authorSTREAM Blog

PowerPoint to video engine moves a step ahead: Now supports video conversion of ‘On-Click’ presentations

2012-05-14T14:43:00.000+05:30

We recently pulled the trigger on the latest improvements in our PowerPoint to video engine and we’re excited to add and introduce another amazing new feature- conversion of ‘on-click’ presentations to video.

‘On-Click’ presentation means slides which do not have rehearsed timings or they are not set to play automatically. With this new advancement, you can convert even your ‘on-click’ presentation to video.

Earlier, we asked you to add rehearse timings to the presentations you wanted to convert to video. But we understood all this while that you had to work harder to make your presentations video compatible.

With this improvement, you will easily be able to convert your presentations to video. Now, video conversion of any presentation (whether on-click or not) is at your fingertips. With just a few clicks, you can quickly create a high-quality video of your work and share it with your clients or colleagues.

How to convert an ‘On-Click’ presentation to video

It’s easy. Just follow these simple steps:

Upload a presentation to your authorSTREAM account
Go to My Presentations link under My Stuff
Look for the presentation which you want to convert to video
Under Video drop-down menu, click Convert to video option

A Convert presentation to video window appears on the screen. Select the video format and zoom video size (which allows the video to be bigger in size to enjoy it on a DVD), then click Next'

Enter the fixed time (seconds) to spend on each slide and click Convert Now

Your presentation will be converted into a video in a short while and you’ll receive a confirmation email as soon as it’s ready.

Now you don’t have to spend time on setting your presentation slides to play automatically. With just a few clicks, enjoy sharing your presentation videos with anyone, anywhere.

Upload your presentation now, convert it into a video and share it on YouTube or play it on your mobile.

Want to create a ROCKSTAR presentation? Learn quick tricks from Yancey

2012-05-09T17:56:00.000+05:30

A ROCKSTAR presentation should have a great design complemented with high-quality visuals, and should be narrated like a story. Yancey, the Founder and President at Empowered Presentations, in a FREE one-hour webinar on authorSTREAM teaches you tips and tricks to create a great presentation that can go viral.

As the founder of Empowered Presentations, an award-winning presentation design firm with clients across the world, Yancey has been training professionals to create and deliver great presentations.

In this webinar through real life stories and samples, she will teach you strategies that Empowered Presentations implement while creating presentations and how you can also do. You’ll learn to create impressive presentations that can go viral.

Yancey and her company has received accolades for their work from various news daily’s across the United States. Pacific Business News recognized them as Innovative Company of the Year finalist, Hawaii Business Magazine nominated them for Best in Business and Innovative Business and they were finalists in Best New Business in Pacific Edge Magazine.

The much awaited webinar will be on:

Day: Thursday, May 17, 2012
Time: 9:00 PM HST (Hawaii Time)
(18th May, 12:30 PM IST or 12:00 AM PDT)
Duration: 1 hour

Get an in-depth insight into:

Visuals to enhance the presenter’s message and his performance
Apply innovative design techniques to create empowering slides
Create slides with meaningful visuals without using cluttered templates
Learn how simply expressed ideas can increase a viewer’s understanding
Structure an audience-friendly presentation

Reserve your seat now!

P.S. Visit www.authorstream.com/webinars/ for upcoming sessions.

How to avoid copyright infringement while creating presentations?

2012-04-27T17:36:00.000+05:30

Do you worry about infringing someone’s copyrights while using images, videos or music in your presentation? You’d also want to protect your own copyrights while sharing presentations with the world via online slide-sharing platforms.

In this blog post, let’s walk through:

What is Copyright
Dealing with Creative Commons
How to avoid copyright infringement while using images, videos or music on your own presentation slides
How to protect your own copyrights while sharing presentations with the world via online slide-sharing platforms.

What is copyright?
Copyright is a protection provided to the authors for their original work. It protects an original and specific expression of ideas. This expression can be in various forms like pictures, music, videos, cartoons, audiotapes, literary works, drawings, speeches, and slides. The act of creating an original work creates the Copyright and it’s not required to register for Copyright. Even if the copyright symbol (©) is not present, the copyright law still applies to an original piece of work.

This clearly means that you can’t use someone’s original piece of work without acknowledging the source by giving credit to the author or citing the source. If the work is in the public domain like on the web, you can give a URL link to the copyrighted material.

Creative Commons Licensing
If you’ve surfed Internet long enough, you know that most websites have Creative Commons badge or similar integrations of their licenses. It is a popularly used licensing system among authors to give others permission to use their creations under a certain set of circumstances. With this license, an artist’s work continues to be a copyrighted one but it grants additional permissions to others to share, distribute, adapt or sell under the conditions specified by the artist.

