Every politician and any serious business person has to turn to a speech writer for help with their speeches. They undoubtedly have the skills to write a speech themselves. What they lack is the time needed for that speech. The time to craft a flow of words, to add some magic and perfect the speech.

That’s what they pay for. So it must be really tedious when someone spots that lines from your recent speech owe an awful lot to someone else’s speech.

That’s exactly what’s happened to Anthony Albanese, leader of Australia’s House of Representatives and Minister for infrastructure and transport. It was his speech to the Australian Press Club that seized everyone’s attention.

His speech took a moment to savage Tony Abbott, the leader of the Liberal party opposition:

In Australia we have serious challenges to solve and we need serious people to solve them. Unfortunately Tony Abbot is not the least bit interested in fixing anything. He is only interested in two things, making Australians afraid of it and telling them who is to blame for it.

Those lines sounded familiar at the time. And that’s because their source was the fictional President in The American President, played by Michael Douglas. In the 1995 movie, directed by Aaron Sorkin, the lead character says in his speech:

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.

You couldn’t make it up.

There was a time when serious speech writers sought their inspiration from more classical sources. Now it’s Hollywood and pop. In December the former Presidential hopeful Herman Cain revealed that a lyric from a Donna Summer song in the film, Pokemon: The Movie 2000 was used in one of his speeches.

Can either the speaker or the speech writer be accused of plagiarism in Australia? No. Speech writing depends on weaving the old and the new. It’s about sourcing material that’s both relevant and familiar and also challenging. We could accuse the Australian speech writing team of laziness…but that’s a different accusation.

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 a PowerPoint presentation to explain your Chapter 11 insolvency protection might not be the first thing you’d expect Eastman Kodak to do. Yet, the once omnipresent face of photography, did just that last week when it filed for bankruptcy protection in the US courts.

The investor relations team at Kodak–who prepared the PowerPoint presentation–has been very busy.

The presentation sets out the context of the dramatic fall in the fortunes of Kodak, the digital onslaught and their expectations for eventual restructuring. That’s no tall order for any presentation. So it comes as no surprise that the presentation doesn’t deliver.

From the very first slide you sense that their material would be more useful in a report format. There’s too much text, font sizes are too small and there’s too little emphasis upon the imagery with which Kodak made its name.

Bullet point lists abound and financial performance graphs are loaded together onto one slide to an extent that makes them impossible to fathom.

Text overload is most obvious with the slides dedicated to financial transactions and cash-flow.

This was a disappointing presentation from the former masters of creative imagery. In essence, the job of serving this amount of information to shareholders would be better done with something other than a presentation.

Three leaders, three speeches and one theme.

That was the status of British public speaking last week; not dissimilar to watching clone reality TV across all the new digital terrestrial channels.

David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband all took the crisis of capitalism as their theme for major speeches during the week.

The speeches didn’t exactly detail the problem beyond vague slogans. In fact that was a feature of all three speeches–not much clarity.

We heard rhetoric. And we heard oratory. But we didn’t hear substance or policy in the speeches. It was Ronald Reagan’s speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, who said:

Speeches are not magic and there is no great speech without great policy.

That’s something the party leaders might choose to consider for their next speech. But each speech did ring with rhetoric. For example, there was repetition in Ed Miliband’s responsible capitalism speech:

If he is serious about tackling irresponsible capitalism he needs to clamp down on the fact that train companies are ripping people off.

If he is serious about tackling irresponsible capitalism he needs to take action to break up the rigged energy market.

If he is serious about tackling irresponsible capitalism he needs to take action to stop those exorbitant bank charges.

and in Nick Clegg’s responsible capitalism speech:

That is the route to a safer, more stable, more prosperous economic future. This is how we will spread wealth and share rewards.

A more responsible capitalism. A more liberal capitalism.

and in David Cameron’s speech,

An economy where people who work hard get rewards which are fair in the true Conservative meaning of the word.

An economy where people feel in control of their destiny…

…because they’ve started their own business, or are shareholders in the company they work for, or are part of a co-operative.

An economy where everyone has the chance to build up assets and pass something on to the next generation

David Cameron used a whole series of word pairs throughout his speech. These are less pronounced than lists of three, but equally effective…

I want these difficult economic times to achieve more than just paying down the deficit and encouraging growth.

I want them to lead to a socially responsible and genuinely popular capitalism.

One in which the power of the market and the obligations of responsibility come together.

One in which we improve the market by making it fair as well as free, and in which many more people get a stake in the economy and share in the rewards of success.

But there were some issues with these speeches.

Ed Miliband’s speech style still has the resonant style of an earlier Labour party leader with, “I say” or “I would say”:

But what I say to David Cameron is…

It’s an antiquated way of speaking that was in character with party leaders 20 or 30 years ago.

Nick Clegg was in some danger of sounding like a young liberal debating society member when he noted:

As this debate moves forward, we need to be clear about what we mean. Because, whether you call it a new economy, an ethical economy, moral markets, responsible capitalism, there is a big difference between having strong views on bonus culture or excessive top pay and wanting real change in the practices and principles that guide corporate life.

It wasn’t lost on his audience that Nick was far from clear.

And David Cameron’s enthusiasm for the short list of mini-sentences remains undimmed:

One that recognised what’s gone wrong with capitalism, and which freed people to make something of themselves…

…to get a good job. To own a home. To start a business.

Three speeches. Three leaders. One theme.

Yes, I can do it as well.

The Kingdom of Bahrain is most definitely in the international spotlight right now. Like many other countries in the region it has experienced significant unrest since this time last year. Yet unlike other countries its governance remains pretty much the same.

So the King’s speech last week was a chance to hear from His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa how it’s done.

Allowing for matters of translation can be a problem. But there’s no disguising the King’s speech was a very dry, plodding affair.

Characterised by long words and long sentences the speech was nearly impenetrable. By the time the King reached the end of some of his sentences in the speech you wondered how the sentence had begun.

Our loyal people have demonstrated that their will, despite all events, is devoted to continuing the reform project, to preserving the achievements of the Charter and the Constitution, and to accelerating progress and momentum through constitutional institutions.

Being the Head of State in the Middle East is no small order right now. And it’s noticeable just how much of his speech is peppered with mentions of the constitution, institutions, legislative and executive branches of government. Not unexpected after all the unrest.

But buried in the arcane language we heard:

We cannot fail at this point to emphasize that democracy is not just literature, or constitutional and legislative provisions. Democracy is a culture and practice, commitment to the rule of law, respect for the international principles of human rights, coupled with serious national political action that represents all spectrums of society without exclusion or quotas.

The King’s speech appears to point to a reformed future. But such is the quality of the speech writing that you might be mistaken. The suspicion has to be that clarity might be more important in Bahrain than obfuscation. We’ll see.

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.