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.

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.

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.

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.

Knowing how to get your message across in your presentation has to be a major focus when you present.

And that’s something that the principal of Germantown High School in Germantown, Tennessee has found out…the hard way.

Parental complaints followed his presentation during a school assembly attended by his students.

The complaints focused on some figures shown in Dr. Ted Horrell’s presentation. The figures purported to show a difference in the educational attainment of students, bracketed by race.

In his defence the Principal explained that the purpose of his presentation was to introduce a new initiative that would provide an extra period of academic support for struggling students. That message was lost by many of the Germantown students. And the gist of his presentation was then lost by their parents.

Fortunately for the Principal he rolled out a damage limitation exercise immediately. Apologies and explanations poured out.

It just goes to show how minded you have to be about your message, the evidence you use and any nuances that might be gleaned.

The Principal will survive. Not everyone took offence–many students were baffled by the fuss. They understood the Principal’s message…achievement is everything.

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.