Corporate

Dec 27 2008   9:49AM GMT

On the Meeting: Teleconferencing, Videoconferencing and Web conferencing

Posted by: William Peterson
Web, CIO, IT professional, Review, Business, Corporate, Web Presentation, Business presentations, Businss Training, Web conferencing

Sure, once mostly a face-to-face practice, now executives are increasingly offering their wisdom via teleconference. It’s really more efficient than old ways to facilitate with modern technologies. Certainly teleconferencing is just the live exchange of voice on the meeting, and the videoconferencing has been used widely in last decade. Then now, conducting a live meetings or presentations via the Internet could be easier for anyone. Web conference, or Webniar can be seen everywhere over the Internet.

Right, I’m a techie fan, and here I’d like to review these current technologies for teleconferencing, videoconferencing and Web conferencing.

1. Internet Teleconference, such as Skype
Internet telephony involves conducting a teleconference over the Internet or a Wide Area Network. One key technology in this area is Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP). A lot of commercial VoIP networks available over the world, and Skype is the most popular one for personal and SME uses. Actually Skype offers a series of solution for business to start off such tele-conferencing soon.

One thing left, video conferencing is supported on Skype. And it’s usually my first place alternative for international calls.

2. Videoconference Impact on Education, Medicine and Business
No doubt videoconferencing could be sort of essentials on distance education, and also helps most doctors diagnose any complicated illness. And especially on business, it enables individuals in faraway places to have meetings on short notice. Time and money that used to be spent in traveling can be used to have short meetings. The technology is also used for telecommuting, in which employees work from home.

I ever tried such video conferencing on e-learning, and it works well. And it’s also widely used for any international conference on UN, or most multi-national enterprises.

3. The Boom of Web Conferencing Services
Web conferencing is not just the Internet version of teleconferencing or video conferencing, there’re some other typical advanced features here: slide show presentations, live or streaming video, VoIP, Web tours, meeting recording, whiteboard, text chat, polls and surveys, and screen sharing/desktop sharing/application sharing.

A lot of IT vendors provide Web conferencing service, including Adobe, IBM and Microsoft. But I still prefer another two services: Cisco’s WebEx (http://www.webex.com/) and Citrix’s GoToMeeting (http://www.gotomeeting.com/).

We really have more and more meetings to go, and technologies just make them cost-efficient with our brilliant ideas.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Dec 20 2008   3:15AM GMT

Online Holiday Boom with Stand-Out Sales Presentation

Posted by: William Peterson
Training, IT professional, Enterprise, Sales, Technology, PowerPoint, Business, Corporate, Business presentations, Holiday, presentation, Businss Training

Because of the weak economy, consumers seem to prefer more online shopping with discounts or free shipping on this holiday season. At least, this is good news for most long-waiting online retailers. Based upon sorta great prospect, Abhay Parekh, founder & CEO of an interactive multimedia platform company, is presenting a wiselike guidance for business communicators, on Sales & Marketing Management Magazine:

Five Tips for Creating a Stand-Out Sales Presentation

Looking to create that perfect eye-catching sales presentation to lock in some last-minute Q4 sales? The you had better rethink your strategy and take your presentation to the virtual scale.

1. Show, rather than tell.
2. Ditch your static slide presentations.
3. Go virtual.
4. Survey says?
5. Know when to stop.

Read full article at:
http://www.presentations.com/msg/content_display/presentations/e3i54e0d1d9416e8c7fbf73d212d777bd11

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Oct 1 2008   10:29AM GMT

Adobe Flash on iPhone/iPod Touch, Another Advancement for Mobile Business

Posted by: William Peterson
Web, iPhone, Apple, Mobile, RIA, Rich Media, Web 2.0, Technology, Learning, Adobe, Flash, Review, Business, Corporate, Online Apps, Flash Video, Solutions, iPod Touch

Since Adobe Flash Lite in Windows Mobile platform smartphone is greatly common, and a lot of people benefit from mobile Flash applications with interactive rich media such as Mobile Learning, why the popular Apple iPhone still can’t support kinda Flash plugin for Safari or standalone Flash container for the hottest Flash streaming such as YouTube?

Yesterday Adobe at Flash on the Beach 08 Conference (FOTB) said the company is actively developing a port of its Flash animation plugin for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but Apple’s mobile operation system is a “closed platform” and so is out of Adobe’s control. Adobe indicated that it will not use Flash Lite but a better approach to faster iPhone processor and graphics chip.

Apple definitely will approve the great deal I think. And finally we get what we expect of familiar Flash-based interactive applications on mobile devices as exact two-win. I promise, the enhancement of Flash will extended iPhone as the mobile business center. Certainly Adobe Flash for iPhone/iPod Touch will optimize the experiences on Web.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Sep 14 2008   11:26AM GMT

Look upon the Never Rivalry: Pushing Silverlight to Flash Presentation

Posted by: William Peterson
Web, YouTube, IT professional, RIA, Rich Media, Enterprise, Web 2.0, Technology, Learning, Adobe, Silverlight, Microsoft, Flash, Review, Business, community, Corporate, Online Apps, Flash Video, Webcam, Web Presentation, Business presentations

The NBC’s Olympic Games in Silverlight boomed Microsoft’s rich media technologies a lot, but it still stands outside the stage where Adobe Flash dances. Microsoft is not the god, neither is Adobe. Actually Silverlight did well in many specifications as newly developed kit for the Web, while Flash seemed old and out of some emerging developments. To fight the mainstream, let’s look around what Silverlight.