Under Creative Commons, it’s not sufficient to give a URL source of an image or video used in your presentation. You need to at least include the following:

Name of the author
Title of the work (if any)
Mention the Creative Commons license under which the original work is available
Reproduce copyright notices (if any) as included by the creator
An identification that your work is derivative which is an expressive creation that includes major, copyright-protected elements of an original, previously created first work

How to avoid copyright infringement while using images, videos or music on your own presentation slides?

Images: You’ll find a huge collection of free and paid images on the Internet. If you are looking to buy images, some of well-known sites are iStock , fotolia and Corbis. Flickr too, has a huge collection, some are offered for free while others are available under a Creative Commons license. Then there are free images, which you can find using Google’s advanced image search. One of the ways that can help you minimize copyright infringements is to have the URL and attribution of the image pasted at the bottom of the slide. We recommend you to use authorSTREAM Desktop for searching and inserting images from Flickr or Bing. authorSTREAM Desktop is a free PowerPoint plugin which lets you search images from Flickr and Bing from within the PowerPoint and even takes care of insertion of attribution.

Music: You can collect songs or musical works from ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers). It’s one of the main organizations which grants (and polices) music usage rights. For free music, you need to search open-source music sites like Internet Archive. These are internet libraries that collect public domain work and have frequently negotiated for rights. Free music download services are also available like Apple’s iTunes or We7. Select from a vast library of music available online but ensure to give credit to the author. You can alter the music to suit your needs but cannot change its “fundamental character”, according to The National Association for Music Education. Before you purchase an image or use a picture freely available, you should always read copyright terms and conditions of these images or sites where they are available.

Videos or movies: To use a production company’s video in your slides, you need to directly get in touch with the company. They might just let you use their work, on the condition that you give them credit. YouTube and Vimeo has a good collection of publicly available videos. Although most people use them without seeking author’s permission, it’s advisable to first seek permission from the author. A prominent blogger lists points you should mention while seeking the author’s permission to use the video.

Quotes or Written Works: Using quotes of experts always add authenticity and value to your own views during the presentation delivery. Select short lines from an author’s work and cite the source to give proper recognition to the author’s work. To use longer portion of the work, you need to directly seek permission from the author. The Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) helps you to locate the author or get permission to use a written work.

It doesn’t matter if you are using videos, images, quotes or music, it is always a good practice to get in touch with the author and seek permission.

How can you protect your own presentations online under copyright laws?
You’ve figured out ways to avoid copyright infringement. What about protecting your own content? authorSTREAM provides copyright licenses to let others distribute, edit, copy, remix or build upon your presentations, all within the boundaries of copyright laws. You just need to specify the copyright license you’d like to choose while uploading a presentation on authorSTREAM and confidently share it with the world.

Enjoy using valuable content on your slides but always follow the fair practice to give credit to the author and expect the same from others when they use your presentation for their works.

By: Daisy Kumar
Writer at authorSTREAM

Disclaimer: The content provided in this blog post is for information purpose only. The author or the owner of the content makes no representatives as the accuracy or completeness of any information provided in this blog post. The owner will also not be liable for any errors or omissions in the information nor the availability of this information. The author or the owner will also not be liable for any damages or losses from the display or use of this information.

Microsoft PowerPoint 2010: Explore the features and unleash its potential

2012-04-23T12:11:00.000+05:30

Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 has brought to us a lot of versatile features so that we can express ourselves in the most impressive way. This software was introduced way back in 2009 but till today not many people are aware of its potential. You can manage your content with 2010 version like never before. Collaboration with co-workers have become a matter of click. You can even bring your content to the web and share with the remote audience. Embedded videos, audio, and inserted animations enrich your content.

Here’s a quick guide to advanced features of Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 that you can use to your advantage:

Create, organize, and collaborate with other people:
Collaborate with your colleagues easily, edit content with them and meet deadlines quickly. Have quick access to common tasks like setting view/edit permissions or printing presentations. Organize the slides into manageable and different sections for quick navigation from one slide to another.

Enrich your presentations with videos, impressive pictures, sound and animations:
Enrich your presentations by embedding a video or inserting melodious music. Use transitions and animations that are smoother to access and implement and richer in effect.

Add voice narration to your slides:
Record and add your own voice to the slides, prepare an online tutorial for educating your listeners or to just brainstorm your ideas accompanied by visuals. Here’s how to add voice narration in PowerPoint 2010.

Explore these and more features here and learn to use the latest version effectively:

Earth Day 2012- Mobilize the Earth

2012-04-19T17:38:00.000+05:30

Yes, you are right. This is the theme of Earth Day in 2012.

Every year we celebrate Earth Day, but do we really understand its importance in our lives?

It’s a struggle to spread awareness about clean and green environment. This day is celebrated to fight back the ravages of climate change, tons of toxic waste dumped by industries, rampant oil spillage, and felling of trees witnessed everywhere.

April 1970 Earth Day was a blazing success that made history when nearly 20 million people took brisk steps forward. These heroic people had a common aim- save the world marred by wars, industry smoke and diseases.

Let’s peep into the history of first Earth Day that inspire us to turn our efforts at present into yet another history and be a hero.

Do you know you can earn with your awesome presentations? Here’s how

2012-04-14T10:22:00.000+05:30

Congratulations! Your presentation has reached 100 views, got 10 likes and 39 comments.

A message like this surely makes your day.

Sharing creative and impressive presentations with the world via online sharing sites is really fun. And, it feels great when you get so many views, likes and comments.

How about getting more than just this? How about earning some money with your presentations?

How can you generate money with your presentations?

There are a bunch of options for you to try your hands on. Create high quality presentations on different topics and sell them via your own website or some content marketplace. If you are good at presentations, you can provide professional services to individuals or companies by creating presentation according to their requirements and add some extra cash to your kitty.

authorSTREAM provides an easy-to-use option which lets you earn by simply placing your own ads on your presentations pages by using Google AdSense. When someone clicks your ad, you earn money. It’s as simple as that.

How can your authorSTREAM presentations earn for you?

It’s simple. Become authorSTREAM’s privileged business member and follow these easy steps:

Go to 'My Stuff', click 'Premium Account' link
Click 'Settings' option in the left, under 'Google AdSense' on presentation page, select 'Enable Google AdSense' option
Paste your 'Google AdSense' Publisher ID in text box under' Enable Google AdSense' option

Select options where you want your advertisement to display, below or on the right side of the presentation player. Save the changes you’ve made, and you are good to go.

Remember, to earn from Google Ads, you need to have rich content in your presentations with catchy title, vivid description, and tags so that presentations are well indexed in search engines and quality traffic.

Upload impressive presentations on authorSTREAM on the subjects popular among your target audience and upgrade to business membership to pump more potential and revenue from your presentations.

Norman leaves a mark with his webinar on creating and delivering GREAT presentation!

2012-04-10T12:29:00.003+05:30

We are excited and humbled by the response of another successful webinar on authorSTREAM with Norman Wei.

Author of well-acclaimed books on presentations, ‘Presentations that Work’ and ‘Connecting with your Future Clients’, and veteran trainer of nearly 30 years, Norman Wei taught the audience the secrets to create and deliver effective presentations.

The audience from all over the world gave an overwhelming response. They simply loved his webinar, found it informative and very valuable. The attendees had an interactive session with him and shared their ideas on delivering good presentations like what kind of visuals to use if idea is too abstract, good sources for good visuals, how to handle calculations and formulae, etc. These and many more questions poured in for Norman Wei after the webinar. Here’s a link to Norman’s response to some of the questions from audience.

Some key highlights of the webinar:

Never use slides jam-packed with words and numbers
Tell a story through slideshow
Set the plot of your story in first 5 slides
Relate to your audience
Show your passion in what you talk

Did you miss the webinar? Don’t worry, here’s a link to Norman’s webinar (log in to find the recording).

Holy Good Friday from authorSTREAM

2012-04-05T09:32:00.002+05:30

May this Good Friday brings you all the joy,
Brighten up your days,
Brings you peace,
With an everlasting smile on your face,
Wishing you the heartfelt wishes for a Holy Good Friday.

More PowerPoint presentations from Jimmy

From authorSTREAM Family

HTML5 or Flash: Which one is better to share PowerPoint presentations?

2012-04-02T13:25:00.003+05:30

(Photo credit: Adobe)

HTML5 Vs. Flash: this is a debate brewing up for long. Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to create visually engaging content, regardless of platform or technology. Mainly used for advertisements, games and broadcasting Flash animation, it’s a great tool for developing a rich and dynamic data.

HTML5 is a programming language for structuring and presenting content for the Web. It is designed to handle multimedia content like audio and video and graphical content on the web without having to resort to proprietary plug-ins’ and APIs. A programmer just needs to add tags of audio, video or graphics while inserting such media elements into the web pages.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

HTML5 has been used as an alternative to Flash as both include features of playing video, audio and using animations. Leading observers, however, say Flash delivers rich interactivity and cannot be replaced by HTML5. Putting things in perspective Simon Jary, PC Advisor and a contributing editor of Macworld says, “We’re all losers until HTML5 is sophisticated enough to match Flash, and that could take years.”

Despite the raving reviews, HTML5 works well in some instances like playing audio or video without a plugin. It can also be used as an alternative to Flash plugin on mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets. But when it comes to sharing rich-media based presentations on the web, HTML5 has some reservations. Flash offers greater accessibility, compatibility and media integration as compared to HTML5.

Let’s see why flash is better than HTML5 while sharing presentations online.

Flash or HTML5: Which one is better for sharing PowerPoint presentations on the web?

Cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility: Flash lets you send and play your presentations on any platform and on any browser as it has cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility. Flash runs on latest versions like Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Google TV and others. It also runs on the older versions used by many Internet users like the ones IE (Internet Explorer) 6, IE 7 and IE 8 whereas HTML5 does not work. HTML5 works on a few selected browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera or Apple Safari. Flash runs on all platforms except portable devices like iPhone or iPad from Apple.

Animations: Flash supports animations from simple to complex like creating water wave effect. Whereas HTML5 supports only simple animations, limiting your choice.

Rich content: Flash has an edge over HTML5 in delivering rich content like audio, video and multilayer animation. Flash supports webcam whereas HTML5 does not.

DRM (Digital Rights Management) Support: Flash supports DRM (Digital Rights Management) whereas HTML5 does not support. DRM protected data does not allow any user to copy the data for an illegal purpose without your knowledge. Today, many companies or marketing professionals use DRM protected digital files to secure their products and services from being misused.

Security: Flash files are safe whereas HTML 5 can have bugs and can be hacked easily. To hack HTML 5 app, you just need to open your browser and click View Source. On other hand, to hack a Flash file you have to get through layers of protection like encryption and then obfuscation.

Competitive: According to Adobe’s statistics, 98% of Internet users rely on Flash Player whereas HTML 5 has recently entered the market and has got a long way to go to make its functionality competitive enough to rule the market.

Flash works wonders when it comes to desktops or laptops. But on devices like iPhone, iPads which are non-flash, HTML5 seems to be the only option that can provide Flash like experience. While Flash offers the best technology for RIAs (Rich Internet Applications), HTML5 can work well for non-flash devices to render the content.

By: Daisy Kumar
Content Writer at authorSTREAM

Free Webinar by Robert Lane- How to make visually engaging PowerPoint presentations?

2012-03-29T17:37:00.011+05:30

Robert Lane, the founder of Aspire Communications, will teach you in a one-hour FREE webinar to create a visually interactive PowerPoint presentation and how to quickly hold your viewers’ attention.

Aspire communications trains people to become more visual and dynamic while delivering presentations. As the founder, Robert Lane has been involved in creating, developing and experimenting with different techniques that can help a speaker feel more confident while presenting. A visually interactive presentation, tailored messages and strategies that can help speaker navigate within the presentation play an important role.

In this webinar, Robert will teach you to add a simple, yet powerful navigation strategy to your slides that enables you to select relevant topics while interacting with the audiences. You’ll learn five UNIQUE steps necessary to convert your presentations into visually engaging and audience-friendly tools.

Robert is also the author of well-known books: Relational Presentation: A Visually Interactive Approach and Selling Visually with PowerPoint.

The much-awaited webinar is scheduled on:

Day: Thursday, April 5, 2012
Time: 1:00 PM(PST)
Duration: 1 hour

To attend the webinar, you need to log into your account (Not a member yet? Sign-Up to become authorSTREAM member for FREE).

Key takeaways of the webinar are:

Build navigation strategies that help you quickly adjust timing, display extra details and change focus while speaking
Tailor messages to match viewer’s interests
Master techniques for converting text to visuals that expand the impact of your words

P.S. Visit www.authorstream.com/webinars/ for upcoming session.

Sharing large PowerPoint files? Not a Problem anymore

2012-03-23T10:37:00.001+05:30

Want to share large PowerPoint presentation file without choking your mail box.
They are a few options available: you can reduce the size of the images with a photo editing program, save images to a low resolution or compress them in Microsoft’s PowerPoint compression feature.

No matter what you do, the problem is size still remains reasonably large to choke mail boxes, and the quality of your images goes down.

Wouldn’t it be easy to share your presentations online? This way when you have to share, you’ll be just sending a link. authorSTREAM is an online PowerPoint sharing platform that lets you share PowerPoint presentations of size upto 1 GB (i.e. 1024 MB) through web, just with a click. Your presentations are shared within a few seconds and exactly the way you create them.

Your contacts can view the presentation online on authorSTREAM or download the PowerPoint file on their desktop for offline viewing. Your presentations always remain on the web cloud making it easier for you to manage your presentation repository and share them anytime. Why let your fatty presentations block space on your hard disk when you can keep them online on authorSTREAM.

Do a lot more with your presentations at authorSTREAM:

Get a URL for your presentation to share via email easily
Share the presentations publicly via Facebook, or embed on blogs or website
Convert your presentations to videos and share on YouTube
Send your presentations privately to the selected contacts (whether they are authorSTREAM members or not) and keep a control over who views them
Track who viewed your presentations and the latest buzz around them on Twitter or Facebook with advanced Presentation Analytics feature

Make sharing your presentations fun, easy and secure with authorSTREAM. Upload your content without worrying about the file size.

Capture live audio in PowerPoint for a rich slideshow experience

2012-03-20T15:14:00.001+05:30

Microsoft PowerPoint has a nifty feature known as ‘Voice Narrations’ which lets you capture and sync live audio with the presentation slides. With the voice narrations, you can record and add your own voice to the slides and share them with anyone, anywhere.

