There seems to be no end to the series of clever, resourceful applications targeting business presenters. No doubt their developers sense that many business presentations could do with a bit of spice, some more magic perhaps.

It’s questionable whether these applications will ever meet the targeted need for better presentations. Or whether the presenters themselves will ever rise to the occasion and create the rich content that’s promised in the press releases.

But their appeal is obvious. And we can only hope that their potential is realised to the full. The most recent offering comes from Toronto-based Zinc Roe with their presentation application, Doodlecast Pro.

Doodlecast Pro has some interesting origins. Such was the success of and reaction to Zinc Roe’s Doodlecast for Kids application that the designers developed a business-oriented product with all the creativity and originality of the original children’s product. Neat.

The iPad app’ can record your voice as you draw, resulting in original video content that has immediate applications for a business presentation or a training session. It’s capable of mashing together various content sources, importing, exporting and uploading. All the sorts of clever and innovative things you’d expect of an Apple app’, priced at $3.99 in the Apple store.

If you have an iPad, then you might be tempted to give it a try. Here’s to creative presentations.

In its annual appraisal of 2011 slide presentations Slideshare has uncovered some revealing findings. The appraisal by Rashmi Sinha, looked at all the presentations submitted during the course of the year.

Presentations became longer during the course of the year, but they also used less text. That’s good news for presenters and their audiences. On average Slideshare presentations were 22 slides in length. The longest slide presentation contained 2811 slides. There’s no record of whether anyone has viewed all 2811 slides.

Japanese slide presentations take the lead for presentation length with 29 slides on average. And Spanish slide presentations are the shortest with 20 slides on average.

Presentations submitted by men (26 slides) appear to be longer than those submitted by women (22 slides). Eminently believable!

Social media, web technology and computing dominate much of the subject material on the Slideshare site with Microsoft PowerPoint presentation formats still dominant.

Keynote presentations made up 1.7% of the presentations on the site, but 8.2% of the popular presentations. Does this say something about the Keynote presentation software or the creativity of Keynote users? You decide.

“Business” was the most popular tag during the year, with “marketing” and “twitter” following closely.

Image concentration in the Slideshare presentations was also notable. Across all presentations the average number of images was 21, with 72% of slides containing images.

In the subset of popular presentations, the average number of images per presentation grew to 37, with 62% of slides containing images.

An intriguing finding: there’s a stronger correlation between the popularity of a slide deck and the number of images in the slide deck, but a weaker correlation between popularity and the % of slides containing images. It suggests that more images in your presentations could be the right course…for popularity. But don’t ignore the role played by non-visual slides. Intriguing.

These findings point the way to better presentations and more satisfied audiences.

Web-enabled applications are everywhere right now. Many of us will remember “software as a service” and that’s just about what you get with many of the new “cloud-enabled” presentation services.

We spotted this week that the free SlideShark iPad app’ has been updated to accommodate team presentations.

That seems like an eminently sensible approach. Most sales, marketing or account management teams have shared presentations that typically sit on an internal drive. Having the same presentations sitting in a “cloud-based” server appears to be the best of both worlds: access and security.

Team members can show their SlideShark PowerPoint presentations from the server. They can make changes and also upload their changed presentations.

Brainshark Inc., who built the original SlideShark presentation app’, has released indicative user prices for the team presentation application. The price per user takes in a lot more than just hosting PowerPoint presentations. It also includes security, central management of presentations and usage reporting.

Usage reporting could prove a very valuable feature–indicating the most popular presentation content, the slides that received the most exposure and presentation duration. Very useful for a team manager looking to maximise the potential of team presentations.

Team presentations might just get a bit easier.

Now here’s a question. How often have you been distracted by a presenter jingling the coins in his trouser pockets during his presentation?

It’s a common occurrence.

Monmouthshire County Councillor Phil Murphy is certainly no exception as a presenter who’s prone to jingling.

There’s a distinct jingle of coins in pocket as he begins his latest YouTube presentation of the Council’s 2012/ 2013 fiscal position.

An unintended thematic start…the jingle, jangle of coins to begin a financial budget presentation. Superb.

Councillor Murphy came to our attention last year with his brave, enthusiastic and original presentation. That presentation aimed to promote understanding of the County Council’s financial status and future plans.

This year he’s in action again with a public presentation filmed and produced by his Monmouthshire colleague, Helen Reynolds.

His audience is subdued, the odd cough apart, as he works his way methodically through his presentation.

Critically his presentation will be improved when he achieves more eye contact with his audience. He appears more comfortable looking at his slides. That’s a pity because he knows his stuff.

He’s the Cabinet Member for Finance…budgets and budget analysis must be running through his veins. Next time we hope that he’ll not look at his slides showing on the screen behind–and look us in the eye directly. He might consider a story board on the desk in front of him or perhaps have sight of his slides on a small notebook computer–for his reassurance only.

His slide material is dry and not at all helped by endless bullet lists. Pictures graphs, quotes, big numbers–they would all work better and harder at getting across the big stories, successes and opportunities for everyone in Monmouthshire.

But it remains a superbly confident approach to getting across a Council’s financial budget to the local population.

Today’s inter-connected world can be a challenge to any presenter–one only has to think of the distractions posed by trilling ring tones, Blackberry bleeps or text alerts. And that doesn’t take account of the bloggers in your audience using their smart phones to blog, tweet or text.

But presenters can strike back. Technology doesn’t have to be a one-sided development for presenters. Smartphones are full of possibilities for the serious business presenter.

The team at PC World has come up with several options for presentations helped with smartphones

1. External Drive. When you have a presentation to give you can use your smartphone as an external drive. There’s no real need to take along a notebook computer to your presentation venue if there’s already a laptop and a projector. Load your PowerPoint or Keynote file onto your smartphone, pack a cable and away you go. If you forget a file, and you use an online file archive, you should have the means to access the missing file via your smartphone as well. Perfect.
2. Remote control. When your presentation venue already has a notebook computer and a projector you can use your smartphone as a remote control. Many smartphones that support Wi-Fi or Bluetooth technologies also support simple slide advance applications for your presentation.
3. Video. More and more smartphones now support a “video out” (HDMI/ MHL output) capability. You can host your presentation on your smartphone, connect to your projector with a mini-cable and give your presentation. Beyond your projector and smartphone there’s no need for another device. If you reckon your iPhone or Android device supports HDMI/ MHL output do make sure that you dress rehearse the set-up before the event.
4. Presentation software. When you choose to use your smartphone as your presentation device you are likely to need some presentation software. Many smartphone support this. PowerPoint Viewer works on Windows phone 7. And Documents to Go or Quickoffice Pro works with Android or i Phones to display PowerPoint presentations. If there are font or layout inconsistencies between your native version of PowerPoint or Keynote you could always use a remote desktop application. This allows your smartphone to access your desktop computer and then present your presentation in all its glory. If you plan to use a desktop application remember to make sure that you have all the connectivity you need.

These solutions are with us right now. And the next step in terms of technology?
Well, we looked at the 3M MP180 presentation projector last year. That’s a great pico-projector that’s proved more than worthwhile. Will there come a time when a smartphone takes on pico-projector capabilities?

Maybe. There was a time when phone cameras were a novelty. Until then there’s plenty to work with for your next presentation.

It’s taken an appeals court to bring the saga of one of the most disastrous public presentations to a ceasefire.

Back in 2004, Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA) officer Lee Paige was giving a presentation for Florida children on the dangers of guns; a presentation that he’d given dozens of times before. Unfortunately for the DEA officer he managed to accidentally fire his weapon, a Glock 40 pistol. Even more unfortunately he managed to shoot himself. In the leg.

Now the seven year court case had nothing to do with the accidental discharge of a weapon in a public place during his presentation. And it had nothing to do with the officer’s presentation skills. No, Agent Paige brought a case against his employer, the DEA, for their violation of his privacy in circulating videos of the presentation.

His case was thrown out last November and he lost his appeal last week. That’s it, no more rounds. The judges noted that there was nothing private about the presentation and nothing private about Agent Paige shooting himself in the leg. It was a matter of public video record.

There’s no denying the fact that Agent Paige’s presentation was a disaster at the time and subsequently as video footage of the presentation went viral.

But there’s something to be admired with the presenter who can accidentally shoot himself in the leg and then use that fact to explain the dangers of handguns, without whingeing or howling. That’s taking presentation props to an extreme. Agent Paige, we salute you.

Using evocative images and icons in your PowerPoint or Keynote presentation has to be applauded.

And when you use evocative images to reflect your presentation theme or subject matter? That’s even better.

So it must have come as quite a surprise to the marketing team at Mercedes-Benz when it all went horribly wrong with their presentation.

Their presentation at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas took the theme of revolution reflecting the revolutionary qualities of the new Mercedes-Benz products. So far, so good. And indeed all seemed to go well with their presentation until it was publicised on the internet.

It was after their presentation that the Cuban emigré community, spotting an image of Che Guevara in the slide pack, took immediate offence. Their ire was compounded with the words, Viva La Revolucion, emblazoned on the slide.

The Cubans in exile pointed to Che Guevara’s record of murder and mayhem in Cuba  and beyond and announced their extreme dissatisfaction.

At this stage the Mercedes-Benz public relations team went into top gear. They insisted that the presentation was an isolated event and that the slide did not represent the company or its products.

A well-engineered plan for this presentation quickly led to the presentation scrap heap.

Use images and use icons in your presentation. But, remember to look out for the pitfalls–not least in this interconnected, online, media savvy age where presentations speed around the world faster than Mercedes-Benz products could ever imagine.

If you thought that technology could add nothing more to your presentations, it might be time to think again.

A new application, supported on your iPad, gives you all the freedom of a wireless remote controller for your presentation, plus you can change your slides during your slideshow.

Splashtop Inc. has announced that it’s launched their new product, Splashtop Presenter. The new iPad app’ supports both Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote presentation software. Giving presenters the means to control their slideshows and make annotations from a distance is its principal claim.

The app’ sits on a user’s iPad, which in turn communicates, via wireless, with a notebook computer supporting PowerPoint or Keynote, and a slide projector. Very simple.

Presenters will have the chance to annotate their material, draw lines or arrows, highlight or mask material. The possibilities are endless.

Now the question of whether this will add up to a better presentation is hard to answer. The visual possibilities are certainly endless. But your application tinkering might well limit your audience’s attention.

I sense that this app’ will prove very valuable in interactive training, briefing sessions, technical workshops or design review presentations. And like most new presentation technologies you will need to practise everything first.

It’s worth a go if you own an iPad and have either PowerPoint or Keynote. There’s more about the Splashtop Presenter at the apple online store.

It has to be a seasonal thing. Everyone seems to be promoting presentation aids, technology and software just now. More prosaically it’s likely to be the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas that’s driving the activity.

This time it’s a PowerPoint presentation aid that’s caught our attention. The team at Genius has developed the world’s first ring style thumb controller for use by presenters.

The ring fits securely on your thumb and allows you to control the progression of your PowerPoint slides. With its mouse and cursor functions you can start the slide show and move forward or backward in your presentation. It’s Bluetooth powered and works with PC and Macs.

There’s an in-built laser pointer in the Ring Presenter that’s good for a distance of 10 metres or so.

The whole unit is small and discreet and is powered by a rechargeable Li-ion battery. Its credentials are boosted by coming in seven different colours: Blue, Gold, Pink, Purple, Green, Black and Silver.

Now the good people at Genius don’t mention the possibility that the bling on your finger might distract your audience. It’s possible, but many audiences have become used to seeing presenters with remote controllers.

I’m not that keen on the laser pointer. Never have been. But if it’s safe and verified safe that will help.

And the cost? It’ll set you back about $60 right now. There’s no hint of international sales yet, but that’s probably just a matter of time.

It’s thumbs up for this presentation controller.

Presentation software business Prezi has managed to raise further funds as it gears up for more market reach. The presentation design company has raised $14 million in finance from Accel partners and Sunstone Capital.

Prezi presentation software is proving to be an effective online, or cloud-based, tool for presentation design and development.

It has to compete with the likes of PowerPoint and Keynote that are often packaged with other software titles.

Much of its effectiveness comes from its zooming capacity. Defined as a zooming user interface (ZUI), it’s the zooming capability that’s most commended by Prezi users. The ZUI allows presenters to show both the big picture and the detail in their presentations…exploring presentation ideas, themes and thoughts.

Sold as a service with annual licences, its two main packages require some attention–if you want to achieve the best deal for you. But it’s competitive. And it has a good reputation among its users as their presentation tool of choice.

There aren’t many presentation software titles that achieve that distinction.