2/28/09 2/28/09

10 Steps to Great Presentation Maps

Michael Deutch over at the Mindjet Blog offers “10 Steps to Great Presentation Maps.” Based on Garr Reynolds’ (author of Presentation Zen) ”Top Ten Slide Tips,” These include:

1. Keep it Simple

2. Limit Bullet Points & Text

3. Make Your Maps for Presentations

4. Use High-Quality Graphics

5. Have a Visual Theme

6. Use Appropriate Charts

7. Use Color Well

8. Choose Your Fonts Well

9. Use Video or Audio

10. Spend Time in the Slide Sorter (or Better, in MindManager)

Be sure to read the article for all of the great commentary Michael has added to support each of these points. As I mentioned in a previous post, MindManager is a key part of my presentation toolbox, and helps me flesh out ideas into content.

More Resources:

Here are a couple of other great resources from Chuck Frey’s mindmapping software blog to help you map out great presentations:

What presentation strategies and tips do you have to share? Add your comments below.

2/26/09 2/26/09

What's In Your Presentation Toolbox?

Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, provides a great look into his presentation toolbox. He's Mac-biased, and many of his applications reflect his preference, but it's still a good look at a professional presenter's process.

Here are Hyatt's presentation tools:

Hyatt also recommends the following books to help with crafting your presentations:

In reviewing my own design process, here are the tools I use:

MindManager. Almost everything I do starts with a mindmap in MindManager. I started using MindManager from Mindjet a couple of years ago, and it has now become my "go to" application for crafting any kind of message. Not only does MindManager help me actually develop the content, but the mindmap for each project becomes a central location, or dashboard, for all of the references, links, files, notes, content, etc. that will ultimately go into a presentation.
Logos Bible Software. Why would I need a Bible software program in my list of presentation tools? Well, as a pastor/teacher, I use a lot of Bible references, maps, pictures, quotes, etc., and Logos is the place where I get all of these content items. Forget retyping Bible verses or quotes, etc.; with Logos I copy and paste and it even provides the correctly formatted citation for me. Logos and MindManager are two applications that are open all the time.
PowerPoint. Unlike Hyatt, I have not gone over to the dark side and converted to a Mac. All joking aside, I know there are those who find clear advantages to the Mac OS, but for me, Windows is my native language, and I find the Max OS foreign. Moreover, I have a huge investment in Windows-based applications. So for me, PowerPoint is the presentation solution of choice. I am currently using PowerPoint 2007.
iStockPhoto. I would agree with Hyatt on his selection of iStockPhoto as the first stop for graphics. Although I must admit that I am checking out Flickr more and more. Many of the images on Flickr have a creative commons license and are free to use for educational or nonprofit presentations, and the library of quality images grows by the hour. If I can't find something on Flickr, I will head to iStockPhoto. Images at iStockPhoto are very inexpensive, especially for the lower resolution images needed for a presentation.
Video. There are a lot of videos that fit well within a presentation. For pastors, there are growing libraries of downloadable videos on a broad assortment of topics. Some of the more popular include SermonSpice.com, BlueFishTV.com, and ScreenVue.com. Even with all of the online libraries, there are still times when the clip I need is on a DVD. In that instance, I will use ImToo DVD Ripper, which allows me to rip chapters from a DVD and then embed it in my presentation.
Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. Ten years ago I used Adobe Premiere for all of my video editing. In the last few years, however, I have switched to Sony Vegas Studio. Vegas Studio is a great nonlinear editing program that has a lot of features for an inexpensive program. Not only does it do a great job with day-to-day editing, but it will easily handle the HD clips from my Canon TX1 camera.
SnagIt. SnagIt is one of those inexpensive applications that soon becomes indispensable. Whether I am in the research phase of a project and need to grab a quick screen capture and paste it into my mindmap, or I need a screen capture for a presentation, SnagIt by TechSmith is a great tool.
Microsoft Wireless Presenter 3000. There's nothing special about this except it works! There are many wireless presenters to choose from, I picked this one, and it has worked well for me. Regardless of which brand of wireless presenter you choose, it's important to have one so you are not tethered to your laptop during your presentation.

Well, that's a look inside my "Presenter's Toolbox," what's inside your kit?

2/18/09 2/18/09

Making the Most of Your Computers

The Feb. 18, 2009 issue of Church Leaders Intelligence Report provided an excellent article on “Making the Most of Your Computers.” Here is the critical part of the article:

At the recent AICPA Not-For-Profit Financial Executives Forum held in Anaheim, Randy Johnson, executive vice president of Network Management Group, Inc. offered his top-ten tips on extending the life of your desktop tools.

Happily, most of these tips do not require additional out-of-pocket expenditure. Consider asking for the advice or participation of someone well-versed in information systems and technology if you don't feel comfortable implementing these tips.

Back up files no longer needed and delete them locally.

Remove programs no longer needed, and make sure to remove program file folders not removed by "uninstall."

Convert drive to NTFS, if not already; this increases the size of read/write blocks and significantly improves speed.

Defrag the drive (twice!).

Install the latest SP release for Windows and Office, if applicable.

Determine that you are not running multiple spyware/virus software.

Run MSCONFIG and remove auto start programs you do not need.

Keep the Tray lean and mean; remove programs you do not run regularly, like Hot Sync for Treo and others.

For Microsoft Vista, remove gadgets like the weather, stock quotes and CPU activity. This is critical if you are running on a single CPU system/older system upgraded to Vista.

Upgrading memory to two or three gigabytes is the only additional out-of-pocket item, but it will significantly improve performance.

Nonprofit Times 2/11/09

2/16/09 2/16/09

To Cite or Not to Cite: Plagiarism in the Digital Age

Recently, in one of my grad classes at the University of Northern Iowa I had a little fun with the age-old question of whether or not to cite a source. I thought I would share it with you.

To cite or not to cite, that is the age-old question.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth in this university a new method of citation, conceived in a library, and dedicated to the proposition that all references are created equal.

As I often tell people, let the word go forth that the torch has passed to a new generation of graduate students who are willing to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, cite any source in order to assure the survival of and success of academic pursuit.

So, let me encourage you, ask not what references you should cite, cite which references you use.

After all,

Two books diverged in a yellow library
And sorry I could not cite both
And be one student, long I stood
And read down one as far as I could

To where it bored me with the statistics
Then I took the other volume just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was shiny and wanted wear

Though for that, the passing there
Had worn them about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
On shelves no student had trodden back

Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads unto way
I doubted if ever I should come back
I shall be telling this with a citation

Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two books diverged in a yellow library
And I took the one less read
And that has made all the difference.

I hope you see the humor in this. I need to ask forgiveness to the following for the adaptation of their famous quotes: William Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Robert Frost.

Plagiarism Goes Digital

When I was a high school and an undergraduate student in the 1980s, all of my research was completed in a library using hardcopy books and journals. Most references were copied onto 3x5 cards by hand. By it’s very nature, this made it difficult to plagiarize without fully knowing you were plagiarizing.

Unfortunately, in the age of the Internet, a lot of research is digital, and it is easy to cut and paste references. It’s simply too easy for students to plagiarize. This requires extra diligence on the part of the student to ensure careful citation or sources.

Fact Checking Goes Digital

One solution for students who question whether or not they need to cite is a service called “TurnItIn.com.” TurnItIn.com is a service schools and academic institutions can subscribe to that gives teachers access to a large and growing database of content. All a teacher needs to do is enter in a few passages from a student’s paper and TurnItIn will tell the teacher if it has been lifted from another source. Pretty neat!

TurnItIn also has a service for students that will “fact check” their papers for proper citation. It’s called WriteCheck, and here’s a brief description from TurnItIn’s web site:

WriteCheck compares every paper to a massive database of content from over 10,000 major newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals and books as well as a database of over 11.5 billion current and archived pages of web content, and more than 65 million previously-submitted student papers

There is a small fee for the service, but it may save a student a lot of embarrassment (or worse) if there are areas of his/her paper that are quoted without proper citation.

You can view a demo of WriteCheck by clicking here.

Here are some additional resources to help you answer the “to cite or not to cite” question:

“Understanding Plagiarism” created by Indiana University’s School of Education.
The Plagiarism Learning Center created by TurnItIn.com.

2/11/09 2/11/09

Million, billion, trillion. What’s the difference?

Photo: MashGet, Flickr

What’s a trillion dollars? In the past couple of months we’ve heard the number tossed around like we are shopping for used cars.

“This ‘02 Windstar is $850 billion, but this ‘06 Fusion is $1.1 trillion.”

Here’s some examples from some recent news stories:

The federal budget deficit will hit an unparalleled $1.2 trillion for the 2009 budget year and the U.S. economy will likely contract by more than 2 percent, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report. [Source: MSNBC]

The testimony is another reminder to Wall Street that Washington has been the biggest force tugging at the market in recent weeks. That was the case Tuesday as investors showed their frustration with what they saw as a lack of details from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on how the government plans to direct more than $1 trillion in public and private aid to support the ailing financial system. [Source: MSNBC]

Million, billion, trillion…what’s the difference?

I was interested in how much difference there is between these numbers, so I did a quick google search and found a site called “Thought You Should Know”, which promises “to bring readers information and opinions about current affairs
that have been overlooked or ignored by the mainstream "news" purveyors.”

TYSKnews had the following illustration that really helped put the numbers into perspective for me:

A million seconds is 12 days.
A billion seconds is 31 years.
A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.

A million minutes ago was – 1 year, 329 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes ago.
A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ.

A million hours ago was in 1885.
A billion hours ago man had not yet walked on earth.

A million dollars ago was five (5) seconds ago at the U.S. Treasury.
A billion dollars ago was late yesterday afternoon at the U.S. Treasury.

[Source: http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Taxes/million.htm]

So, there you have it. The difference between a billion seconds and a trillion seconds is 31, 657 years! Remember that comparison the next time you hear a politician throwing these numbers around like lose change.