While you prepare to record and add your voice ensure that your computer is equipped with a sound card, microphone and speakers so that you can record and hear the narration.

Follow these steps to add voice narration to your PowerPoint presentation:

Select the slide to record narration. On the Slide Show tab, go to Set Up group, and click Record Narration option.

Record Narration dialogue box appears onscreen where you can set the microphone level and control the sound quality. Click Set Microphone Level, read the directions in Microphone Check dialog box to find out if your microphone is working properly.

As you speak into the microphone, the PowerPoint automatically adjusts the microphone volume. You can also adjust the slider manually. Click OK when you've finished testing.

Next, click Change Quality button. Select the sound quality you want by from Attributes menu of the Sound Selection dialog box. Lower kilohertz settings saves more disk space and run more smoothly on older computers. Higher KHz settings gives you better sound. Click OK to exit the Sound Selection dialog box. Record Narration dialog box remains open where you can again click OK to begin recording your narration.

A Record Narration dialog box prompts on your screen where you can select the slide (first slide or current slide) to start recording narration.

Your presentation will open in a slide show mode automatically where you can start recording your voice. Speak into the microphone and start recording your message.

To pause the narration, in the Recording shortcut menu, click Pause. Later, to resume the narration, click Play.

When you've finished recording your own voice, right-click with your mouse on the slide, select End Show option.

PowerPoint prompts you to save the slide timings. A pop-up box appears where you can “Save” the slides to advance automatically with your narration. Or to play the slides manually, click "Don't Save."

Here’s how your narrated PowerPoint presentation looks like:

NEED MORE INCOME

More PowerPoint presentations from LEE HYDER

By: Shivalli Gupta
Sr. Executive Support and Training

PowerPoint to video engine gets better: Now supports embedded videos and slide transition effects

2012-03-13T15:09:00.000+05:30

We are thrilled to announce major enhancements to our PowerPoint to video conversion engine and they are:

Support for embedded video (WMV & AVI) in video conversions
Support for Transition effects in video conversions
Improved conversion engine with fast conversion time and more accurate results

These are a few of the most requested features geared to take PowerPoint to video conversion experience to an advanced level.

Support for embedded video (WMV & AVI) in video conversions

Now when you convert a PowerPoint presentation containing videos (WMV & AVI) to any video format (AVI, FLV, WMV or MP4), the video output of the presentation will play these in-slide videos as well.

Simply embed video in your PowerPoint 2010 presentation
Upload the PowerPoint presentation on authorSTREAM
Convert your PowerPoint to video

Take a look at how in-slide video plays inside a video created out of a PowerPoint presentation.

Note: authorSTREAM supports this feature in PowerPoint 2010 and only WMV and AVI video formats are supported for a video conversion.

Transition effects in video conversions

Add transition effects to your slides
Upload the PowerPoint on authorSTREAM
Convert your PowerPoint to video

You’ll get a video presentation with artistic and impressive effects. Take a look at a video presentation with transition effects:

Note: authorSTREAM supports this feature in all PowerPoint versions.

Improved conversion engine with fast conversion time and more accurate

With the improved conversion engine, we have decreased the conversion time for your PowerPoint presentations to video. Issues like audio overlapping, missing audio, audio out of sync and failure to insert audio have also been taken care of in this version. A few other things that you’ll see in this release are:

WMA audio format support in video conversion.
authorSTREAM also supports video conversion of presentations with hidden slides (you can hide your slides by opening your presentation, on the Slides tab in the left, right-click the slide which you wish to hide and then click Hide option).

How is authorSTREAM’s video conversion feature better than PowerPoint 2010?

Features	authorSTREAM	PowerPoint 2010
PowerPoint to Video conversion support	Supports video conversion for most PowerPoint versions (2002(XP)/2003/2007/2010)	Supports video conversion only in PowerPoint 2010
Audio support in video conversions, created out of any PowerPoint presentation version	Yes	Audio compatibility issues are more often
Playing sound across selected slides	Yes	Yes, but when more than 1 audio file is inserted in a presentation and selected for specific slides, audio overlapping problems crop up
Transition sound effect	Yes	No
Preference to rehearse timings set for each slide (in case when slide contains some media)	Yes	No
Video formats support	AVI, FLV, MP4 and WMV	WMV video format only
Share presentation videos on YouTube	Send directly to YouTube (no need to download)	Upload manually

There are various advantages of converting a PowerPoint presentations to video. PowerPoint presentations in video format are easy to distribute; online or offline (via Video sharing websites, on a pen drive, DVD etc.) and makes your presentation accessible to a wide range of audience.

Besides unlimited PPT to video conversions for premium members, authorSTREAM also offers pay as you go model. One PowerPoint to video conversion of 100 minutes just costs $3.

