What do Good Presentations and Good Websites have in common?
It’s simply satisfying to attend a really good presentation. Although you may be one of many audience members, the speaker seems to connect directly with you. You leave, not just persuaded, but inspired to take action.

Now think about what business owners want to achieve with their websites. They want to connect with their web-surfing audiences and inspire them to action. Since the goals are similar, it only makes sense that the underlying principals are very much the same.
Attention to Audience
Too often, presenters fail to venture outside their own head as they …

We communicate with other people every day. Over the course of our lives we’ve developed verbal, written and visual communication skills that help us convey our thoughts. From time to time, we find ourselves in a position to share these ideas in a business context, often in the form of a presentation. And, it’s usually at this point where we completely forget how to talk.

I remember in 4th grade, I desperately wanted to ask Jenny Grubb to dance at a school event. Like every other 4th grader, I was plastered against the wall with the boys, while the girls giggled …

We all need a place to start when embarking upon a creative endeavor - and make no mistake about it, a good presentation is a work of creativity.  However, there are some concrete steps we can all take to make sure that the underlying core of our projects are solid.  I hope mine can speak for themselves…
10 – Stick to your Central Message
A presentation is not a survey course.  You cannot cover everything.  Make sure you know what you’re going to talk about and ruthlessly remove all subject matter which deviates from that subject.
9 – Have an Objective
As a professional, …

Have you ever been looking for that perfect fact that helps you translate a statistic from your presentation into a language your audience understands?  Well this week’s vein of online ore will help you do just that.

For example, 1 in every 8.5 American children under the age of 18 is without health insurance.  The same portion of the California population filed for personal bankruptcy in 2008.

Book of Odds has been online for close to a year offering articles and odds statements on topics from sports and relationships to health and death.  And once …

If you’ve read The Gold Mine over the months, you know that we believe that it is possible to use Powerpoint well.  Earlier this month, I used Powerpoint to enhance a talk I gave to a group of colleagues in my professional network.  Valuable lessons were learned—by me.  And now, I share them with you.
Get Ready
I mapped out the overall message, and the component sections, of my talk. Then, I got it ready on Powerpoint. That part was so much fun! Too much fun! What a monstrous time suck!

I’d start searching through istockphotos.com. Let’s find photos of typewriters. Oh, goodie, …

Much of what I advocate in the way of presentation development involves simplification. Simple messages and simple slides make it easy for the audience to enjoy your talk and understand your point.

One could argue that the mere presence of slides adds undue complexity to a talk because the audience is faced with making a choice between focusing on the presenter or the slide. There is truth enough in this argument to make you pause and think - should I even include slides with my next talk?

Between a talk with no slides and one with a heavy slide emphasis, there is …

I’m sure you’ve heard it - a business acquaintance refers to a talk or presentation he or she is soon to give as “a PowerPoint”. Perhaps you’ve done the same. Although I am not so rude as to express it outwardly, when I hear someone refer to his or her talk as “a PowerPoint”, I experience a fight-or-flight response as my blood pressure spikes and I get the urge to run for the door.

PowerPoint:  Microsoft Office product that provides users with an interface to design multimedia slides to be displayed on a projection system or personal computer.

I like to …

You’ve been there… eyelids growing heavy, mind wandering, sitting through another boring business presentation. And what happens when it’s your turn to speak? Chances are you are committing some of the same presentations sins as everyone else. One of the greatest of these sins is the misuse of presentation software like PowerPoint.

Slides laden with bulleted text are not ingredients for a powerful presentation. But many of us don’t know any better. The templates provided by the software seem to beg for bullets and text and slide titles and logos and clipart. What were meant as tools to make …

The use of Flash is not limited to cute little animations on web pages. Flash is a very powerful software that allows for intelligent and useful interactivity. And when Flash integrated video, it increased the possibilities even more.

Here’s how we have used Flash at MB/I:

• Sales presentations
• Product demos
• Software wizards
• Interactive educational pieces
• Screensavers
• Calculators
• “Build your own” scenarios
• Training presentations
• Multi-level portfolios
• Advertising banners
• Tradeshow loops
• Animated cartoon strips
• and of course, animations for websites!

Flash can support deep layers of logic. One of calculators we built was an interactive ROI calculator. The formulas and logic involved in developing took up about 100 8.5″ X 11″ printed pages. One of the longest …