Brainshark Insurance Network, how it is set up, and whom it is geared to?

Irwin: Sure. We�re very excited to have recently launched the Brainshark Insurance Network. It�s a central site for life insurance carriers and their distribution partners, such as brokerages, and enables everyone to tap into the benefits of Brainshark on-demand presentations. Using the site, life insurance carriers can equip their distribution channels with pre-approved multimedia presentations, which the distributors then use for internal product education, as well as their own sales and marketing outreach.

As background on Brainshark, our technology enables businesspeople to easily create voice-enhanced presentations that are available online, on demand. You can easily turn content like PowerPoint presentations, marketing collateral, and Web pages into interactive Flash-based presentations, incorporating animation, video, survey and quiz questions, and more. Because your audience can view the presentation at any time and have the full benefit of both seeing and hearing your message, it leads to greater reach and knowledge retention.

Now, with the Brainshark Insurance Network, life insurance carriers have a trusted network for communicating effectively and productively with their distribution channels via Brainshark presentations. From within their own Brainshark application sites, carriers can easily publish selected presentations to the Network and update them anytime, so keeping content fresh is a cinch. In addition, by letting their distributors access and send out content from the Brainshark Insurance Network, life insurance carriers can rest easy that their offerings are being communicated in a consistent and high-impact way.

Now if you�re a distributor, you can access the Network, and view and send Brainshark presentations for free. No more combing through e-mails, scouring individual portals and searching back through newsletters for your carriers� content � everything you need from all the carriers you work with is right here, in this central, secure Network. For a monthly fee, you can also get access to advanced features, including the ability to personalize carrier content � adding in an intro and closing that includes your own voice, as well as a photo or logo to convey the value of your brand. Additional options include using Brainshark�s authoring tools to create your own presentations in a private site, and accessing best practice tutorials from Brainshark. Check out this overview presentation which goes into more detail.

Life insurance carriers and their distribution partners can also take advantage of Brainshark�s tracking capabilities. Carriers can see, for instance, which of their presentations are being used and which distributors are using them � letting them know how content is resonating. Distributors get even more granular info and receive instant notification of individual viewing activity for free � showing who watched a presentation, how much content was consumed, how any questions were answered and more � enabling them to prioritize follow-up. Distributors can also provide direct feedback to the carriers in the form of comments and ratings of content.

We�ve seen a lot of enthusiasm around the Network and already have an impressive roster of life insurance carriers participating, including American General Life, American National Insurance, Jackson National Life, Lincoln Benefit Life, Liberty National Life and United American Insurance, with others joining weekly. There�s a lot of traction on the distributor side as well � with more than 100 brokerages participating.

Geetesh: So in effect, this is a subset of the entire Brainshark content selected and geared towards a vertical industry?

Irwin: That�s a good question � the answer is yes, and much more. The Brainshark Insurance Network is an extension of what we�re doing today and what life insurers have been doing with Brainshark for several years now � using Brainshark-delivered presentations to train and educate distributors and to help them sell using multimedia presentations to tell a compelling and consistent story. And now with some unique capabilities of this new Network, participating carriers are able to increase their reach to distribution partners they haven�t done business with before and better enable distributors by providing them with the technology and content to do their own marketing and selling. In addition, both carriers and their distributors are able to measure the impact of their communications more than ever before.

Categories: brainshark, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint

Office 2010 Beta

2009-11-22T09:11:00.002+05:30

The Office 2010 Beta is now available for everyone! You can download the Office 2010 Beta applications and run it on your computer, or even try out the online Office Web Apps.

The Office 2010 Beta site has more info including video clips, lists of new features, etc.

Just in case you do download the Office 2010 Beta, do remember that this is beta software. Don't run it on a system that's your main work environment! You can however use the wonders of virtualization to run Office 2010 Beta on Virtual PC or VMware.

Virtual PC is a free virtualization software from Microsoft that runs on Microsoft Windows. VMware offers its Workstation and Fusion products that can run a separate, virtual instance of Windows on Windows or Mac.

Getting back to Microsoft Office 2010 Beta, here's the official press release. And look out for PowerPoint 2010 related info here...

Categories: office_2010, powerpoint_2010

Photographs and Copyrights: Conversation with Rikk Flohr

2009-11-10T08:11:00.004+05:30

A refugee from 18 years in corporate management and marketing, Rikk Flohr turned his attention inward to his 20-year love affair with photography. He founded his design firm Fleeting Glimpse Images in January 2006 and divides his days between various print and screen design projects, presentation consulting and, of course, photography. He lives in Apple Valley, Minnesota.

In this conversation, Rikk talks about photographs and copyrights.

Geetesh: Many people use all sorts of photos in PowerPoint � and most of them assume that any visuals they find from image searches on Google can be used in their PowerPoint presentations. How are they wrong, and what are the easiest alternative options available to them.

Rikk: I think this leads back to an erroneous notion that items found on the internet are either public domain, due to the magnanimous intentions of the creator, or free for the grabbing due to their public posting. It is a little like the mentality of the proponents of unauthorized wireless internet access. If a person leaves their wireless access point unprotected, they are, by default, inviting people to use it. Only people who hide their SSID, for example, do not wish to share their connection. The same could be said of internet images. By posting them, there is an assumption that free use is implied by virtue of their being visible in the first place.

It seems there is a generational effect at work here. The expectation of intellectual property seems to be proportional to the age of the both the artist and the consumer of the artist�s fruits. Younger people, especially those growing up with the omnipresence of computers in their lives, have a lower expectation of their work being an item of intellectual value. The perception grows as the audience gets younger that work is not longer fine art, but a commodity, or at worst, a freebie. One only has to look at the recent trends in the music and movie industries to see how this applies. Even my own children do not always understand my rabid defense of my own intellectual property. After all, isn�t information supposed to be free? Is that not the modern battle cry?

�What�s the harm?� they say of someone who is using my image on their website, with or without attribution. The harm for me is that my livelihood, and by extension theirs, is directly related to the marketability of my intellectual properties-including the photographs I have taken. If I don�t defend every instance of improper use, I can�t, in the eyes of US law defend an egregious and financially substantial theft.

Unless there is express permission by the images� creator and/or copyright holder, there is generally no acceptable use of that image. A few exceptions exist but for what we are talking about today, it is the rule. That having been said, there are places where public-domain images exist. There are also places where non-public-domain images are available for use. Creative Commons licensing became popular as a way to grant usage of images to people needing an economical source of quality images. Photo-sharing sites like Flickr offer the ability to couple images displayed to a license that grants usage under conditions for certain considerations such as attribution, linking, and other considerations.

In addition to a wealth of Creative Commons and similarly �no-cost� image licensing solutions, there is the world of the Stock Image House. Stock image prices have fallen through the floor in the past ten years. An image that cost $200.00 USD five scant years ago can be had for as little as $15.00 USD today. That puts a lot of quality photography and illustration work within the reach of many budgets. Images have become a commodity and the lower prices have put them in a place where people should seriously consider foregoing the risk of legal action by purchasing a low-cost stock image. As long as there are images that a 'right-click' can capture, people will consider them free for the taking. No matter how cheap they might become from legitimate sources, the lure of the free will entice some.

Geetesh: If people started clicking their own images with digital cameras, would everything be OK � or are there still some copyright infringement issues they should be concerned about?

Rikk: The ability to easily capture images via the Digital Camera and to process them via Image Editing Software should have improved the availability of quality, pertinent images. It doesn�t always.

First, there is the problem of competency. The reason photographers and illustrators exist is that they have a skill set which allows them to create an end product superior to the layman�s. The advances in technology in digital cameras have gone a long way toward helping a novice produce a better image. The elaborate concepts of lighting, composition and attention to detail mean that a professional photograph is, at best, a hit-and-miss proposition for a novice armed with the latest extraordinary technology. Give the pro-photographer and the novice the same camera and ask them to photograph the identical subject and the difference is obvious.

Quality aside, there are a few issues of which the digital camera user must be aware. Property and people are protected somewhat by current privacy laws. In general, you are safe to shoot images just about anywhere on public property. This doesn�t mean you are free from hassle-but rather that you are within your constitutional rights. That also doesn�t mean that you won�t be accosted by police, corporate security, and angry individuals. In a world containing the threat of terrorism, you can be viewed as suspicious anywhere you photograph. You must be prepared to be detained by authorities, explain yourself, and understand your rights.

In the corporate world, things are different. Once you leave the domain of public property, you are at the mercy, more-or-less, of the persons responsible for order and security. Many companies have policies (written and unofficial) regarding people photographing buildings, technologies or employees. On the recent PowerPoint Live 2009 Digital Photography Field Trip, I, as the tour organizer spent a significant portion of the trip running interference. Four times during the two hour expedition, I was forced to explain what we were doing to hotel security, bank security guards, Atlanta�s MARTA police and people who asked what we were up to. Content which might appear in a digital photograph may be sensitive or even protected.

As a photographer, I carry model and property releases for items which I may decide to photograph with the intent of using at a later date. Without those releases, I open myself to liability should I click a digital image of a person or a property. If recognizable people appear in your image, you will need a release to use the photo. If a trademarked or copyrighted item appears in your photograph, you need a release to use the photo. Think about a Coke� bottle. The logo is trademarked. The shape of the bottle is even protected. You can get out of paying usage fees to a photographer or a stock house by taking your own image but you still don�t have the rights to use that image containing the trademarked bottle and logo without Coke�s permission-in most cases.

The same holds true for works of art. Consider the Eiffel Tower. How many millions of photographs exist of the iconic Paris landmark? Did you know that, according to the trade publications I read, that you can use any image taken of the tower for any purpose-but only in daylight! After dark, the company which lights the tower holds the rights to usage of any image captured. In the daylight anyone can see the tower. At night, only the company lighting the tower, can provide you with an image by virtue of their �creative� act of lighting. It doesn�t mean you can�t take an image of the tower at night. Use that image in a work for profit item and you may be subject to legal action however.

You can photograph people and places and in certain instances use the resulting images. There are many exceptions to image use including, educational use, public-good, editorial and many others. The answer to just about every copyright question is �It depends.� Anyone sitting in Alvin Trusty�s PowerPoint Live Copyright session would have heard those two words repeatedly. It Depends!

Bottom line: you are going to have a generally less-expensive path to an image by taking it yourself. Realize that you must have some sort of clearing process for what appears in your image. It may require a model release or a property release to completely clear your image for use. You may be in a situation where usage is considered fair without a release but make certain you are before using that image.

Categories: copyrights, interviews, photography, powerpoint