• The Power Presenter by Jerry Weissman: The third in Jerry’s line of presentation skills books after In the Line of Fire and Presenting to Win, this one focuses on skills to use Many good techniques are included, like “Phrase and Pause”, “Eye Connect”, and “Completing the Arc”. Jerry is very fond of his technique names, but other than that you’ll learn some solid skills to take into your presentations.
• In the Line of Fire by Jerry Weissman: Yes, I read these out of order. Jerry talks about how to handle question and answer periods in your presentations, with a heavy focus on hostile questioning; invaluable for anyone who’s even thinking of including a Q&A. Several examples of politicians and others who’ve expertly and not-so-expertly handled questioning, including a focus on Al Gore’s hits and misses, are included and are considerably enlightening.
• Punk Marketing by Richard Laermer and Mark Simmons: Probably what stuck out about this book was its advocacy for truth, though ‘told’ in more interesting ways, as well as its warning that traditional marketing is failing (mostly because of DVR and the like).
• The Irresistable Offer by Mark Joyner: If you had three seconds or less to express what your business was about and convince people to buy into it, could you do it? Mark’s Irresistable Offer is about creating a value statement that you can quickly use to sell others. Heavy use of FedEx and Dominos Pizza as examples.
• Jeffrey Gitomer’s Sales Bible: As with most Gitomer books, this is very heavy in the content department; this means it needs a few reads or at least coming back to relevant sections later. While there is a lot of good material here (including how to overcome common objections and stalls), it did not seem that this was geared to completely new salespeople; some sample dialogues that went from start to finish of the selling process may’ve helped.
• Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte: Initially I thought this book would be a long read, but this wasn’t the case. You’ll get a decent amount of advice about creative use of slide shows here, including color use, law of threes, and more, though ultimately it felt like it was “let the creative folks do it”. If you want to see some creative uses of PowerPoint or Keynote, give it a look.
• The One Decision by Judith Wright: I’ve gone over a lot of books, but this one made me glaze over hardcore, and I really couldn’t stand it. The idea is that you come up with a sort of mantra for your life that will make it great and wonderful. Lots of “oh and my husband Bob is great” stories, and a large amount of woo. The core message isn’t horrible, but three hundred pages for it was about two hundred too many.
• The Heart and Art of Netweaving by Bob Littell: The takeaway from this one could be Stephen Covey’s Habit #5 (Seek first to understand, then to be understood) though tweaked a bit: “Seek first to help others, then be helped yourself”.

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However, as time has passed, you’re finding that it takes forever to boot, forever to launch programs, forever to find your documents…it’s at the point where you’re ready to see if a liberal application of holy water (or any water, if you think you’ll be able to get a new machine out of the deal) will do something to fix the problem. Hold the H2O, because there are some ways to keep your PC working better for longer, many of which are easy to do. Read this article to find out why you should care, and to get five ways to keep your PC in shape.

Special note: If you’ve thought about using ANY of those “Double My Speed” websites you may have seen on TV, DON’T! Despite having an ad budget, many, if not all, are fraudulent. The next time you see one of these, look up the company name and append “scam” on your favorite search engine to make sure they’re for real (hint: about zero of them are).

Alright, so besides the aforementioned (and seemingly obvious) benefits alluded to above, what benefits do you get by keeping your PC in good working order? First, let’s consider boot times. PCs that boot and shut down fast let you work faster. If it takes your computer 2 minutes to startup and shut down and you do each of those once a day, that’s 14 minutes spent per week. If your computer takes 7 minutes, it becomes 49 minutes per week — almost an hour wasted every week (and those 7 minutes can get looooong, especially when you just want to get into something quickly).

So one hour out of a week doesn’t seem too bad — now let’s consider actual usage. Say it takes you 10 seconds to launch a program you frequently use on a clean PC…and a minute on a ‘dirty’ (read: slow) one — and you launch this program five times a day. The former comes out to just shy of six minutes per week, and the latter comes out to thirty-five minutes a week…just for one program.

Not done yet though! Now you have to figure the per operation speed that a slowdown costs you. Let’s say a typical operation in an application on the clean PC is but a second, and on the dirty PC it’s five seconds. You perform perhaps 200 of these operations a day. Clean PC: A little over three minutes a week. Dirty PC: About 17 minutes a week.

