Engaging presentations are crucial for successfully captivating an audience. You have a lot to say, and all of it is good. But while it’s easy to fill your slides with text, it can be challenging to visualize that text into a presentation that promotes your message. So we would like to share with you some inspiration and some fundamental presentation guidelines, both from our own portfolio and from  Slideshare, a San-Francisco based company that provides a platform for businesses and professionals to share their presentations online.

SlideShare recently announced winners for the ‘World’s Best Presentation of 2009′ and I have to say, the winning presentations certainly grab your attention. Among them are Dan Roam and Dr Tony Jones’ collaboration called “American Health Care: a 4-Napkin Explanation.” Voted as the winner of Slideshare’s Best Presentation of 2009. It’s clever, simple to understand and far shorter than reading the written health bills.

Let us know how we can help you improve your presentations. Check out our portfolio of completed projects.

Having a web presence is relatively easy and certainly valuable to businesses, organizations and even individuals. But before pulling together your website you’ll want to weigh some options.

An important tool, you should consider is a  content management system (CMS), which will allow you to control individual content pages, navigational menus, meta data and more with a simple process. Unlike updating individual files, uploading via FTP and crossing your fingers that it works properly AND looks good. This is an important development consideration prior to starting.

Second, relying on a webmaster has it’s benefits but there are some serious drawbacks, expecially when in a pinch. If you’re about to launch a marketing campaign, you have very last minute changes to a webpage but your webmaster is out…who do you call? Ghostbusters can’t help you out this time.  Teaching a few people how to make website updates makes more sense – they log into a web-based platform, make the changes/updates and publish the changes. This can save you from the potential problems of relying on one sole individual.

Third on the list is accessibility. I mentioned this a bit in the previous paragraph that a CMS is a web-based application which means you can (typically) log-in from any computer that has internet access. Even if it’s 3am on a Sunday you can make changes to your website without waiting for your webmaster to manually upload HTML files.

Not everyone will have the same needs, and in some cases, a CMS simply isn’t needed or a proper suit. Be sure to look at the options and understand the benefits of using a CMS. Contact us; we can help you determine the best route possible. And, we have CMS options to fulfill your needs…if that’s the route to take.

Information today is dispersed through a number of different outlets such as websites, television, newspapers and radio. Recently I came across a rather interesting graphical representation of a century’s worth of past, present and future changes to where people turn for information.

http://www.baekdal.com/articles/Management/market-of-information/

Understanding and being able to predict how information is consumed can put you ahead in business. By being aware of how to connect with your customers, readers, clients and leads you’ll be able to adapt more quickly. A current example is with newspapers; today less people are buying them and instead turning to electronic devices (such as Amazon Kindle) to receive news and articles.

Another communication trend involves interactive animation. Flash product demos are an effective way of showing off a product or service via CD-Rom or over the web. It’s an interactive medium that is much more flexible than a standard print document. Not only is it more cost effective but it can also provide a virtual tour of features — simulating actual use.

So the question is, what mediums and methods will you use to get information to your customers, prospects and leads? Are you ready to step out of the box to explore the opportunities of interactive media?

Business Week's "The 21 Heroes of Data Visualization"

Turning information and complex concepts into intelligent design is part of what CGI interactive does daily. However, in the recent months, data visualization has become a greater topic of discussion.

In a recent article by BusinessWeek they profiled “21 Heroes of Data Visualization.” Included in this mix are Paul Prudence, Pedro Monteiro, and Brandon Martin-Anderson. Through data visualization they have been able to make maps, oil pricing, and sound frequencies look not just pretty…but pretty amazing. Not only are they appealing to the eye, but they hold valuable information. And it seems, this is just the beginning.

In recent weeks clients have been discussing the idea of data visualization and how they can integrate it into their marketing plans. Some recent examples I have seen include: http://www.wefeelfine.org/ and www.flickervision.com. Both of these sites apply data taken from the Internet and create a single hub of information through graphic representation.

Earlier this year, the talented creative team at CGI released the “Good Earth”. A site which takes inspiring news from around the world and presents it through a single, accessible platform: www.cgiinteractive.com/OurGoodEarth

Where do you see data visualization going in the next year? How can companies use it to start conversations about their brand and products?

On September 16th, I wrote a post on how to choose keywords for your website (here) in which I gave a very brief overview of how to go about deciding what your keywords will be for each page of your website. The reason for this post is to say “Just Kidding!” – It turns out that Google Search Engine does not look at your meta keywords when ranking your website/pages.  In my previous post I mentioned Google, Yahoo and Bing being the top three search engines but I certainly don’t know all their criteria for ranking.

Now let me state that I wasn’t playing a joke in my previous post. I stated that it’s important to have the meta keywords information embedded in the html code for search engine optimization purposes, however a new finding developed 5 days after that post, on Sept 21st.

Matt Cutts, google software engineer and head of their webspam team, published a blog post AND video talking about Google’s use of meta keywords. Long story short, Google does NOT consider this information in determining ranking of websites. That does not mean you shouldn’t include this in your website – Yahoo and MSN/Bing may very well use it in ranking consideration and likewise, it’s not going to hurt you…unless used in the wrong way.

The timing of this information being publicized is interesting (since I had just posted 5 days before about it) but we were informed on twitter that Google says it doesn’t provide value.