No need to spend hefty amount on buying Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 just for PowerPoint to video conversions. Just try out authorSTREAM's single PowerPoint to video conversion of 5 minutes for free.

7 ways to keep your audience awake through your PowerPoint presentation

2012-03-07T12:36:00.002+05:30

The best way to adjudge your PowerPoint presentation is to ask yourself “Is this the kind of presentation I would like to sit through?” and you’ll then step into the shoes of your audience. To keep the audience awake, it’s important to know their minds and expectations.

Let’s take a look at what’s in the audience’s minds:

Sell your idea: Marketer and author of thirteen best selling books, Seth Godin, says “the purpose of a presentation is to change minds. That's the only reason I can think of to spend the time and resources.” Your audience feels the same way. So if you have a strong point to make, do it and persuade your audience as they sit through your presentation for an idea that could change their minds.

Set your focus right from the start: Start the presentation by introducing your topic and what you’ll talk throughout the presentation.

It’s also necessary to introduce yourself, this will break the ice and build a reputation with the audience.

Don’t choke with your slides: Using bulky bullet points, distracting color contrast, overpowering animations on the slides can choke your viewer’s mind. Keep your slides simple and clearly readable with one or two lines and larger font size. Support your text with visually appealing images. Dr. John Medina, in his comment on presentation slides, says a brain interprets every letter as a picture so wordy slides literally choke your brain. He has also written a best selling book Brain Rules and is a molecular biologist with a lifelong fascination of how the mind reacts to and organizes information.

Take as an example Steve Jobs presentations which are simple, clear and highly visual. Communications expert, Carmine Gallo has studied and analyzed Jobs’s best performances in his book The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience. Steve Jobs presentations had elements of a great theatrical production- a great script, heroes and villains, stage props and breathtaking visuals. That’s what you too need to have in your presentation slides.

Tell an interesting story: Everybody loves stories. An idea introduced through a story is more impressionable than simply showing text and reading out. Begin your slides in a conversational manner, create the setting of a story, start with a sequence of actions, fill in suspense and conflict. Let your listeners feel that they will find something really interesting towards the end i.e a destination to reach.

Reinforce your focus: A good story should always have an anecdote and a moment of reflection interwoven together. When you’ve engaged your audience with a story, give them time to reflect back and think about the importance of all this. Here, connect the crux of the story with your key message. Giving audience time to reflect back helps you not to loose focus on your subject and your presentation stays on track.

Highlight the key points with facts: Drive home the message by laying stress on your key points and supporting them with facts and figures. The facts and figures add authenticity, credibility and reliability to your points. Just like presentations of the veteran Dr. Hans Rosling, professor at Karolinska Institute, who is famous for his TED Talks.

Summarize in the end: Make the audience walk through the main topic and your conclusion by summarizing the subject towards the end of the presentation.

You can even create a feedback cycle where audience can interact with you. If the presentation is informational, give a handout with all important notes. If it’s for a project approval or selling a product, you can hand people a form for their approval or comments.

Norman returns with practical tips: Create and deliver GREAT presentations

2012-03-06T17:29:00.000+05:30

Microsoft PowerPoint is designed to enable users to create dynamic, informational slide shows through the use of text, graphics, and animation. Creating good presentation requires practice and technique.

Norman Wei is here to teach you the art of creating and delivering professional presentations in a 60-minute free webinar.

The author of well-known books ‘Presentations that Work’ and ‘Connecting with your Future Clients’, Norman Wei teaches you how to create slides without “those dreadful bullet points” and how to engage your audience during this webinar.

Veteran at the core, Norman has spent 30 years on delivering presentations on environmental regulations throughout the United States. He is the Owner and Principal Instructor at Environmental Management and Training, LLC.

The much-awaited webinar will be held on:
Day: Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Time: 1:00 PM (EST)
Duration: 1 hour

Attend this interactive webinar to learn:
1. Why most presentations put the audience to sleep
2. A brief history of bullet points
3. How to organize your presentation
4. Start your presentations with 5 slides
5. How to focus on your key messages
6. What to do before, during and after a presentation
7. Why you should never over-rehearse your presentations
8. How to manage questions from the audience
9. How to overcome nervousness during the presentation

No pre-registration is required to join the class, just create an account on authorSTREAM for FREE (not a member yet? click here to sign up). At the time of the session, visit authorSTREAM webinar page, click on the launch session button next to the upcoming class and you are good to go.

Introducing authorSTREAM mobile site: Use authorSTREAM on the go!

2012-02-22T16:48:00.002+05:30

We’re excited to announce the launch of authorSTREAM mobile site today. Tailor-made for the smaller screens of mobile devices, authorSTREAM mobile site i.e. m.authorstream.com, lets you view any presentation, search through featured presentations, and share all your important presentations via Facebook Like, tweet, Google +1 or send via email using any smartphone.

The authorSTREAM mobile site offers you a quick access to featured presentations and private presentations shared directly from friends or clients, without switching platforms. There’s no requirement to download or install software on your phone. Just visit authorstream.com from your smartphone browser and enjoy browsing presentations in the mobile-friendly view.

A snapshot of authorSTREAM mobile site:

View featured authorSTREAM presentations
View your own presentations
Share’em via tweet, Google +1, Facebook Like or email
View private presentations sent by friends, clients or colleagues via email

For the desktop version of authorSTREAM, you can click on the Desktop version link in the footer of the page.

If you are not a member yet, simply sign up from your smartphone on authorSTREAM mobile site. Scan the QR code below to get started:

Please note: The current version does not support comments, animations, sound and other special effects. We would soon be adding these capabilities for Android compatible devices.

Free Webinar- Perfecting PowerPoint that sucks Rick Altman’s way

2012-02-17T11:22:00.001+05:30

Why are PowerPoint presentations so bad? Too much text on each slide, too many bullet points, distracting color contrast, overpowering animation, and the list goes on. Trying your best to connect with the audience, you end up delivering a boring and annoying presentation.

Join Rick Altman, the author of Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck and How You Can Make Them Better, for a one hour FREE session to learn smart tips and tricks of perfectly creating and presenting your presentation slides.

This webinar is for presenters who want to escape the perils of using PowerPoint presentations in wrong ways. It trains you not only to create good slides but also present them perfectly to your audience.

With 15 titles to his name, Rick is a widely read author on graphics and presentations around the world and is the Director at R. Altman & Associates. He is a veteran speaker at various industry events that focus on better communications.

The much awaited webinar will be held on:
Day: Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Time: 9:00am (PST)
Duration: 1 hour

In the upcoming webinar, Rick Altman will teach you not only creating presentation slides but also to present them effectively and convincingly. You’ll learn:

Design a presentation
Avoid too much text on each slide
Handle the scourge of animation
Embrace less is more

Add reminder for this webinar

“Will you be my Valentine?” From Joseph, With Love!

2012-02-13T18:24:00.000+05:30

Hey there!

Want to make someone feel special this Valentine. Read how our lover boy Joseph is going to express his secret love this Valentine:

Jessica is my childhood friend. For her my love is eternal, infinite and pure. Without her, my soul is like a tree without blossom and fruit. We spent wonderful moments together. We ran into green fields, walked on soft grass holding hands, felt the rain drops falling on our faces, Autumn winds patting our cheeks and soothing Spring sun rays shinning upon us. Jessica adores those days and wishes for them to come back to her. Secretly and stealthily, I captured all in my memory and some of the special ones are locked in my camera.

This Valentine’s Day, I’m going to create a video of all her pictures, add Jessica’s favorite music and give her a BIG surprise.

I’ll create a photo-album in PowerPoint of all the best moments she loved, upload it on authorSTREAM and convert PowerPoint to video. Once my PowerPoint to video is converted, I can burn it on CD or DVD and delight Jessica with it.

I hope this video helps that cherubic boy, with wings, bow and arrow, to inflict wound on Jessica’s heart and ignite love in her for me.

Thanks authorSTREAM for being my companion at all times.

This was our lover boy’s story. But how about you? How have you decided to say to your beloved: “Will you be my Valentine?”

Would love to make a video like Joseph? Here’s how it looks like:

Hurry! Create your masterpiece now, package it in a video, burn it on CD or DVD or even send it to YouTube. Share it with your loved one along with roses and lots of chocolates.

authorSTREAM scheduled maintenance

2012-02-10T16:53:00.004+05:30

We will be performing a scheduled maintenance on authorSTREAM servers starting from 10 PM CST, Friday night. The maintenance could take anything between 30 minutes to 2 hours. As a result authorSTREAM website will not be available during this time period.

authorSTREAM widgets: Showcase presentations on your blog

2012-02-01T19:14:00.000+05:30

Bring your authorSTREAM presentations, channels and even profile straight to your blog with widgets. Your followers will see your presence elsewhere and your work captured in those stunning PowerPoint presentations on authorSTREAM.

A widget is a unique way of linking to your presentations or profile right from your blog. This way your blog audience or followers will see more than just the recent posts. My Presentations widget will link them to your presentations or favorite presentations on authorSTREAM and My Channel widget to your channels on authorSTREAM.

Let’s see how it works:

My Presentations widget links to your very own presentations or the ones you mark favorite on authorSTREAM right from your blog. Just grab the embed code, put it into your blog’s slidebar and showcase a bunch of best presentations right from your blog.

My Channels widget directs visitors to your channel on authorSTREAM. Your followers or visitors can even play presentations directly within the channel widget without leaving your blog.

My Profile widget is a link to your profile on authorSTREAM.

Just log in to your account (If not a member yet? Sign up for FREE), you’ll see Get your Widget section in the right panel on the Dashboard.