In the developer Niraj Swaminarayan’s Silverligh vs. Flash - An Analysis Report, we can see that some parts are not that crucial for most Web developers. So I take my hands to the opinion that, the so-called rivalry is really not that important like lots of observers said. YouTube can be a Silverlight based video sharing community as well as Flash offers.

I’m concerning about the impact on my favorite Webcasting industry where the Silverlight platform could not step in currently. If Silverlight lives better and better as expected, what’s the critical issues we’ll face when replacing with Silverlight? The IT infrastractures for a business do not require the value of emerging technologies. That’s why Windows Vista could not become the mainstream with its 2 years’ experiences. Certainly it’s not a bad idea to take Silverlight presentation in the future.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Aug 25 2008   11:08AM GMT

To Make Perfect PowerPoint Presentation for Business Success, You Need a Good Template

Posted by: William Peterson
IT professional, PowerPoint, Learning, Keynote, Microsoft, Business, PowerPoint 2007, Corporate, Business presentations

Why we need business presentation? Of course for the business success. And now essentially speaking, I recommend the helper for your business presentation, the good resources of PowerPoint templates to build your next success. It’s the sharing of my favorites, not advertising.

PowerPoint Templates from Indezine
Yes, believe this PowerPoint MVP, as I introduced him before (refer to New Presentation Technology in Review: Thank MVP Geetesh on FlashPPT). His free PowerPoint templates won’t let you down in any occasions. It’s so great, and everyone will love this best-ever big treasure.

Presentation Helper’s Resource
A sweet presentation helper from UK. Its selected PowerPoint templates are really elegant for the business uses; you and your audience will rapidly like the presentation made with them. More than that, any essential presentation skills and keynote tips have the same help for everyone.

Are these PowerPoint templates really what I’m looking for? Definitely yes. Whatever any conferences or business tradeshows, the content of presentations is the king to catch any attendances foward to your topic. Good templates make the first step to the success. It’s not killing your creativeness. It creates more on your business.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Jul 20 2008   9:02AM GMT

Do We Really Need Microsoft Office? No in the Past and Future

Posted by: William Peterson
IT professional, Enterprise, Office, Technology, Learning, Google Docs, Microsoft, Review, Business, Corporate, Online Apps, OpenOffice, Solutions, Business presentations

Yesterday I read the an article “Do I Need to Buy Microsoft Office?” at Ask a Geek of latest Popular Science. As the its result of “Our geek weighs the options and finds Office might not be the best bet”, I agree that Microsoft Office’s rivals are really powerful and nice, such as Google Docs, OpenOffice or Corel’s WordPerfect Office suite. On my personal side, I would rather choose Google Docs, whether Google would charge me some fees or not in the future. But most businesses nowadays must have the Microsoft Office suite installed, while IBM extremely loves his Lotus Notes software as exception.

In the future, desktop software will be completely replaced with Web applications without doubts. So Microsoft Office is certainly the product for current days. But we can not rush to the future without it because of its popularity in the past. Because a lot of people are working with it now, and will work with it in the future for a long time. In order to avoid any bad incompatibility, our business must have and manage it. Just think about, you partner sent you a document in DOCX format, but you cannot read the contents properly with your OpenOffice, and you will ask for another PDF copy? That’s also why a huge enterprise IBM can not abandon its ever popurlar used Lotus Notes easily.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Jul 20 2008   8:46AM GMT

Make Shows in Trends: Business Presentations in YouTube Way

Posted by: William Peterson
YouTube, IT professional, Enterprise, Technology, PowerPoint, Microsoft, Flash, Review, Business, Corporate, Flash Video, Business presentations

Let us think of more useful ways to wake up the popularity to make and judge the old business presentations. Nobody can ignore the incredible power from the best-ever online community YouTube, even Obama wants his final presidential victory. Not in your business style for YouTube? Just remember, every firm is a potential IT-based organization in this Internet era.

It’s not any “YouTube+PowerPoint” ways like SlideShare, which can not beat up any points with the real YouTube community. “Hi buddy, you cannot upload your presentations to YouTube, whatever they’re PowerPoint files or Flash animations!” This verdict is like saying that all presentations must be in PowerPoint or Flash formats. Actually, video presentations have been favored by millions of peoples before the PowerPoint and Flash were born. Just put all your old presentations to the front stage. Some tools might be practical this time. TechSmith’s Camtasia Studio (you must know the great one tool) can completely recording and publishing PowerPoint presentations, or some handy manual enables you to create YouTube contents with nothing other than PowerPoint and Windows Movie Maker. Besides, any trends-hunter has made the exact kit for this requirement: PPT2YouTube.

