Christmas PowerPoint Goodies

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Oh, the Christmas season is upon us yet again. Time for the free Christmas PowerPoint template link roundup:First, Get Your Christmas Lyrics. You can find lyrics to your favorite Christmas carols online. Paste the lyrics into PowerPoint, and you’re set to lead the chorus.Next, Download Christmas PowerPoint Templates. All sorts of free Christmas PowerPoint Template madness abounds online. Here is the fave freebie countdown. (I wish we could sing it it the tune of “12 Days of Christmas”. This is close, though:Twelve Christmas PowerPoint Backgrounds from Philip MartinEleven Christmas Templates from BrainyBettyNine Christmas Templates from Presentation HelperSix Christmas PowerPoint Templates, courtesy of WondershareTwo snowy templates from Microsoft: flakes and snowy road One Santa with Mistletoe at the FreeTree Who’s got more? (Oh, go ahead. Bookmark this page now. You’ll be back before Christmas….)

How to Break it to Your Boss: “You Need a Makeover!”

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How do you tell your boss or colleagues that they need a makeover?I’m not talking about their clothes, hair, or makeup. Instead, I’m talking about their PowerPoint presentations! Just in time for the holidays, PowerPoint MVPs Geetesh Bajaj and Echo Swinford provide a fun new way to transform dated PowerPoint designs. Last week, the two authors released an exciting, full-color book called Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit. Actually, this action-packed new release is more “kit” than a “book”, as it contains a CD chock full of music, pictures, templates, themes, and more. In a free online excerpt, you’ll see how to transform a dated, bullet-list presentation into a fashionable, bullet-free look.Transform your design approach. If your organization professes to be progressive and forward-thinking, your PowerPoint design needs to reflect these qualities. A dated, out-of-touch design simply won’t do. Your company needs to stay current and investigate fresh approaches to crafting presentations. If your organization has upgraded to PowerPoint 2007, make sure your presentation design approach keeps pace with a 2008 look and feel.A new look for the new year. The holidays present a terrific opportunity to upgrade your corporate image without wounding egos. After all, it’s downright diplomatic and thoughtful to buy a fun holiday gift — instead of burning with embarrassment over yet another design disaster.Go check out the new PowerPoint 2007 Makeover Kit — it can make a terrific, timely, and tasteful business gift.

Camtasia Studio 3 is Free!

Right now, Techsmith is giving away their popular screencasting software, Camtasia 3.This is not a 30-day trial. It’s the full version.For free.At the moment, the most up-to-date version of the software is Studio 5. When you use Camtasia 3, TechSmith believes you will love it so much, you will want to upgrade to get the latest version.Camtasia 3 has a ton of great features, though. Certainly enough for you to create training and sales videos. Or record PowerPoint presentations. And maybe even to upload your newly created videos to YouTube. (For example, I used Camtasia 3 to create this YouTube Video about PowerPoint in August 2007.)Here are instructions for getting your free, fully-functional copy of Camtasia 3:Step 1: Download & install the Studio 3 software:http://download.techsmith.com/camtasiastudio/enu/312/camtasiaf.exe Step 2: Register for a password:http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/pcpls.asp Step 3: Enter the password into the software.Step 4: Use Camtasia 3 to create a viral video.Step 5: Upload the video to YouTube tonight, become world-famous over the long Thanksgiving weekend.Ok, Ok, steps 4 & 5 are totally optional! (But not completely out of the realm of the possible!)Who knows how long this deal will last? Take advantage of the offer and the long weekend to create something wonderful.And thanks for giving, TechSmith!

Kitsch and Camp: The PowerPoint Twins

What’s Kitsch? Kitsch is a black velvet painting. Garden gnomes, lava lamps, troll dolls, flamingo lawn ornaments, dogs playing poker — all are classic kitsch. Often of poor quality, kitsch is an object that appeals to lowbrow, popular, or tacky tastes.What’s Camp? Camp is the presentation of kitsch. Jon Waters, Cyndi Lauper, and Kiss are deliberately campy. Tom Cruise, Judy Garland, and Betty Davis are (probably) unintentionally campy. A campy presentation is so outrageously dramatic, inappropriate, gaudy, affected, or out-of-date it’s ironic and funny. What’s contemporary kitsch & camp? When you watch VH1 “I Love the [insert decade here]” - you are watching a top 100 kitsch & camp report. In 3 years, what will be considered kitsch and camp for the ‘00 decade?Will PowerPoint presentations make the kitschy cut? After all, there’s a certain black velvet quality to many PowerPoint presentations……as well as to most Keynote presentations.Oh, let’s face it. Everything Apple is deliciously kitschy-campy. The Apple “Zen Aesthetic” is contemporary kitsch. By combining this spare design style with:the Jobs priestly-black dress codethe gratuitous and cliched body language of Buddha-pose-faux-humility, PlaySkool-ish, Web 2.0-y graphics,the promotion of i-Everything,dancing iPod silhouettes —- Apple is a contemporary kitsch+camp juggernaut!Kitsch and camp are iconic, ironic fun. When you’re deliberately kitschy or campy, you can come across as witty and self-deprecating. However, if you’re unintentionally Tom Cruise-y or Apple-campy, you risk appearing self-important or buffoonish.Try jumping on a couch these days without appearing ironic.Commit to your camp. If you have a kitschy style, make sure you affect a campy mannerism. This can help you more fully engage your audience. There’s no sense having a clipart-y, cluttered, bullet point-y, totally 1990’s Microsoft-kitsch PowerPoint presentation if you don’t drive it home by, say, swaggering like Johnny Depp in Pirate of the Caribbean. Cringing like the evil Mr. Burns from the Simpsons while presenting with a very 90’s slide design is also an excellent kitsch-camp combo.If you’re going to be design-kitschy, you’ll want to commit to being presentation-campy.What’s on your kitsch list? What is contemporary kitsch that is currently not commonly recognized as such? What contemporary ‘00 kitsch & camp will become classic kitsch and camp in the ‘10 decade?

Who Looks for Motivational Speakers? Seriously?

Honestly. I hear the term “motivational speaker” and I conjure up an image of Chris Farley. He’s in that famous Saturday Night Live Sketch — where his character “lives in a van, down by the river.”It’s a hilarious skit. However, it portrays motivational speakers in a less than positive light!You already are a motivational speaker! When you think about it, anyone who speaks or presents should be a “motivational speaker”. After all, the primary goal of every presentation is to inspire action or enthusiasm. If you’re speaking and you’re not motivating — what the heck are you doing?Google Goofed! So I was amused to look at my stats last week and find that I suddenly had a ton of folks visiting this blog from Google, looking for the term “motivational”. During a Google programming flux this month, this little blog was momentarily at the top of the search heap for that word. Here is the picture — titled “Paranoia” — that Google deemed an appropriate result for the “motivational” search.Yes, that’s me. I found this Google goof kind of amusing. After all, there’s nothing motivational about my silly picture! And I swear, I didn’t do anything to “game” Google into putting this unlikely picture at the top of the results!But it did get me thinking about what kind of person goes to Google looking for a motivational speaker. What’s their thought process?”Hey, I need a speaker. Guess I’ll Google one. Or maybe I can get a bargain speaker at eBay.”That scenario seems unlikely. It seems that if you want a motivational speaker, you go by personal referral. I could be wrong, but sites like Facebook or LinkedIn might be more valuable for finding a motivational speaker. With a social media site, you can get referrals from other people you know and trust. Personally, I’m behind in developing my social networking profiles. But if you target your professional services to people in in their 20’s and 30’s — you might want to get going with the whole social media thing, pronto.But who searches for motivational speakers, really? It seems to me that folks who are looking for motivational speakers at Google are probably looking for information on how to become motivational speakers. That scenario seems much more likely than actually using a search engine to find a speaker for your organization.So, if you’re a motivational speaker, speak up! Feel free to comment or contact me. If you feel so inclined, please answer the following three questions:How did you get into your line of work?What’s the best way to market your services?What advice might you have for newbies?And what do you really think of that phrase, “motivational speaker?” ;)PS — if you want to hire me as your company’s motivational speaker, I insist that you provide me with a van. Down by the river…

Every Feature in PowerPoint!

If I were to list every feature in PowerPoint, how many might there be? One thousand? Ten thousand?Counting the features in PowerPoint is like a “guess how many jelly beans are in the jar” contest. There is a dizzying display of different and colorful features. Most people who use PowerPoint will probably (hopefully!) deploy less than a tenth of them.In her latest ebook, author Ellen Finkelstein writes 101 Tips Every PowerPoint User Should Know. Instead of an exhaustive description of every feature, this refreshing guide provides shortcuts and techniques that make creating a PowerPoint presentation much, much easier.Not just for newbies! The new ebook is available for download at Ellen’s site for $15 US. The ebook is terrific for beginners — but even if you’re an old pro with PowerPoint, I suspect you will learn quite a few tips and tricks to make designing your presentations a more elegant experience.

Disposable Learning Objects and Jing

Yesterday, I downloaded TechSmith’s Jing Project — just to give it a test. I was a little cranky about getting it to work. But then again, it was my first day back from vacation, so I was a little cranky about everything!Disposable Learning Objects. Today, I easily and happily used Jing to easily create and share three disposable learning objects. Here’s what happened:Quick “How-to”. A client emailed me, and asked “how-to” do a text link in their blog. Easy enough, but it would take minutes to write or phone instructions. But with Jing, it took me less than a minute to create and share a personalized 39 second video.”See what I see?” Another client emailed an almost-final draft of an event invitation. I used Jing to show her how it looked on my computer, and took 26 seconds point out a small design flub — which she promptly fixed before sending the invitation to her list.”Show and tell.” My third client also had a small email error, so I took under a minute to “show and tell” the problem and explain the fix. Visual Voicemail. Oddly enough, I didn’t start my day thinking that I’d use Jing. But I used Jing 3 times before 3:33pm to create what you might call disposable learning objects.These objects are entirely ephemeral — and useful for a limited audience. I think of these three little Jings as visual voicemails. Many times, a moving picture with narration can take less time and communicate much more richly than a page of written instructions.About the Jing Project. For the moment, TechSmith is providing Jing and online media hosting — for free — to see what you’ll do with it. Eventually, the project will evolve into something else. Today, I used it for Disposable Learning and Video Voicemail.How will you use the Jing Project — while it lasts?(Thanks again, TechSmith!)

Transform posts into podcasts

Some people don’t like to read. They’re not illiterate or uneducated. They simply prefer other modes of communication, entertainment, or information exchange.Me, I’m somewhat compulsive about reading. I often have to visit foreign countries where I don’t speak the language to force myself to take a vacation from reading. (And even then, I try!)But there are times that I simply cannot read a word.In a car, train, boat, or plane (I get motion sick.)When my eyes are tired (at the end of the day.)On the treadmill (too much jouncing.)I started to wonder about how to serve blog readers that might be visually impaired. Or how to reach people who prefer listening to reading. And I still believe some people — info junkies like me — might prefer to get caught up on blog news while they are commuting or exercising.So I decided to give Odiogo a try at my other blog site. Odiogo automatically transforms blog posts into podcasts. The free service gives your written content a spoken “voice” — and by creating a special podcast feed, it also claims to give a blog “legs”.Here’s how Odiogo works: By implementing Odiogo, an articulate male voice reads each one of my blog posts. While “the voice” is somewhat robotic, he’s pretty good with inflections and pretty easy on the ears. People can choose to subscribe to the audio feed instead of the written feed — and hear my content rather than read the posts. Further, those who prefer to take their feeds “on the road” can save the audio content to their iPods or other portable mp3 player devices.What do you think of services like Odiogo? Implementing the service was a snap — I filled out a form, and pasted in some code to my blog template. And I do like the idea of being kinder to the visually impaired. I also like the concept of better serving those who don’t find themselves in a position to read.But how will people respond to services like Odiogo?

Free PowerPoint Add-In: YouTube Video Wizard

Back in August, these four online videos showed us how to embed YouTube videos into PowerPoint presentations.That was August. And while these “summer of 2007″ instructions still work, today, there’s an even easier way…Enter the autumn of 2007. Microsoft MVP Shyam Pillai offers a PowerPoint Add-In called YouTube Video Wizard, or YTV. It took only minutes for me to download, install, and test this new and extremely useful PowerPoint add-in.After installing the YTV add-in, you will see a new tab under “Insert” titled “YouTube Video”. Click it, and a wizard will walk you though everything you need to do to insert a YouTube Video into your PowerPoint presentation. Easy!One small caveat. You must have a live internet connection for this add-in to work properly during show time. If you do not, you still must download and convert the YouTube Video before inserting it into your presentation.