Just click on it, you’ll be directed to the widgets page where you can choose the one that best matches your taste and good to go.

How to embed PowerPoint presentations on your Facebook Wall?

2012-01-27T12:40:00.000+05:30

Don’t you enjoy sharing your thoughts, funny photos, engaging videos or humorous comments on Facebook? How about sharing PowerPoint presentations on Facebook. A good presentation can create a lot of buzz among your Facebook friends.

No qualms, just upload your PowerPoint presentation on authorSTREAM and post the presentation URL on your Facebook wall. authorSTREAM presentations play right on your Facebook wall. Your friends can comment, like and share, right there.

You can also post other authorSTREAM presentations that you find quite interesting, and inspiring. Find the presentations that you love and copy the URL on your Facebook wall. It’s that easy.

Well, if you click the Like button besides the presentation player, gets shared on Facebook automatically.

Love it! Don’t you.

Start sharing your presentations now!

Introducing the revamped authorSTREAM Help

2012-01-25T16:33:00.000+05:30

We, at authorSTREAM, always look for ways to communicate better with you and so we’re excited to roll out a brand new authorSTREAM Help. It is now available with a fresh look and feel. Get all your queries answered and problems solved with its interactive interface.

At authorSTREAM Help you’ll find everything right from getting started guide to manage account, upload and share presentations to various other authorSTREAM features. You can even find questions on authorSTREAM Desktop, Channels, Premium Plans and much more.

What’s best? The how-to answers are simplified and explained in the form of bullet points, attractive images to guide you and necessary links interspersed with relevant videos to help you solve problems within seconds.

Get started with a seamless presentation experience at authorSTREAM.

If you still need any help, contact us via http://www.authorstream.com/Help/contact-support/

Rescheduled Norman Wei’s webinar: Make and Deliver GREAT presentations

2012-01-24T15:04:00.000+05:30

Due to an unexpected technical failure, Norman Wei’s webinar was aborted on January 17th, 2012 at 1:00 PM EST. We’d like to apologize for the inconvenience caused and sincerely understand as well as respect the loss of time and value caused to you.

To make it for the loss, we have rescheduled it for January 31st, 2012 at 1:00 PM EST.

Norman Wei, the Owner and Principal Instructor at Environmental Management and Training, LLC, has 30 years of experience conducting seminars on environmental regulations throughout the United States.

During this FREE webinar, Norman Wei will teach you how to create great PowerPoint presentations without ever using those deadly bullet points. It is his excellence in making and delivering presentations that makes him so popular among his audiences and they simply love to sit through his presentations.

Rescheduled Webinar:
Day: Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Time: 1:00pm (EST)
Duration: 1 hour

You’ll get an in-depth insight into:
1. Why most presentations put the audience to sleep.
   2. How to organize your presentation.
   3. How to lead off your presentations with 5 slides.
   4. How to focus on your key messages.
   5. What to do before, during and after a presentation.
   6. How to handle questions from the audience.
   7. How to manage your nerves during the presentation.

There is no pre-registration required to join the class, just create an account on authorSTREAM for FREE (not a member yet? click here to sign up). At the time of the session, visit authorSTREAM webinar page, click on the launch session button next to the upcoming class and you are good to go.

Reserve your seat now!

What’s this Minus One?

2012-01-24T00:44:00.000+05:30

What’s all about this minus 1? Is the fashion world moving from size zero to minus now? Bet it’ll be a very difficult preposition for most of us.

Watch this presentation to find what minus one means:

Minus One

More PowerPoint presentations from Nirav Hemani

Discover why people use authorPoint?

2012-01-17T16:34:00.000+05:30

While we are writing an instructional post with steps on how to use authorPOINT to sync video and audio in your PowerPoint presentations, thought of sharing some interesting ways to use these presentations:

Create web based lectures for Distance Learning. For instance, a Distance Education instructor can create lectures and post them to BlackBoardT, WebCTT and other learning management systems (LMS). Your students see your narration while they comprehend the lectures.
Convert your PowerPoint files to Flash. Did you know converting your PowerPoint presentation dramatically reduces the size of the files? It just means they are very easy to share whether via email or over the Internet, are truly platform independent, and makes sure no one copies your intellectual property.
Solve and save Science and Engineering problems and post them on the Web for your students to view them. You can record your own narration, use pointers and clear navigation to explain arcane concepts to your students. And make them available on the Internet for them to view whenever they require. There’s nothing like rich resources easily available to use when learning.
Communicate with your team members better by explaining your ideas using authorPOINT. authorPOINT presentations are a great tool when trying to address issues with off site employees or customers.
Use authorPOINT as a rapid e-learning tool to build PowerPoint based training modules with audio and video. For instance e-learning specialists can create web based training (WBT and CBT).
Capture live seminars complete with audio and video, convert them to web based presentations and post them on the web for anyone to access.

Download authorPoint for free