If you had a chance to check out Joanna Wiebe’s presentation at SXSW 2011 “It’s About Time: Visualizing Temporality”, you were treated to a great presentation. She opened and closed playing Pink Floyd’s “Time”. Enough said…end of blog post (not really).

Click the image above to launch the presentation Joanna created using SlideRocket, and be sure to visit her OneMind blog where she explores how time and pace impact (or should impact) the design of our websites, games and e-commerce sites.

What made Joann’s presentation great? (more…)

A NASA presentation and SlideRocket are a natural fit. While at SXSW we were fortunate to catch Nicholas Skytland deliver an inspiring presentation using SlideRocket titled, “The Next Rocket Scientist: You“. We’re not the only ones who were impressed as it was quickly picked-up on the Twitter stream.

What Makes This Presentation Great? (more…)

Presentation makers have come a long way since PowerPoint was first introduced over 20 years ago. Since then video usage, collaboration and broad sharing of presentations have entirely changed the presentation landscape. So shouldn’t the criteria you use to evaluate them evolve as well? Here are 5 capabilities to consider as you evaluate a new presentation maker.

1. Creating

When looking for the best presentation maker it’s safe to assume authoring  (i.e., actually creating a presentation) is core functionality. Authoring is a very broad topic so rather than provide all the details to consider here are 7 key areas of functionality to consider: (more…)

Because it takes time to find great stock artwork for your presentations, it’s a shame not to invest 10 more minutes to lend some edginess to your images. By playing around with contrast, saturation, hue and brightness you can add more emotion to your stock images to elevate your presentation design.

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Fonts are a subtle and surprisingly easy way to set your slide design apart from the crowd. It’s easy because you only have to choose a font once and you reap the rewards on every slide.

Font Squirrel is an excellent place to start looking for the best presentation font for you. For one thing it’s free. But there is a lot of talent on the site, and we’ve picked out 4 fonts that really caught our eye. Read about them below and see them in action in the SlideRocket presentation. We picked a Museo 300, ChunkFive, Aller and a District Thin font. These are all excellent and we definitely recommend them for your next presentation.

We also spent an equal amount of time on the sites of the font designers to make sure they had the design chops and character to back-up their fonts. They all do.

Quick Presentation Font Primer

Remarkable fonts make a good slide design element in their own right, and focus attention on your message. But make sure you stick to solid design principles when choosing. (more…)

A key ingredient to memorable slide design is presentation imagery. But making your slides sizzle takes more than just a pretty picture. It’s best to take a little time to position and frame your images for maximum impact.

Fortunately, the extensive use of PowerPoint clip art has set the bar low for slide design success. And, the pervasive, monotonous use of images of businesspeople staring at computers and “doing business stuff” makes standing apart from the crowd that much easier. Dare to be a bit more inventive with images and you’ll be a hit.

11 Striking Ways to Display Images – Check Out the Presentation

Here is some more detail on three of the slide design approaches for presentation images: (more…)

We’ve seen a decade of fabulous stories, infographics, animations, and ideas. We highlighted these presentations together as the most Dramastic Presentations of the Decade – the best presentations with the most dramatic, fantastic, even drastic visual stories. Click to view the presentation. You voted for the best one, here are the results!

Presentations included "Enchantment", "An Inconvenient Truth", "Parisian Love", and "The Girl Effect".

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Looking for inspiration, guidance and tips on how to develop good presentation skills?  We’ve provided ample presentation resources to put you on course. But we heard from the presentation community that we should have included presentation books. So, here are the 7 we recommend you explore to get the critical help you sometimes need and perhaps find your long lost presentation skills coach.

What would a post about improving your presentation skills be without an actual presentation? View this creative presentation to learn more about the books we recommend. If you’re a SlideRocket customer we’re happy to share it into your account to use as inspiration or a template for you own presentations. Just follow the instructions on slide #9.

These books challenge the conventional approaches to creating a presentation. They span the creation and delivery of presentations, realizing the connection between thought, visualization and communication. Doing it right is a complex undertaking. But these books from the best presentation coaches excel at breaking down good presentation skills for us. (more…)




Dramastic! Yeah, we made up the word – sort of accidentally – but the more we used it the more it made sense. Dramastic means dramatic, fantastic, and even a little bit of drastic. So here they are – Dramastic Presentations of the Decade. From climate change to Google search to credit crisis to tweeting from outer space – there’s a presentation for that.

What was the most Dramastic Presentation of the Decade? Watch the slideshow and vote at the end. We’ll announce the Most Dramastic Presentation of the Decade on December 31st.

UPDATE (12/17) – Based on community feedback, we’ve added two more presentations, one from a rock star and one from a stand-up comedian. Enjoy and keep your votes coming!

Who knew the serendipitous meeting of a new prospect in the coffee shop or conference would lead to much more than leaving your card? Now you can leave them impressed, with a great iPad presentation software. But any inspiring presentation calls for solid planning and you’ve got to plan around the unique aspects of the iPad channel, venue, and audience.

Here are 4 tips to keep in mind for successful iPad presentations:

• Get an iPad presentation software app.

Before you can present on an iPad, you’ll need an iPad presentation software app. Keynote and SlideRocket are your best bets. Delivering a PowerPoint presentation on an iPad is possible. But it requires that you first change it to a picture or video format. You can’t actually present using PowerPoint itself.

• Seating is very limited.

Design your presentation with the venue in mind. You’ll be able to have three or four people max view the iPad’s 9-inch screen. Plan for this. Otherwise you’ll leave those who can’t really see annoyed. In addition to spontaneous opportunities, many professionals are finding great use of the iPad in making presentations as part of their sales and marketing appointments. But again, it works best for small audiences.

• Think large.

With the iPad’s small screen, keep the visual elements of your presentation simple. Use larger, basic design components for clearly communicating your message. The same goes for text. Keep it down to as few words as possible.

Keep a good balance of visuals and text. Don’t let one overpower the other. And, try to keep the presentation to the least number of slides possible. Last, if you design the presentation on a desktop, make sure the pixel variation on the iPad still clearly conveys the images.

• It’s a conversation.

If you’re designing an iPad presentation for the unplanned, chance encounter with a prospect, remember some important points about your audience. From their perspective, this is a completely unexpected, spontaneous event. And while they may welcome your presentation, the nature of the communication will be quite different than in a traditional presentation. Plan on conversation. Don’t simply read from the slides. That’s always boring. But it will be especially so with an iPad presentation. Instead, you have an opportunity to present in a manner that encourages questions and conversation. Design your presentation with that in mind.

Let us know your iPad presentation tips and how you’ve used iPad presentation software to take advantage of “spontaneous” presentation opportunities.

Find more great tips and resources at the Presentation Skills Launch Pad.