My friend Rick Altman hosts the only conference which I consider a must-go. It’s called The Presentation Summit. You might know it by its former name, PowerPoint Live. It’s happening again in San Diego, CA on October 17-20.

Rick holds a contest each year for you to both show off your design skills and compete for a free full registration, a value of $995. As Rick writes, “The Summit’s Template Design Contest is open to anyone and everyone: your mission is to create the slide design for the conference template. If chosen, your design would be used in all of our seminar tracks by just about all of our presenting team.”

As a five-time attendee, I’ve seen some excellent ones put to good use. I’ve also met some of the previous winners. Seriously, you need not be a top-tier Madison Avenue creative wizard. This content is held for (and won by) unsung, in-the-trenches PPT workhorses who know what they’re doing but want to get better at it. People like you.

So, stretch your creative muscles and maybe win what you and/or your company would have shelled out big bucks for. You can do this.

One more thing … a video promoting the conference. I’m in there. Many friends are too. Enjoy!

More info here. (Hat tip to Nancy Duarte.)

• In what style do you wish to present text? What do you want to communicate through your style choice? That you are solid, safe, and predictable? Or that you are edgy, creative, and contemporary? Fonts, like clothes, send signals.
• Fonts are like clothing in that time and taste influence what is hot and what is not. (As with clothing, many hip designers are British.)
• Dress codes reflect a community’s values. Design guidelines do too. Just as organizations may require uniforms, they may also require branding rules to be followed, so fonts/colors/styles are already chosen for you.
• If you are collaborating with others, make sure your files are carrying their “clothes” with them. (How to embed fonts in a PowerPoint file.)

The following video runs through several genres of film, punctuated with text of lyrics in the appropriate font of that genre. Seeing this video prompted this blog post. Enjoy!

(via Garr Reynolds)

Alltop, you might know, aggregates the best of the best blogs in many popular categories, like politics or humor or cooking. Started by Guy Kawasaki, the company aims to help you answer the question, “What’s happening?” in all the topics that interest you. Read more about Alltop here.

“The Presentationist” may be found at http://speaking.alltop.com/ (way at the bottom). I am honored to share the same page with many whom I hold in high regard.

Of course, I realize this means that regular, high-quality blogging must continue in order for this recognition to continue. We know where the downfalls are in that regard.

Here’s a deal: if you don’t follow me on Twitter, at least come back here and peek at my tweets on the right edge of this screen. So much good stuff regarding PowerPoint, presentations, and design flows through the web. I try my best to capture the good stuff for you via Twitter. Longer pieces warrant a blog post.

All the top ideas, opinions, and articles, however, can be found at Alltop. Glad to be aboard.

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

Why does this work for me? It has a single, strong, simple message. The look and feel is upbeat and artful while the content is emotional and engaging. And on top of all that, it is short, clocking in at just over two minutes.

For your next presentation, think about these elements. Strive toward communicating as well as this video does. You can do it.

Good Morning Tony,
I am a recent design graduate with a focus on advertising. I am looking to break into the field of being a presentation specialist for businesses and courtroom presentations. I’m working in advertising but would like to go out on my own as a specialist. My question to you is, what would be the most direct way of me getting into the business and what tools do I need to become proficient in this career? I currently use the Adobe Creative Suite for my work. Besides sharpening up my powerpoint skills, what else do I need to do to get into this exciting field?

My reply, in part:

Hi,

Nice to receive an email such as yours every once in a while. If anything, it confirms to me that graduates like you continue to see potential in the field of visual communication. I’m in agreement with you in that there is plenty of potential here and there’s nowhere to go but up.

While the specialty of designing for business presentations has gotten a bit more crowded since 1993, the year I started, it has become so only because the demand is there. And while over half a billion computers have PPT installed (as of two years ago, anyway), the vast majority of slides suck. So companies that realize this are willing to pay leaders like Cliff Atkinson and Nancy Duarte to help them make their slides not suck. Follow their writing and advice to continue learning about this field. Ditto Scott Schwertly, SOAP (in Brazil), Garr Reynolds, and several of the folks in my blogroll. (I am guessing that since you’ve found me, you’ve likely found these people already anyway.) See, for instance, the LA Times article about the court case which put Cliff Atkinson on the map: http://www.sociablemedia.com/thebio_press.php4 (first listed article)

Mastering Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote are essential, and mastering Adobe’s Creative Suite is an excellent way to differentiate yourself. I’m a mid-level user of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. While I learned Flash a while ago, I have had little call for it.

As far as courtroom graphics and animation goes, there’s not much I know about that, other than it is fairly lucrative once you can get in. I am familiar with some of those providers here in Cleveland, and have never done 3D animation myself, but I would heartily encourage your doing so.

The main way to become good at this is to do lots of it. And to get PPT projects, one way is to hit the freelance job boards. The downside here is that competition is racing to the bottom in terms of pricing.

Another way to get jobs is to get networked, in the business/social sense. Answer questions in forums and in LinkedIn. Listen and contribute to the tweetstream. Join local business clubs. There’s a lot of PowerPoint pain out there, both on the speaker’s side as well as the audience. I truly believe there’s enough pie for all of us out here. The challenge is that your customers don’t know what is possible, or, if they do, they don’t know where to start looking for it.

Those are my thoughts for now. Much more information is scattered throughout both my old blog and my new one.

Best of luck!

Anything to add?

Smooth, no?

Also, I tweeted some days ago that Nancy Duarte’s “5 Simple Rules” would be included in public beta of PPT 2010. This trailer above serves to whet the appetite.

Via @eyefulpres and Long Zheng, but here is Sandy Yu’s official post of the same.

While in recent years, we have enjoyed a bounty of new ways to visualize data and stories in our presentations, I predict that active and engaged listening will be the hallmark of the year to come.

In the business press, plenty of stories describe how social media is upending traditional ideas of how companies relate with their customers. We’ve read how Dell and Zappos listen and act via Twitter, creating better relationships and sales in the process. Media gurus like Bob Garfield are selling books about this. (Watch his excellent short video here.)

In the world of presentations, these same tools (SMS, Twitter, mobile web, etc.) are just now making noise. More speakers are becoming listeners as the backchannel of communication is coming forward. Olivia Mitchell has been detailing this rise better than anyone. Check out her blog posts about Presenting with Twitter.

Moreover, in less than one month, this book will come out:

You may know Cliff Atkinson from Beyond Bullet Points. I met recently with Cliff and reviewed an early draft of this work. He is onto something. Just like Bob Garfield.

So, listen up — to your audiences, your customers, and your students. Your ear will be dear this year.

Update, 10-31-09:

Here’s a video (2:24) of Timo Elliot of SAP demonstrating his PowerPoint Twitter Tools: