Nothing will help your audience relate to you (and the content you are presenting) more than stories and anecdotes. Whether they’re about people you know or places you’ve seen, or even if you’re re-telling a story you’ve heard elsewhere, they’ll add a personal touch to information that will help draw your audience in, and make what you’re saying more purposeful, understandable, and believable.

Nothing will help your audience relate to you more than stories and anecdotes.

But, even some of the best speakers lack solid storytelling skills. Luckily, there are a ton of great resources that can help you enhance your presentation with terrific stories and anecdotes.

1. Draw from Your Own Experiences
You’re life is more interesting than you think it is, and your past experiences may be quite entertaining to your audience. Perhaps a few stories about your feisty toddler can add a dose of humor to your presentation about dealing with difficult employees. Or, telling them about that time you hiked a challenging five mile trail in a hail storm may enhance your speech about getting and staying motivated. Feel free to embellish for dramatic effect.

2. Books
Hit up a nearby bookstore or your local library. Literary references make ideal stories for presentations and speeches. And, choosing popular books, or beloved classics that people remember fondly, are likely to strike a chord with your audience.

3. Awesome Stories (awesomestories.com)
This self-proclaimed “story place of the Web” provides countless fictional and non-fictional stories in a variety of categories such as famous trials, biographies, movies, history, religion, and sports. Here, educators and other presenters can quickly and easily find stories and their original sources, instead of spending hours upon hours searching national archives, libraries, universities, museums, and historical societies.

4. Anecdotage (anecdotage.com)
This site is home to the largest collection of celebrity anecdotes on the Internet. There are several thousand quotes and stories to choose from, covering a wide range of topics. An intuitive search facility allows you to search by keyword, or by your favorite politician, actor, musician, or other personality.

5. Story Arts Online (storyarts.org)
This educational Web site, created by author and storyteller Heather Forest, was initially designed for teachers, librarians, and students. However, much of its content is focused on the use of stories to enhance speaking and facilitate improved listening, and can provide much value to presenters and speakers of all types. Be sure to check out its comprehensive story library.

This is the continuation in a series of Incredible resources for presentations. If you have an idea for incredible resources or want to add one of your own just add a comment below this post. See the whole incredible presentations series here.

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

Many presenters, particularly novices, struggle to find a presentation style that works best for them.  Luckily, throughout the years, after much trial and error, many successful techniques and methodologies for presentation creation and delivery have emerged, giving speakers a variety of existing approaches to “borrow” from.

From top left: Lawrence Lessig, Masayoshi Takahashi, Seth Godin, Mino Monta

Here, we’ll describe and evaluate some of the most famous – and popular – presentation methods.

1. The Takahashi Method
This extremely unique method calls for the use of very, very large text.  The goal is to use no more than a handful (preferably, less than three) of easy-to-understand words, or a single image or photo with no accompanying words, on each slide, to deliver a very clear, very high-impact message in a very short period of time.  Many believe that this approach forces the audience to listen to the speaker, since the slides alone do not demonstrate all the content to be delivered.

2. The Lessig Method
Based on the style of Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig, this method is quite similar to Takahashi’s approach in its simplicity.  Presenters who use this technique incorporate only a brief quote, a short sentence, or a photo with a caption onto their slides, and spend only a few seconds on each.  But, while Takahashi-style presentations are often rather short – usually ten slides or less – Lessig presentations are often quite long, sometimes hundreds of slides that are passed through very quickly.  The idea behind this method is that the rapid-fire pace of delivery prevents the audience from growing bored or getting distracted.

3.  The Godin Method
Although not yet formally recognized by presentation pundits, this method, made popular by best-selling author and marketing guru Seth Godin, focuses mostly on the element of presentation slide design – particularly, how to select accompanying visuals to enhance messages appropriately.  Godin promotes the use of bold fonts, contrasting colors, striking images, and other clear, compelling visuals to better convey thoughts and ideas.

4. The Monta Method
Like the Takahashi approach, this technique originated in Japan.  Introduced by a knowledge worker in the tech field, it emulates the personality and charisma of a popular game show host.  Presenters are encouraged to use questions and answers on all their visuals.  When the question is posed to the audience, the answer is kept covered or hidden, only to be revealed once attendees have tried to “guess”.  The advantage of this approach is that it is highly effective at keeping the audience interested and engaged, and thus, their attention is less likely to wander.

This is the continuation in a series of Incredible resources for presentations. If you have an idea for incredible resources or want to add one of your own just add a comment below this post or see the whole incredible presentations series.

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

Tired of arial, times new roman, and other boring, over-used type styles? Looking to jazz up your slide deck by displaying your text using fonts that are cooler, sleeker, or more stylish?

There are a variety of Web sites and other resources devoted to the creation, sharing, distribution, and use of unique, visually appealing fonts.

Well, you’re in luck. There are a variety of Web sites and other resources devoted to the creation, sharing, distribution, and use of unique, visually appealing fonts that convey your personality and your presenting style.

Here are some of the best places to get new fonts for your presentation, or to learn how to make your own:

1. Dafont.com (http://www.dafont.com)
You’ll find it all here – gothic fonts, international-themed fonts, even fonts that celebrate popular holidays like Valentine’s Day, Easter, or Halloween. And, they’re all free. With more than 10 thousands fonts to choose from, plus over 2 thousand accents, there’s something for everyone, no matter what your need or preference.

2. 1001 Free Fonts (http://www.1001freefonts.com)
Since it launched in 1998, this site has served as a primary source of new fonts for more than 150,000 visitors. Its font search engine provides access to one of the Web’s largest font database, containing more than 30,000 commercial fonts.

3. Fee-Based Font Sites
While many of the font sites on the Web are free, there are several sites that offer higher-quality, professionally-designed fonts, for a price. These include

• Adobe Type Library, Providing stunning, elegant, and beautiful typography since 1985, Adobe Type offers more than 2,500 typefaces.
• Bitstream, and – what many consider to be the best font site out there today – MyFonts. If you want to stay in the know on the latest fonts then the MyFonts newsletters are a great resource.
• Ascender Corporation is a leading provider of advanced font products specializing in type design, font development and licensing. They also own the FontMarketplace which features the downloadable FontSelector a tool that makes it easy to pick fonts by Occasion, Personality and Type Style on Windows operating systems.

4. FontLab (http://www.fontlab.com)
If you don’t find what you need on the Web, and you’ve got some above-average design skills, FontLab makes a great font software package. Create fonts from scratch, convert fonts from various formats and enhance them to meet your requirements, add logos, signatures, or images, and more.

5. Font Tutorials
Looking to create new fonts, without purchasing or learning a new software application? Learn how, using tools you’re already familiar with. For example, Chank can help you learn to make fonts using Fontographer. Divide by Zero has tutorials on designing fonts with Photoshop and Typophile is also an excellent resource.

6. Installation Instructions
Found the perfect font for your presentation, but not sure how to download and install it? If you’re a Windows user, you can access Microsoft’s instructions. If you’re on a Mac, you can learn how to set up and use new fonts on Apple’s support site.

This is the continuation in a series of Incredible resources for presentations. If you have an idea for incredible resources or want to add one of your own just add a comment below this post or see the whole incredible presentation resource series.

Many experts agree that the best way to get your message across is to stimulate as many senses as possible during the course of your presentation. That’s why so many presenters rely on audio to enhance their visuals.

Beautifully crafted music adds to the emotional impact of our images.

“Beautifully crafted music adds to the emotional impact of our images. One only has to see the reaction of clients to understand why we use music whenever we can,” says Massachusetts-based photographer Edward Zemba about using audio to enhance his presentations to potential customers.

Fortunately, there is a wealth of terrific audio resources available to speakers and presenters, such as:

1. Musicshake.com (www.MusicShake.com)
This intuitive application allows users to easily create their own music clips using more than 80,000 copyright-free samples. It offers a wide array of genres and instruments to choose from, and even provides a suite of voice recording and editing features. Once clips are created, they can be posted to the site and shared with others – providing a catalog of truly unique audio samples. Be sure to check out the Independence Day Remix application, for great 4th of July-themed music!

2. Royalty Free Audio

• RoyaltyFreeMusic.com (www.RoyaltyFreeMusic.com)
  As the world’s largest library of royalty-free music, this site offers clips for everything from music for callers waiting on hold, to backgrounds for advertisements. An intuitive search facility makes it easy to select from a wide array of styles, including jazz, children’s, acoustic, piano, R&B, and hip-hop music. There is also a compilation of clips for use specifically on the Web, or in presentations or Flash videos.
• Presentations Magazine (Presentations Magazine)
  Presentations is the leading publication in the public speaking and presentation market. In addition to advice and guidance, they also offer a variety of resources, including audio clips for use in slide decks. Some of the available sounds include a dial tone, a cappuccino machine, champagne being poured, a ringing cell phone, and a ship’s bell.
• Sounds of the Web (www.SoundsoftheWeb.net)
  Part of the Group Media Network, this resource has been around since 1999 and has been praised by Audio Media Magazine, Digit Magazine, and others as a pioneer in the industry. It offers thousands of music loops and sound effects to meet almost any presentation or digital media need.
• AudioMicro (www.AudioMicro.com)
  With a huge collection of micro stock audio, AudioMicro is a revolutionary collection of user-generated royalty-free stock music, sound effects, production music, production elements and music cues.
• Sound Ideas (www.sound-ideas.com/)
  Just $129 will buy you 5 CDs packed with audio clips that are the perfect enhancement to your slide deck. Over 1,400 files are included in each volume, with packages for business/office, pop culture, comedy, and other areas of interest. Files can be easily exported to the format of your choice. You can also create loops, edit, fade in/fade out, and more!

3. Make Your Own
If you’re feeling a bit adventurous, or you’re looking for something unique, there are countless audio editing software applications you can try. Check out Sony Sound Forge, Adobe Soundbooth, Dexster Audio Editor, FX Audio Editor, or Acoustica, which all run about $40 to $60 each. If you want real, recording-studio quality sound, try Adobe Audition or Sony Vegas Pro, which will cost you several hundred dollars. There are also a variety of free audio editors which you can download or use in your browser, such as Aviary’s Myna, Audacity or Wavosaur.

4. Advice and Guidance
Incorporating audio into your slide deck is more than just a matter of slapping in some background music and cute noises. There are right ways to do it, and wrong ways. Fortunately, there are many experts who have shared their best practices. From general tips and techniques, and advice on intellectual property and copyright law, to tutorials for recording presentation audio, advice can easily be found across the Web.

5. Voice Talent
If you have a script for your project but don’t want to record your own voice track there are now a good number of online services for finding just the right professional voice you need. These services generally keep a database of voice talent in a variety of languages and accents that allow you to browse and listen to each one. The more comprehensive services let you post your project to their site and help you manage it through the process sending you the finished product when it’s done. Some of the more popular voice talent databases include Voices.com, Voice123, VoiceTalent.com.

This is the first post in a series of Incredible resources for presentations. If you have an idea for incredible resources or want to add one of your own just add a comment below this post.

Every marketer creates company presentations on a regular basis, but do you see slides as a chance to boost branding, drive customer engagement, and increase sales? More likely, you think creating presentations is a chore. Yet when done right, slide decks can be the ultimate weapon in your marketing arsenal.

Whether you’re developing a presentation for your worldwide sales team, putting together a few slides for your CEO’s upcoming presentation at a conference, or presenting a new messaging framework to the company, a set of engaging, brand-consistent slides is one of the strongest assets you have to build your business and boost revenues.

As ever, your slides should be engaging and exciting; boring slides will dampen, even damage, customer interest in your brand. Thankfully for those of us on the hook to create slide presentations, there are several web-based applications available that allow you to incorporate rich media, social features, real-time feeds, video and photos, and other interactive elements into slide decks. The trick is to make presentations interactive using social features so you can invite audience feedback before, during, and after you deliver your message. Social presentations allow you to engage your potential customers in a conversation instead of boring them into a coma. The result is deeper brand engagement — now and over the long term.

What’s more, in today’s share-everything, web-based world, ensuring that every slide deck you create presents a unified message is crucial to maintaining brand integrity. Your slides might get shared far and wide, so make sure your company message is clear, concise, and consistent.

Here are five tips to make your marketing presentations more social, engaging, and interactive:

Set the real (or virtual) stage
You might be creating a slide presentation to deliver in front of a live audience, or you might simply be creating the deck to distribute to potential customers via email or the web. Either way, start by creating anticipation around your presentation. Reach out to your intended audience using social media channels to get them excited about your presentation. Online community tools like MeetUp and Ning, as well Twitter hashtags or a dedicated Facebook page, allow you to spread the word about your upcoming presentation. As the creator of the presentation, make sure to participate in these communities by soliciting feedback on your proposed topic and networking with key contacts before your presentation.

Be social-friendly
The days of pushing marketing messages out to your audiences and hoping they notice are long gone; today’s marketing world is social, two-way, and based on the constant flow of real-time customer feedback. Likewise, your presentations should leverage social tools to create an interactive dialogue between your brand and potential customers. To make presentations “social friendly,” add short sound bites to your slides that your audience can quickly absorb and share with their larger social networks (think 140 characters). Also, include links to Facebook, Twitter, and blog entries that customers or partners have written about your brand. Add widgets from Yahoo or Google that display real-time stock tickers, RSS feeds, and other streamed information. Lastly, don’t forget to list personal and/or company social media links prominently at the beginning and end of your presentation. Inviting people to keep your message alive can be very powerful.

Invite feedback
Whether you’re delivering the presentation live or sending it to your intended audience to view later, make sure your slides include interactive elements that allow people to provide their feedback and opinions. If you won’t be there to deliver the presentation in person, include clickable buttons in your slides that say things like “Click here to share your opinion,” as well as urge people to visit your Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms to share their thoughts.

Backchannel basics
Inviting your live audience (and those watching your presentation from afar via the web or participating through other’s tweets) to comment in real-time on your presentation via a live Twitter feed is a powerful way to turn your presentation into a two-way conversation. Of course, it can also invite disaster if the audience begins posting negative or inappropriate comments while you are speaking. The way to manage the backchannel is to make sure you can see all comments as they come in, and better yet, incorporate these comments into your presentation. This takes a bit of multitasking, but by addressing feedback directly, you’ll avoid the torrential “pile up” of comments that can quickly turn negative. Today, there are tools (like SlideRocket) available to import backchannel comments directly into your presentation, so both you and the audience see them in real-time.

Keep talking
Like any marketing campaign, an interactive presentation is just the start of a longer and deeper conversation with your audience. The social nature of the web today means people who like your presentation will want to comment on it and share it with friends and colleagues. Make sure your presentations include “share this presentation” buttons, and also post the presentation, or parts of it, on the wider social web. You can put the presentation videos on YouTube, post the slides on your company’s Facebook page or intranet, and include a link to your online slide presentation in email campaigns, websites, or other marketing materials. By getting your presentation out there, you’ll invite continued feedback and build a larger social network of interested customers or employees.

If you think like a marketer when creating slides and make them social and interactive, you’re well on your way to attracting new customers and a loyal brand following with every presentation.

You delivered your slides perfectly. Your timing was impeccable. Your audience was fully engaged at all times. Even your old, outdated laptop – which often fails you at the most inopportune times – performed flawlessly. Everything seemed to go as smoothly as possible.

How are you measuring presentation success?

But, can your presentation really be considered a success? Here are some of the best ways to decide:

1. Track Views and/or Downloads
This can be an extremely valuable performance metric if your presentation was made available “on-demand” via the Web. How many times was it viewed, and by how many different people? Those numbers will help you determine whether or not your slide deck, and its key messages, are resonating with your target audience.

2. Count the “Drop Offs”
Every speaker can expect to lose an audience member or two during the course of their presentation, especially if it is being broadcast over the Web, where attendees are subject to countless distractions. But, an unusually high number of “drop offs” is a clear indicator that your presentation, or its central theme or topic, is lacking something, and may need more fine-tuning.

3. The Call to Action – The Ultimate Test
Did your audience do what you wanted or asked them to do after your session was over? For example, if you were conducting a training course for an upcoming exam, how many of your students passed the test? If you were pitching a new product, how many customers requested more information, scheduled a demo, or made a purchase? The actions attendees take immediately after a presentation – and whether or not those were the desired or intended outcomes – is one of the best ways to gauge how successful it truly was.

4. Measure the Business Impact
Although you likely had a specific “call to action” in mind when delivering your presentation, there are also other, secondary benefits that can be achieved – benefits that can have a profound impact on your business. Did you build stronger customer loyalty? Win new business? Generate awareness in your market? Help your audience learn and grow? These factors can also be used to help evaluate the success of your presentation.

If you’re having trouble measuring presentation success you’ll want to take a closer look at SlideRocket’s industry leading presentation analytics to find out who’s watching your presentation, how long they watch it, which parts of your message resonate with your audience and what actions they take afterwards.

Want more valuable tips on effective presentation creation and delivery? Review our archive of presentation tips and check back every week for new posts.

We hear tons of stories from folks (who aren’t using SlideRocket) about how long it takes them to build out their presentations and decided to run a quick poll to get some numerical data.

Thanks for your response. You’ll see the results once you click Vote.

Did you get a chance to check out our hosted webinar this week, “The Backchannel: A Presenter’s Nightmare or Dream Come True” with author Cliff Atkinson?

For those of you who could not join the webinar, Cliff explored how backchannels (platforms for discussion created by users of social media) are being used during presentations. Take Twitter for example – have you ever posted a Tweet during a presentation? Was it positive or negative? Do you think the speaker would have benefited from seeing the Tweet?

Cliff brings up some really interesting points that I definitely agree with as to how presentations are changing and becoming more social with all the new web technologies. As Cliff pointed out, with social media, it’s all about doing everything you can to connect with your audience.

From what I have seen at conferences, the typical audience member is never without a laptop or smartphone, and is no longer sitting quietly while speakers talk – instead they’re using Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other tools to create this backchannel where they chat with one another, make comments about your presentation and broadcast their thoughts to people all over the world. Pretty amazing stuff! Cliff explained if audiences are happy, the backchannel can spread ideas far and wide, create buzz and keep the conversation going long after you’ve left the podium.  But, if audiences are unhappy, the backchannel can criticize your ideas and delivery, disrupt your talk and even derail your presentation completely.

Talk about information on-demand. It’s exciting to see how audiences are actively carving out a space to be engaged in the conversation, making presentations a two-way experience.

What do you think? Are you a frequent conference speaker or attendee? Is the backchannel yet another thing to fear when you give your next presentation or do you think of tools such as Twitter as a great opportunity to really know what people are thinking?

If you missed this seminar, you’ll want to check it out here for some best practices on how to best use Twitter before, during and after your presentation. It’s a great lesson in knowing your audience, doing your research before you make a presentation and using the right technologies to your advantage. Because, the days of one-way presentations are over.

If you like Cliff Atkinson’s web seminar on The Backchannel you may enjoy some of our other live and on demand seminars. Check them out on our SlideRocket Web Seminars page.

My blog post last week about Netbooks and the future of Web Apps got me thinking about office ‘productivity’ suites. As we witness a computing revolution brought on by the Internet and cloud computing, can user adoption of Netbooks, Google Chrome OS and Web Apps beat out the more established rivals found in PCs, Windows OS and Microsoft Office? Many other questions come to mind in the contest of ‘Battle Cloud versus Desktop’ – who will reign supreme?

Why do people need or want office productivity suites?  By suites, I mean groups of applications which, while addressing very different use cases, are bundled together in one purchasing decision for some strange reason. Buying a suite of productivity applications like this really doesn’t make a lot of sense. Customers want choice. They want to choose what is best for their specific needs and encourage vendors to compete to make the best products.  Think about it, we do not buy our music or computer games in suites or watch television from only one network. Rather, we purchase the various music and games we like, watch television that interests us and see movies that we like. So why should desktop productivity suites be an exception, forcing users to purchase an entire package of programs that they may or may not use or even like? Instead, let the best application win. Let innovation win. Let costumer choice win.

You can probably guess that I stand firmly in support of ‘Team Cloud’. Why invest in bundled productivity suites such as Microsoft Office when the Internet offers customizable programs and applications aimed to work best for you and your business. Maybe you like Gmail for your email, SlideRocket for your presentations and Google Docs for word processing and spreadsheets.  Great! The truth is, how many of the features in Microsoft PowerPoint, Word and Excel do you really use.  And for most users the Microsoft suite is a group of silo’d programs with little to no interaction. It can’t be worth the cost when the alternatives online are turning out a phenomenal competition with revolutionary features.

A major factor in the battle is user adoption. While we see teams of people switching to ‘Team Cloud’, the battle has just begun. Here at SlideRocket we are working hard to get people to forget about firing up their static MSFT Office Suite and desktop presentation application. Instead, reach for the clouds and discover a whole new realm of functionality and the value of online presentations.

Companies like Google are making great strides, turning people on to web-based applications and productivity suites. As 2009 comes to an end and we move into 2010, I will be incredibly interested to see how the battle unfolds. Will products such as Chrome OS and Netbooks accelerate the pace of users turning away from their desktop OS  and software products? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this interesting debate.

Flipping through the Black Friday ads for Best Buy, it looks like Netbooks are going to be another hot holiday gift idea this year- some are on sale for less than $200. Cheaper and designed to be more portable than traditional laptops, Netbooks have some exciting capabilities. As consumers gear up for one of the biggest shopping days of the year, it is interesting for us in the tech world to see the Netbook buzz developing.

Revered tech blog GigaOm (recently, awesomely redesigned….) has a dedicated Netbooks section. Last week, Netbooks figured heavily in the conversation surrounding the release of Chrome’s OS and cloud computing. According to GigaOm, “The operating system [Google Chrome] is designed to imbue web applications with the ‘full functionality of desktop applications.’ As for the reasons behind the development of the new platform, they pointed to rapid growth in the  Netbook market — where Chrome OS is aimed — and cloud computing.”

Did they say a free operating system, aimed for the mobile worker on the go, with the purpose of providing all the online applications you need, anywhere you are? I’m sold!

This is something we believe in strongly at SlideRocket – affordable, cloud-based solutions aimed at making work easier.  Imagine a world where you never have to install or upgrade another software application on your computer – instead, you simply use powerful Netbooks and choose the best of breed web-based applications that meet your needs.  Ahhhh…simplicity, choice and the reassurance that you are always using an application’s latest and greatest version. It looks like the once considered need to have ‘desktop applications’ such as the office suite software may become a thing of the past.  Email, docs, calendars, spreadsheets and, of course, presentations — everything you could possibly want or need on your Netbook is now available to you, for free, and all on the web.

NetBooks + Chrome OS + web based apps will get us all that much closer to a fully web based world!