Yesterday, I had the chance to spend eight great hours with two of the best people in the presentation design business: Garr Reynolds and Nancy Duarte. I attended their very first Presentation Reboot workshop and came away filled with a wealth of new ideas and approaches for creating and delivering killer presentations. I’ve been a long time fan of Garr’s and Nancy’s and was so glad when they announced a joint-effort to put on the Presentation Reboot workshops this week. The workshop was held at Duarte Design’s offices in Mountain View, California and the class was filled with about 30 very interesting and diverse people from as far away as Japan.  Read the rest of this post

You’ve been there before.  You’re speaking at a conference and you scan the audience.  You see the flood of laptops, iPhones, and Blackberries in the audience furiously Tweeting away or using some conference IRC back channel to chat about YOUR presentation.  Instead of ignoring it or asking your audience to turn off their electronics, this week’s guest blogger Olivia Mitchell has some great advice on how use Twitter and your Tweeting audience to your advantage. In this post, Olivia gives us seven compelling ways to use Twitter to engage your audience. Thanks Olivia.

GUEST POST FROM OLIVIA MITCHELL:  Read the rest of this post

Yet another great visual example of Starbuck’s willingness and ability to get folks involved in some social goodness. This time, they’ve recruited MC Yogi to help get people answer the call: “What if we all gave just 5 hours to help our community?”. If we all did a little, each little contribution can add up to something big. And if you’ll pledge just 5 hours to volunteering, they’ll even give you a free cuppa joe. So get out and volunteer today and check out another great example of visual zen from Starbucks:

Do you know who Edward Everett was? Unless you are a serious Civil War buff, probably not. He was a Senator, Representative, Governor, Secretary of State and popular orator from Massachusetts in the mid-1800′s. And, he was the featured speaker at the dedication ceremony of the Gettysburg Battlefield in 1863. Of course, you know who the other speaker was right? Sure you do. It was none other than Abraham Lincoln. So, if there were two speakers at the dedication ceremony, how come we only remember one of them? I’ll give you a hint: It wasn’t because Lincoln was the president. It was because he gave one of the most eloquent speeches in history. And he did it in just over two minutes. That was unheard of back in the 1800′s when flowery language and long-winded speeches were the standard. In contrast to Lincoln, Everett spoke for over two hours and most of us have never heard of him. Perhaps Harry Rubenstein of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History said it best, “Everybody says the same thing about the ceremony: Lincoln gave a great speech and Everett talked for two hours”.  Read the rest of this post