This month SlideRocket is not just providing you with great presentation software, content and services, we’re also giving you the chance to get your hands on some great presentation hardware. All you need to do is add 3 (three) new business annual subscribers to your account and we’ll give you the choice of either a free Flip Mino HD digital camera or an Optoma Pico Pocket Projector. And if you add 10 (ten) new business annual subscribers we’ll give you both!

The Flip Mino HD is an incredible device for capturing high definition video for your presentations and even comes with it’s own editing software, ideal for a customer interview, executive broadcast or customer update. Just import your HD video from the Flip Mino into SlideRocket and easily integrate video into your presentation. Once you have your media rich presentation together you can project it anywhere with a Pico Pocket Projector. Weighing in at just 3.2 oz. and measuring 2” x 0.67” x 4.17” the Pico is the ultra portable projector suitable for presenters on the go.

Combined with SlideRocket’s ultimate presentation platform, these powerful and portable devices give you presentation power wherever you are. Take advantage of this incredible offer before the end of the month and you’ll be well equipped for any presentation event.

Note: Offer expires midnight September 30th

Guest post by Scott Schwertly of Ethos3

Is it too ambitious to say that 2009 is the year of the presentation?  I don’t think so.  Look around you – it’s the beginning of a presentation revolution.  It’s now time to make your presentations look more 2009 rather than 1999.

How can you join the movement?  Well, you need to understand the cornerstone of any great presentation – how to build it, how to design it, and how to deliver it.

End your summer looking like a rock star.  Join us on September 22^nd at 10am PDT for a free webinar! The session will cover everything you need to become the next big thing which includes understanding the following:

Content

Covers the essentials of how to build a blueprint for presentation greatness.  This includes practical tips on how to prepare for a presentation, write with clarity, and build and maintain trust through public speaking.  All in all, it provides the essential tips and tools that will help you plan the right way for your next presentation.

Design

Tired of bullet points and PowerPoint templates, but don’t how to improve your presentation?  Learn the laws of simplicity as it relates to presentation design and six different styles and approaches that you can mix and match the next time you build a presentation.  Plus, you will become equipped with all the resources that you need to design a visually captivating presentation.

Delivery

Do you fear public speaking or struggle to find creative ways to open or close a talk? This section includes techniques on how to conquer your anxiety, win your audience, and use non-verbal techniques to your advantage.

I hope you can join me on Tuesday!

About the Author: Scott Schwertly is an epic storyteller.  Today, he owns and operates Ethos3 Communications (http://www.ethos3.com), a Nashville, TN-based presentation boutique providing professional presentation design and training for national and international clients ranging from Fortune 100 companies to branded individuals like Guy Kawasaki.

He may live in Nashville, TN with his wife and three dogs, but he calls San Diego home – the place of his beloved San Diego Chargers.  Scott has a B.A. and M.B.A. from Harding University.

I attended my second presentation camp last weekend and thought I’d share some notes and resources from the day, this time in LA at Blank Spaces.

Presentation Camp LA - Agenda

Presentation Camp is an event based on the barcamp model of ad-hoc unconferences where people share and learn in an open environment. Find out more about barcamp. My experience so far is that while there are a basic set of guidelines for barcamps, every event is different and very much determined by attendee ideas, voices, votes and (generally) consensus. Presentation Camp L.A. had a $10 registration fee but most barcamps are free. I must say that I’ve paid considerably more to attend events and been less satisfied so I consider it money well spent. Presentation Camp L.A. also had corporate sponsors so we had food and beverages all day and a mountain of appropriate give aways and prizes.

There were some top notch presenters at Presentation Camp L.A. including the organizers Cliff Atkinson, Lisa Braithwaite and Colleen Wainwright but the sessions I enjoyed the most were led by Olivia Mitchell (from my home town of Wellington, New Zealand) who led sessions on Presenting With Twitter and Handling Hecklers, Andy Goodman who presented his “Why Bad Presentations Happen To Good Causes” (if you’re dong ANY kind of presentation I highly recommend you get a copy of his book and review his research on what audiences want and don’t want) and Terrence McNally presented some great guidelines for using narrative in your communications.

There were plenty of other excellent presentations at presentation camp LA, these are just the ones that resonated with me. If you haven’t attended a presentation camp yet I highly recommend it. I’m 100% sure you’ll meet interesting people, learn how to make and deliver better presentations and very likely have fun in the process. You can subscribe to the Presentation Camp Google Group to find out when an event is coming to a location near you or to find like minded folks who’ll help you organize one. See you there!

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” – Bob Marley (1945-1981)

AudioMicro brings music and sound effects to the SlideRocket Marketplace

This week we added music and sound effects to the SlideRocket Marketplace via our newest content partner AudioMicro. AudioMicro provides an extensive library of user-generated micro stock music, sound effects, production music, production elements and music cues for incredibly low prices and we’re very happy to offer this content, tightly integrated into SlideRocket, to help you make great presentations.