You may say “it’s totally not business way”, but it would never be bad to do so whatever the people in YouTube watch and comment your presentations. Business should not waste such great online resources to make up the gap or create more new opportunities.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Jul 1 2008   11:30AM GMT

Good to Make Business Hot - Mix up with Presentation Spices

Posted by: William Peterson
IT professional, PowerPoint, Business, Corporate, Tips, Business presentations

Corporate presentation is something significant for a team in any conferences to show up their power and confidence. However, presentations are not the most entertaining films to view, especially on sonorous afternoons in air conditioned and darkened rooms that lull you to sleep. To make any exceptions on the rule, some good tips are necessary, not tricks of business. Got some good points from Heather Johnson’s blog post “How to Spice Up a Presentation” on Jenna Sweeney’s Corporate Training & e-Learning Blog.

= Know your subject and know your audience
= Interaction to get your audience involved: ask and invite questions
= The shorter and more powerful the message
= Use your hands to complement your words and slides
= Talk eloquently without the use of too many “ahs” and “ums” and “likes”
= Know your slides thoroughly and never get them mixed up in the middle of a presentation

How to Spice Up a Presentation

More than these good tips above, I think too many words in slides would be huge mistake in any presentations. Just titled, narrated, multimedia added. Your words, smiles, gestures are superior to guide audiences live. Another, some reasonable silence with a nice face between sentences instead of “ahs” or “ums” could be better, I think.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Apr 13 2008   6:46AM GMT

Make PowerPoint Presentation as Digital Signage Solution to Empower Your Business

Posted by: William Peterson
IT professional, Enterprise, PowerPoint, Flash, Review, Business, Corporate, Live, Solutions, Business presentations

Digital signage is the system that is used to convey your message, information or advertisements to your customers, students or colleagues. In simplistic terms, digital signage can be a PowerPoint presentation or you may wish to use a professional digital signage software package. Your message can then be displayed on large format LCD monitors, large plasma screens, multiple monitors, video walls, or through a projector onto a projection screen, a suspended acrylic rear projection screen or onto glass window film which may be touchscreen.

To reduce the time and effort needed to develop high-end presentations and graphics from any type of digital signage application, existing clip art galleries, imported images in any format, and link slide elements to real-time data sources to create stunning visual displays with continuously updated content could be combined with live video inputs, a real-time crawling ticker, video clip playback, and multiple animated logos and clocks, and you have everything you need to produce a full digital signage production just within Microsoft PowerPoint.

You may never know your PowerPoint application could be so powerful. Actually it is, and the unprecedented ease of use coupled with the highest quality output means users can create professional
and compeling digital signage in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost.

You may find more about this solution by yourself on Google:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=powerpoint+digital+signage

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Mar 30 2008   4:46AM GMT

Know Those PowerPoint MVPs to Help Yourself

Posted by: William Peterson
Networking, Web, CIO, IT professional, PowerPoint, Microsoft, Review, Corporate, Business presentations

Microsoft has an award called Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) for these independent experts around the world who are awarded for voluntarily sharing their high quality, real world expertise in offline and online technical communities. In the area of presentation skills, there’re PowerPoint MVPs for everyone. They’re just technology individuals, without paid by Microsoft. As PowerPoint MVP Sonia Coleman put it: “Our reward is the satisfaction of being able to help others with what we’ve learned here.”. So if we know more guys like them, we get better resources for our further presentations.

Austin Myers
Solutions to Multimedia in PowerPoint

Bill Foley
He was born and raised in Texas. PTT specializes in creating Word document management systems (Userforms and templates), lesson plans and graphics for the nuclear industry, doing Instructor Training for utilities and creating PowerPoint training presentations/PowerPoint CBTs (using VBA).
Professional Training Technologies, Inc.

Brian Reilly
Typical projects for Reillyand are the automatic creation of multi-hundred page proposals or presentations from custom databases.
Reillyand

Echo Swinford
Echo’s Voice

Geetesh Bajaj
Geetesh Bajaj
InDezine

Glenna Shaw
She grew up near Huntington, West Virginia, mixed those traits with a generous helping of twenty years technical experience and got herself the perfect blend for PowerPoint troubleshooting.
PowerPoint Magician

Kathy Jacobs
Right now, herl time is spent writing, supporting her site, and answering PowerPoint and other questions.
PowerPoint Answers

Shawn Toh (aka tohlz)
He lives on the sunny island of Singapore, and loves to do advanced animation tricks using PowerPoint.
PowerPoint Heaven
The Art of PowerPointing blog

Shyam Pillai
VB Guru
OfficeTips

Steve Rindsberg
Photographer; A/V & Multi-image producer; owner of RDP, a 35mm slide imaging service bureau; programmer; writer. Along came PowerPoint, and he ended up writing a monthly column for The Cobb Group’s Inside PowerPoint and some bits of books for Que.
PPTools
The PowerPoint FAQ
Steve Rindsberg/RDP - PowerPoint Add-ins, PowerPoint FAQ and more

TAJ Simmons
TAJ Simmons’ Awesome PowerPoint Backgrounds

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran