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Science Explains Why We’re Hardwired for Stories

January 14th, 2012 · Storytelling

The best presentations usually come in the form of stories in disguise, but what is it about narrative that attracts us? Cognitive Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga has been studying hemispheric function in the right and left brain since the sixties, and he believes a desire for narrative is hardwired in a left brain construct called The Interpreter.

This is the part of our brain that reconciles new information with that which was previously known, organizes our memories, and ultimately helps us form narratives for our experiences and the things we hear.

It seems that no matter how much our technology evolves around us, storytelling will always be at the root of good presentations.

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Present Now Helps Presenters Generate Qualified Leads

January 10th, 2012 · Presentation Effectiveness, Sales Presentations

A presentation startup built to help presenters make more connections with their audience hit the news feeds last week, catching my attention. Called Present Now, the company promises to reduce the cost of customer acquisition and increase the ROI of speaking events through a smartphone form process. As the site’s slogan goes:

Your Presentation + Audience Smart Phones = New Connections

The simplicity and promise almost sold me on the product, but from a technical perspective Present Now is really built for individuals without a web presence. After all, what the startup offers is a mobile compatible web form hosted on Present.me.

To capture new leads, the presenter tells audience members to go to present.me and enter a code (e.g. the presenter’s name). After that the audience member fills out their personal contact information so the presenter can follow up with them at a later date.

Smart? Totally. Present Now drives home the importance of building the information capture process into every presentation, especially when presenting to people you don’t already know. A lot of presenters throw their email on the intro slide and expect people to contact them, but we all know this hardly ever works. Present Now reminds us that we must formalize the process so we can turn our audience into customers.

Until Present Now can offer a more seamless process though (e.g. the Bump of presentations), most presenters are probably better off simply hosting a mobile compatible web form on their own server. Whichever route makes most sense for each individual, there’s no questioning the power of building a process for increasing leads and following up.

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Most Popular Presentation Agency Blog Posts of 2011

January 3rd, 2012 · Presentation Agency

As New York City livens with people returning to work, we take a quick pause to review the most read Presentation Agency posts of 2011.  The posts that gained the most readership are indicative of presentation trends at large, it’s safe to say that 2011 was the year when presenters adopted iPads.  In 2012 we will continue this conversation, as well as bring back the Best Presentations series of posts that captured so many eyes.

Thank you to everyone who read and commented on Presentation Agency during the past year and here’s to a successful 2012 for all of our presenters.

  1. The Best Business Presentation Apps For iPad
  2. The Tablet Difference: Creating Effective Presentations for the iPad
  3. Keynotes’ 6 Step Video Integration Should Be Automatic
  4. Best Presentations: Jane McGonigal on Gaming
  5. Best Presentations: DicK Hardt on Identity 2.0
  6. What Physicians Really Think as iPads Take Root in Pharma
  7. The Verdict is In: Corporate Presenters Find Flaws in PowerPoint
  8. iPads are the Latest Weapon in Medical Sales
  9. The 5 Best Meetings Applications for Business
  10. Effective Presentations on the iPad: A “Case” Study

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The Verdict is In: Corporate Presenters Find Flaws in PowerPoint

November 21st, 2011 · PowerPoint, Presentation Agency, Presentation Effectiveness

The Anti-PowerPoint Party taught us there are more than a few people who despise PowerPoint as a presentation software, but what about professional presenters? Do they hate the tool as much as the 2,700 people who have signed a formal petition against PowerPoint? Here at Sales Graphics we were determined to find out so we went out and surveyed employees at a well known subscription television channel. You can find the results in the graphic below, but here are a few main takeaways.

A grand total of 15 percent of people said they love working with PowerPoint, but when we move past the initial minority fan share, our corporate presenters start to find holes in the software. Ease of use seemed to be the most significant complaint, along with appearance. Exactly half of our presenters said they wished PowerPoint looked better.

Other presenters wanted stronger tools for customization, collaboration, sharing, universal compatibility, and video. One impassioned presenter even wrote, “PowerPoint reminds me of a Beta software application that is untested, riddled with bugs, and poorly planned.”

Despite poor user sentiment from both the presenter and the presented to, it seems few corporations know there is a place to continue the conversation. Sales and marketing teams are not condemned to less than ideal software solutions that put huge dents in productivity.

Communicating this wider world of presentation solutions to the general public is one of the industry’s greatest tasks, but also one of its most exciting. As iPads become more prevalent in the enterprise and the cloud gives us places to store and share presentations, new software will stand above (and ultimately replace) traditional solutions like PowerPoint. After all, new presentation software solutions will save time, create convenience, and ultimately deliver a better product.

The stats say it’s time to switch. Now all that’s left is to make the move.

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Survey Data Reveals How Presenters Spend Their Time

October 26th, 2011 · Great Presentations, Presentation Agency

We all know a solid presentation deck can be the difference between a productive meeting and an absolute snooze, but what does this mean in terms of time investment?

We conducted a survey with a number of employees at a premium-subscription channel to discover exactly how they prepare for presentations. What were their headaches and where were they wasting time? Perhaps most important, how could we take their struggles and turn them into strengths.

The chart above offers a taste of our findings. When using PowerPoint, the average corporate presenter spends 72 minutes preparing a deck for prime time. During that time, presenters said the biggest chunk of that hour or so was filled customizing the presentation and designing slides to look better.

A full 56% of survey takers said finding the latest version of slides and videos sucked up a lot of time, as did collaborating with coworkers. This time spent resolving infamous version issues like, “That’s the FINAL final version of this presentation.”

After this survey was completed we gave the sales team our presentation tool. Presenters shaved off an average of 32 minutes prep time per presentation, representing a significant savings over the course of a year.

The results remind us that we have no reason to accept the status quo. Presentations don’t have to be boring, ugly, or laborious. Time spent preparing doesn’t have to drag on. Instead we can create solutions that optimize the process and solve the problems many of us never even knew we had.

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