As with any communication media, presentations (especially ones delivered sans presenter) are greatly enhanced with the addition of appropriate audio. Music can help determine the mood or character of your presentation and compliment or accentuate your message, while effects can be used to grab attention or create highlights. More importantly audio can create an emotional reaction to your presentation communications which makes them far more memorable for viewers. The combination of these is perhaps why presentations with audio are on average watched 2 to 3 times longer than those without. To see AudioMicro’s library of audio just login to SlideRocket and click on the Marketplace button at the top of the screen. You can search across genres, preview tracks and then click to buy and add your selected audio files to your library, it’s that simple.

“SlideRocket’s beautiful design and powerful communication capabilities made a natural fit for the AudioMicro music and sound effects library”, said Ryan Born, chief executive officer, AudioMicro. “50% of the entertainment value of visual media comes from the audio.  With over 125,000 tracks to choose from, SlideRocket users are now able to create more compelling, attention grabbing presentations, using AudioMicro music and effects to engage their audience.”

At SlideRocket we’re embracing the use of audio in our own corporate communications. Here’s an example of a presentation news release we created that uses an ambient music bed to a produce a futuristic, upbeat mood for telling our SlideRocket Marketplace story. This presentation auto-runs for 82 seconds but has an average viewing time of 4m 52s, roughly 4 times longer than the programmed length. In addition our SlideRocket presentation metrics tells us that viewers stayed on the last slide for an average of 2m 46s just to listen to the remainder of the audio track. Impressive. If you have SlideRocket presentations that use audio, we’d love to see er… hear them. Please send your published presentation link to community at sliderocket dot com.

Music and effects adds another element to our vision of a complete content and services marketplace for you to use as you build your multimedia communications but we’re not stopping here. Stay tuned for more marketplace updates and if you have either content or services you’d like to offer via the SlideRocket Marketplace please send an email to marketplace at sliderocket dot com and let us know how you’d like to get involved.

Remotes are an important part of a well delivered presentation.

A lot of presenters like to use remotes or clickers to advance their slides (and slide builds) as they present. It gives them the opportunity to unchain from the laptop, maybe walk around a bit to get their communicative juices flowing, and more importantly focus on engaging the audience with the story they’re telling.

Remotes come in different form factors and use technologies like Bluetooth, Wifi, IR (requires line of site) or RF to capture and transmit a keyboard command to your presentation software telling it what to do next. They generally all allow you to start, advance, rewind, blank the screen or end your presentation, and some have integrated laser pointers or timers that will let you pace your presentation appropriately.

A relatively new category of remotes will let you use your mobile phone to control your presentation. Apple has a Wifi iPhone client for Keynote and Salling Software has one for Mac OS and Windows that works with a good number of popular phones.

Remotes are made by such reputable brands as Logitech, Targus, Keyspan, Toshiba, Griffin and Kensington, offering a selection of models and prices to suit your needs. You can find many of them on Amazon.com. If you’re looking for a recommendation, we agree with Garr Reynolds, smaller and simpler is better, you want a remote to be virtually invisible and enhance your presentation delivery, not detract from it.

When using remotes with SlideRocket we’ve found the best results are achieved with the Offline Player (the SlideRocket AIR client that lets you synchronize presentations to your desktop) but we’ve also had good results using the online client in different browsers including FireFox, Chrome, Safari and IE.

If you use a remote with SlideRocket and would like to share your results please comment below or post a note in our Support Forums or see our Remote Help for known issues . Happy clicking!

I attended my first PresentationCamp on Saturday hosted by SlideShare at their Bryant Street office. There was a diverse audience of folks all looking to share knowledge on how to create, manage and deliver great presentations and in true bar camp style it was an environment that was incredibly open and friendly (although there were some PPT haters… fair enough).

Schedule - Presentation Camp San Francisco

All the presentations were excellent but the ones that stood out for me were:

- Better Beginnings from Dr. Carmen Taran of Rexi Media – (you can check out her book here.)

- Cliff Atkinson of Beyond Bullets fame, who had a highly interactive presentation (you can read his recap of the event here)

- Dave McClure – How To Pitch a VC

You can also review the Twitter feed of the event to find out what people really thought! If you missed this one don’t worry there are more Presentation Camps coming soon. You can join the Google Group to follow their progress OR check Eventbrite for upcoming events. We’re planning on attending as many as we can, hope to see you there!

This week the Macworld Conference & Expo came to San Francisco (sans Steve Jobs) and macolytes from all over came to worship. It was one of the bigger Macworld’s we’ve seen with two halls (Moscone North & South) full of vendors selling their Macwares, and a plethora of sessions in Moscone West.

Despite what some attendees thought, SlideRocket didn’t have a booth at Macworld this year but we did power the displays in the Macworld corporate booth.

Using SlideRocket’s new 9:16 format the sales team at Macworld was able to easily author and display an auto-rotating collection of sponsor ads. They even let us plug SlideRocket a bit too! You can watch Macworld’s booth presentation in our presentation gallery.

SlideRocket, now in an expo event booth near you. Just one more way that SlideRocket helps you make great presentations.