All told, on a clean PC, you spend about 23 minutes over one week just waiting (and being useless), whereas with the dirty PC you might waste almost two hours (101 minutes) of time — and these are conservative numbers!

How can you keep that number lower? Here’s five ways.

Law #1: Install and run only what you need when it comes to programs. Probably the number one killer of PC speed is excess programs. If you have software you don’t need installed on your PC, get rid of it. This especially includes internet browser toolbars (you don’t need these), so-called ‘security scans’ (ditto), and any other programs that try to install when you install something else (aka: “drive-by installs”). When you’re installing a program, always turn off (uncheck) anything that asks you to install unrelated software, like browser toolbars, registry optimizers, and security checkers. If you really want something they want to install, do it on your own terms.

If you don’t need programs to run on startup, take ‘em out (Skype and instant messenger software, I’m looking at you). Running programs that conflict with each other (virus scanners and automatic backup programs, for example) is also a very bad idea.

Here’s what happens when you don’t: Your browser has more useless toolbars than browsable space. Your system tray has at least twenty three programs, many of which are conflicting with other programs, and end up killing your performance. Just starting up is an exercise in anger management (nevermind actual use). Multiple ‘security scans’ try to run at once, usually warning you about threats that aren’t really there (because they themselves are badware), annoying you to buy their “full featured” products (perhaps more badware, or just outright credit card theft) — and even after you do, you’re still as slow as before. Maddening!

What programs do you have on your computer that are completely useless or redundant? What programs are running at boot that you don’t necessarily need to run every time? Fix it.

Law #2: Keep virus and malware free. Pretty obvious, and you’ve heard it all before. Yes, they’re getting harder and harder to detect and remove. Worst of all, the favored software to keep you safe and clean tends to vary from year to year, meaning it needs to be a serious item to consider on an annual review of your IT resources.

Law #3: ‘Cleaners’: Not as effective as you might think. There’s an ever growing list of programs that claim to clean up your registry, disk, and everything else on your computer. The problem is that some of these are fake (see the above ‘security scan’ scenario), many claim performance gains they can’t possibly deliver on (registry cleaners are the worst at this), and also can do damage if you’re not careful. If they don’t contain a way to backup changes you make, don’t use them!

Law #4: Don’t skimp on your hardware. You can run minimal installations and trim what you run, but if you try to run even Windows XP on 128MB of RAM, forget it (and yes, I’ve seen this attempted). Perhaps not something you can do right now, but for your future purchases, buy good hardware. This doesn’t mean you have to buy bleeding-edge parts, but stay away from whatever the bottom end is. Most of all: If you’re a business user, buy business-class hardware.

As a follow-up, sure, that Core 2 Duo might be nice today, but six years in the future, it’s going to be an antique. Budget not only for your current machine, but for your future needs as well.

Law #5: Keep your desktop clean. I’ll state this right up front: This is a personal preference of mine. It There seems to be a strong correlation between those that stuff a whole lot of documents and shortcuts on the desktop, and how fast a PC runs. The more disorganized the desktop, the slower the PC. True, this isn’t necessarily causal, but it usually reflects the amount of time a user will put into keeping their PC working well. If you have IT support staff, at least you’ll make them think you’re not completely awful at using your PC.

It’s easy to do, as well. Make a shortcut to your main documents folder on your desktop if you don’t already have one, and use it to store your documents, not your desktop. Make a folder on your desktop and put all program shortcuts that insist on being made into it (“Desktop Shortcuts”, “Desktop Items”, or “QuickLaunch” make good names).

If you are comfortable enough to take the steps mentioned in this article, great! You should find that your PC keeps a spring in its step for far longer than the average user if you follow the above. For those that aren’t…if you’re not sure where to go to research anti-virus solutions, don’t know what to look for in a new PC, or you’re still mad enough to reach for the fire hose, get in touch with your company’s IT department if you have one. If not, then an outsourced IT solution might be for you.

Your e-mail chime dings, adding yet another message to the inbox stack you’ve pretty much given up hope on. You look at your digital camera and wonder just how you’re going to sort yet another few gigabytes worth of pictures. The mail popup reminds you (for the third or fourth time now, no less) that your co-worker needs a report you’ve already made, and now it’ll take a good half hour to find it in your now vast collection of office documents that are scattered on your computer, your company servers, flash drives, and who knows where else.

If it is, you suffer from a lack of bit literacy.

For 2011, I’ve decided to take up a “read at least one book per week” challenge. To keep me honest, I’ll write a little about what I’ve learned from each book. The first book I’ve tackled is Bit Literacy by Mark Hurst, published in 2007.

The core premise of the book is “let the bits go”. Mark encourages a liberal application of the delete key to many of the various “bit streams” that modern life features, but also the application of sane filing strategies for files, e-mail, photos, and more. Of course, making use of these techniques requires some measure of time and discipline, which is something else Mark encourages readers to do (for example, setting a time of the day to clean one’s e-mail inbox(es)). For those of you who are buckling under the load of sifting e-mail, the advice in the chapter on e-mail alone is worth the book by itself.

Mark covers several areas where we need to be “bit literate” in order to deal with the rather ubiquitous problem of information overload, including:

• How to become a “zero count inbox” person
• Four factors of effective to do lists
• Slimming down what you consume bitwise in a “media diet”
• Ways to effectively manage your digital photo collection
• How to name and store files efficiently

The book is directed at typical computer users (Mark takes a few shots at ‘techies’ every now and again, mostly on account of them loving technology for technology’s sake), though it does not give step-by-step directions on any specific topic. This can be a good thing, as it would seriously bog down the book; if you need said directions, just supplement the book as appropriate. More advanced users will find this book useful, though if you like following hundreds of people on multiple social media sites, maintaining a vast number of RSS feeds, and so on, you may find Mark’s work isn’t so geared towards you.

Speaking of social media, Mark doesn’t touch these “bitstreams”. With sales guys like Jeffrey Gitomer and Rory Vaden encouraging adoption of various forms of it in a business context, nevermind your friends, family, and others likely pestering you to friend or follow them, this feels like a significant miss. With a 2007 publish date, there’s no real excuse for it either. Even if Mark doesn’t care for them (and given his ‘media diet’ chapter, it’s likely that he would not), some users do need to deal with them effectively.

Another curious point is that Mark does take a few shots at others in his coverage of efficient todos; fans of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system will definitely note these. I also couldn’t help but think Mark took cues from Jakob Nielsen of Useit.com fame in arguing for simplicity and portability of one’s bits.

You can find the book’s website over here, and the book can be had for free through iBooks now. Of course, Kindle and hardcover versions are available via Amazon.

Actually, it’s more possible than you think. In this article, I’ll talk about how you can do it with the Wiimote on the PC.

Using the Wiimote on the PC isn’t a new application — there are plenty of articles and videos out on the ‘net showing you how to control your PC in various ways from using it as a game controller (big surprise) to a Media Center controller. I haven’t seen anyone try to use it as a presentation remote, which is what this article will teach you.

First of all, here’s what you’ll need:

• Wiimote – You don’t need any fancy attachments to it. You’ll also want some fresh batteries.
• Powerpoint or Impress – Doesn’t matter which.
• A Bluetooth adapter – Can be built in (in the case of laptops) or in the form of a USB adapter. Not all will work; I tested with an Airnet ABT101.
• GlovePIE – Download it from here. You don’t need the Emotiv support.

Once you have all of these, you’re ready to get started.
Step One. If you’re using an external Bluetooth adapter, install it now. If you’re using an internal adapter, make sure it is enabled and working.
Step Two. On your PC, add a new Bluetooth device (varies by version of Windows). For Windows 7, go to Start, Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, and select Add a Bluetooth device.
Step Three. Take your Wiimote’s battery cover off and press the small red Sync button in the lower right corner. All four lights on the Wiimote should light up and blink.
Step Four. Windows should find your Wiimote (for a plain Wiimote, you should see “Nintendo RVL-CNT-01″). Select it and then select Next.
Step Five. Extract GlovePIE to a directory of your choosing and run GlovePIE.exe.
Step Six. Input this into the script window of GlovePIE:

Key.Right = Pressed(Wiimote1.A)
Key.Left = Pressed(Wiimote1.B)
Key.B = Pressed(Wiimote1.Down)
Key.F5 = Pressed(Wiimote1.Home)

Save (File, then Save) this script.
Step Seven. Select the Run button in GlovePIE. Your Wiimote’s 1st LED should be solidly lit.
Step Eight. Launch your presentation in Powerpoint or Impress. Use the A button to advance to the next slide, the B button to go back a slide, down on the directional pad to blank the screen, and the Home key to exit the presentation. If you would like to remap your keys, consult the GlovePIE documentation.

When you’re done, stop the script in GlovePIE.

Some cautions to make note of when using this:

• As mentioned, not all Bluetooth adapters will work. Test, test, test.
• Your range and reliability may vary, depending on Bluetooth adapter.
• Battery life with this method and long-term reliability haven’t been tested here. Test before trying this solution out with a multi-hour seminar.

This is just one fun alternative device to use to control your presentation (that’s not entirely so fun to setup) — in the future, I’ll write about others.

As those of you following me on Twitter or Facebook know, I went to jury duty this week (quite some time ago, now). To summarize, I went there, didn’t get called in the first round of selections, then did in the second round. After going to the courthouse and waiting for about an hour, my group was told we could go home as the case was settled.

One of the notable parts of the day was that the District Clerk came to the jury selection room to address all of us. Talk about a tough crowd — the room was packed, the climate was steadily getting hotter and stuffier, and at that point, we hadn’t been through any metal detectors — combine that with the early time, and he was really taking his life into his own hands!

Of course, as a communication geek, I had to critique his speech. I did find it admirable that he took the time to talk to us, but I still have an action item to recommend Toastmasters to him via comment card. Here’s why.

Opening with “Good Morning” and then “Hey I didn’t hear you!” — You’ve experienced variants of this before. The speaker opens with “Good (time of day)”, doesn’t get the response they want, so reiterates it. “Good (time of day)” is always a bad (or at least boring) opening by itself, and compounding it with that follow up is guaranteed to generate ire in your audience (unless your audience is some dance party, then it might work).

Here’s an idea: If you believe in the justice system so strongly and its impact on so many lives, why not open with that? Tell us about the kind of impact we could have on someone’s life today by the choices we make. Give us examples of how people like us made a difference — then contrast it against what would happen if we did not.

What do you think would be more powerful? What do you think would serve to inspire us more?

I did appreciate that he acknowledged, with some measure of levity, the sacrifice of our time. However, it felt to me that it backhandedly (and likely unintentionally) trivialized our experiences when he talked about how the experience would get us out of our routines for at least a day. Bad idea! If you’re trying to get us to improve our moods, then don’t tell us that our lives are so boring that jury duty will be an improvement. Even, or especially, if it’s true.

After a while, I admit I tuned out. After all, the newly added free wi-fi let me distract myself with more pleasant engagements. Again, I know the gesture was well meant, but he was trying far too hard. My suggestions?

• Fix the opening, as above.
• Don’t try to sell us jury duty as an improvement to our lives.
• Tell us someone else’s stories about how their experiences were actually interesting. Don’t sell us jury duty as our “civil responsibility”. We are painfully aware of that — I imagine the only reason some people were there and didn’t file some false exemption was because of that sense of responsibility.
• Trim it to five minutes max.
• Above all, empathize, empathize, and empathize.

Of course, you’re not likely trying to get people to feel good about jury duty, but perhaps some of the lessons here can be applied to getting your kids to do their homework, co-workers to quit an annoying habit, or some other application.

As a sanity check, let’s review what happens when you use a laser.

1. You fumble for the laser button.
2. Finally finding it, you overshoot your target..clear over to the far wall.
3. You bring it back to your intended target. Everyone gets transfixed on the laser dot, because lasers are cool.
4. No one hears you for the next five to ten seconds.
5. The dot shakes like it’s at a rave party as you desperately try to keep it still.
6. You finally remember to pry off your thumb from the button.
7. People get angry they’re not at a laser show anymore.

Yes, slightly exaggerated for effect. The audience might be comprised of cats there, for example. (Hint: to detect the cats and get them on your side, try opening a sardines tin.)

Are there better ways to highlight parts of your slide? Certainly. You could cause transparent, bright yellow highlight boxes to appear as a simple effect that appears on click (more on this later) when you know there’s something you want to draw attention to, or blur out everything except the spot you want people to focus on (a how-to on such an effect will come later). If you’re well prepared in advance with these techniques, you may not have to worry about using your pointer at all.

However, there are times that you miss something, or an audience member wants to have something pointed out you don’t have a pre-made highlight for. Or you plain don’t have time to make those fancy highlights. What then?

This is when a laser can be of use, but you should ask yourself if the following:

1. Is it really needed?
2. Will the audience be much less likely to be confused if I use the pointer to guide their attention?
3. Can I compensate for jitteryness?

The first question is fairly obvious; it’s a sanity test to make you pause to determine whether or not the pointer will create the right attention moment. The second goes with the first. As lasers are meant to focus attention, make sure it’s worth their time to focus.

The final problem is solvable with a simple solution. When you use a laser pointer, without fail, the brilliant dot it makes is going to shake. Even the most practiced & polished presenter is not going to have the steady hand needed to aim at a specific point. While they may not worry about it, beginners (and even intermediates) using a laser for the first time are going to feel nevous already, then have that translate into a shaky bright dot on the screen only makes them more nervous. Know this: If you are expecting to use a laser and don’t have it somehow floor mounted (which is going to be all the time), you’re not going to achieve pinpoint accuracy. To correct this, instead of trying to point at one spot, make little circles around your target area. This eliminates the need to be spot on.

Are there better ways to highlight something you want to call attention to? You bet, and I’ll cover a couple tips in a future article.

But terrifyingly enough…there’s no remote.

Suddenly, watching TV is a huge chore. Changing channels? Good luck with the TV controls. Volume adjustments? Same thing. Commercial on the TV or get a phone call? Have fun trying to mute the thing.

Most people would march right out to the store to get a replacement that second, but for some reason, settle for utterly awkward control of their slideware by either having to go and press a key on their laptop, or have to awkwardly tell someone else to do it. Either of these options are as annoying as having to go to the TV to change channels.

Besides being awkward, it can be another source of discomfort for novice speakers that have to interrupt their thoughts to advance their slides, then hope they can remember what their lines after that (something they already have to worry about). If you have someone else controlling your slides, they will inevitably advance one slide too far.

The solution is simple. At last check on Amazon, there were over 400 products matching “presentation remote”. For some reason though, many people flip out over the cost of these, even though they wouldn’t hesitate to pay for a replacement TV remote that may be twice as much as some of the presentation remotes — and yet, the quality of their presentations may make the difference in whether or not they get a better TV.

It may seem like a slight stretch to say your slideware remote is going to increase your salary. There are no studies that I’m aware of that conclusively link presentation remote use to promotion. And while convenience and slickness are nice, let’s not skip around the most important (read: most geeky) benefit of using one; to borrow a phrase Matt Smith’s rendition of The Doctor, “Presentation remotes are cool.” Yes, there’s the element of smoother, more confident presentations that you don’t have to be tethered to your computer or dependent on someone for, but the act of pulling out your personal Excalibur can really put you into “go time” mode.

Now that we’ve established that you need a remote, let’s talk about what features to look for, starting with the essentials.

• Forward and back buttons. Yes, every remote should have these, but given these two buttons are some of your most important (especially ‘next slide’), you’ll want these to be especially easy to find by touch and use.
• Blank screen button. After your forward and back buttons, this is your next most important button. Sometimes you’ll want to call attention to yourself instead of your slides, and having the ability to blank the screen is tremendously helpful. Also, if you leave a slide too long and your screen saver or screen shut off kicks in, this is a fairly safe button to use to wake it.
• Storable receiver. (where applicable) This is a vastly underappeciated feature. Most presentation remotes on the market have a USB receiver of some design. This item being the size of a small Swiss Army knife (or smaller) makes it incredibly easy to lose, and once done, makes your remote incredibly useless. Having the receiver able to fit into the “wand” part of the remote is a great deterrent to this. Even better (but very rare) is if you have a Bluetooth remote and Bluetooth integrated into your system (it’s better from a “can’t lose things” standpoint).
• Non line of sight receiver. Most every remote has this, but if for some strange reason you’re considering one you have to aim at a certain point (or worse, have one already), cross it off your list immediately.
• Wireless.Another one of those “duh” items.

These next features aren’t quite as critical, but they can be useful.

• Laser pointer. I know a lot of presentation professionals are going to groan and slap their foreheads for this recommendation, because “no one can point straight with these, they are too distracting, and I hate them.” (heavily paraphrased, to be sure) Fact is, more remotes come with these than don’t, and now some are being marketed with a green laser rather than a red one (at an additional expense). I’m not going to go into the debate here (that’s a whole other blog post), nor into some tips on using them (also another future post). If you’re a laser person, put it on your checklist.
• Timer. A fairly rare feature, but one that can be quite useful for keeping yourself on task. Better still is having an integrated vibration function that warns you that you have only a minute or five left.
• Mouse control. If you’re doing more than just forward and back controls, you’ll need something that will let you control the mouse remotely.
• Battery indicator. Nothing’s worse than clicking and having nothing happen because your batteries have long since been dead. Another rare feature, but one that can be handy.
• Standard batteries.Where applicable, you always want a presenter that uses a standard battery size (usually AAA) vs. one that uses button-sized cells. The latter can be difficult (and pricey) to replace.

Note that if a feature hasn’t been listed in either of these lists, it’s only likely to be marginally useful, if at all — though your needs ultimately dictate what you’ll be shopping for, of course.

So now that you know the feature set, what are some of my recommendations?

• Logitech Professional Presenter R800. This is Logitech’s current top of the line presenter, with everything I’ve mentioned you’ll need and then some. If you want to save some money and don’t need the timer and a few other features, then you can go with the R400. If you liked the remote Logitech produced before the R series, but don’t like that you can’t find it anymore, check this out.
• Gyration GYM1100NA Air Mouse GO Plus. If you need mouse control during your presentations, Gyration products have been pretty much the de facto brand.
• Swissgear Wireless Mobile Laser Presenter. When considering computer products, Swiss Army products don’t usually come to mind, but this remote is actually pretty good. If you don’t use one often, it’s cheap and works well enough, but for those of you with your R800s or other high end remotes, this makes a nice backup option — you know, for when other people forget theirs.

Bonus tip: Always remember to remove your batteries from your remote when you’re done. A little leakage and corrosion from batteries can ruin it.

While I looked out down the street and the lights, noticing the reflections held in miniature in the droplets that had coalesced on the window, I had a thought.

I want to be a teacher.

I can’t say what led up to that sort of thinking, but I soon quickly realized that it wasn’t quite right. For one, I realized over the years that working with kids wasn’t what I wanted. Plus, from all reports, the pay was not too…er…exciting. So, I shelved it, and ended up in various information technology-related jobs due to an affinity to computers.

Years and years later (a couple decades, to be specific), I found myself in Toastmasters, giving my first few speeches in that organization. Invariably, I started doing “how-to” speeches, some part of me remembering the rainy night so many years ago. I also began to see there were more many more avenues to try when it comes to teaching.

By 2009, I achieved Toastmasters International’s highest educational award: Distinguished Toastmaster. Very few people achieve this rank, and fewer still are my age (my guess is the average DTM is in their mid-40s to early-60s — as I write this I’m in my early 30s). I’ve been fortunate to work with many talented individuals and mentors, and learned how to lead and communicate, going from “I think I got what you were trying to say…sort of…” to “Wow, that’s actually pretty useful!” (for a speaker, that’s a high compliment).

During my time within the clubs I’m a part of and in my work life, I developed a particular interest in how tools like slideware (a term from Garr Reynolds to describe programs like Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, or OpenOffice Impress) are used and misused. Every Toastmaster trying to achieve the Competent Communicator status has to do a presentation involving visual aids, and invariably, that means the laptop and projector come out. Invariably, there’s an attack of bullet points with an image pasted in here and there. While getting that together and having it actually work when it’s showtime is a good first step, it’s unfortunate that many people stop there.

Then there’s business presentations. Mix stressed-out, time-crunched managers, salespeople, and other presenters who have little, if any training on slideware with a need to effectively communicate information to peers, subordinates, and clients, and it’s no wonder that people often automatically want to escape any presentation where there’s any form of slide deck. The result: no one gets the message. Workers continue in old, bad behaviors that you thought the hour-long talk was supposed to fix, upper management doesn’t understand or care about your proposals, or clients don’t buy.

What if you could change that? Wouldn’t it be great if your team didn’t try to conveniently find excuses to be out of the office when you had a meeting? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if upper management saw your proposals as proof of your potential and promotability? Wouldn’t it be fantastic if your slide deck helped you make more sales more often, putting more money in your company’s and your own pockets?

Ironically, I’m writing this as it’s raining — though not from the back of a van (I suppose I could though, with wireless internet access so readily available). Here’s a proposal: Bookmark or subscribe to this blog, and you’ll start learning the skills you need to connect with and persuade peers, subordinates, management, and clients when it comes to electronic media. You’ll also get discourses about other professional skills to make your life more productive and profitable. You’ll learn the laws that will help you succeed.

Never another boring, bland, bad slide deck.