This is great news for anyone who wants portable, ubiquitous access to a truly powerful combination: a fast stable browser looking out on one of the most powerful presentation apps on the Web. Hold your breath…

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Here is Ron’s spiel…

Question: What is the best way to improve global training?

Answer: Improve lectures.

Question: How do we improve global health lectures?

Answer: Faculty worldwide share their PowerPoint lectures.

Question: Will faculty share lectures?

Answer: Yes, The Supercourse has 45,000 faculty from 174 countries who created a Library of Lectures with 3385. We have over 2300 lectures on global health from 650 teachers in 93 countries.

We were originally funded three times by NASA, and the National Library of Medicine. The Supercourse is like the Carnegie Free library but instead of books we share PowerPoint lectures. It is a place to go to find slides for teaching and learning about Global Health and Prevention. We have the highest global health page ranks for any educational institution. We are the highest ranking global health educational project on the web. Our program consists of:

Open Source: Our Global faculty shares their best, lectures on prevention. The experienced faculty member can beef up their lectures. New instructors reduce preparation time with better lectures. Faculty in developing countries have current prevention information

“Empower” Educators: The Library of Lectures consists of exciting scientific lectures by scholars in prevention. The classroom teacher “takes” them out for free.

Faculty: Thirty Nobel Prize winners, 60 IOM members and other top people contributed lectures by Sept. 1. Gil Omenn, AAAS, Vint Cerf, the father of the Internet, Elias Zerhouni, head of NIH, etc. contributed lectures.

Mirrored Servers and CDs: We have 45 mirrored servers in Egypt, Sudan, China, Mongolia and others. We have distributed 20,000 Supercourse CDs

Lectures Teaching a Million: In 12 months we taught over 1 million students last year.

JIT Lectures: We created scholarly lectures within days after the Bam Earthquake, Kristina and Rita, Pakistan Earthquake and Avian Flu. .

Schools of Global Health: We Plan to build Schools of Global Health world wide. Scientists from 26 nations are working to establish small, mini certificate granting courses. The need is there as there are 737 Medical schools and only 71 SPH

Quality Control: There are 8 million PowerPoint lectures on the web, the only lectures and publications involving QC are ours. We are taking a multilayered QC system including peer review, Deming based Statistical Quality control, and Amazon approaches

Global Health Network: The most important aspect of the Supercourse is our 45,000 member expert network where those in say Cairo can help those in Philidelphia to control West Nile fever

Productivity: We have published over 170 papers in leading medical journals including Science, Nature, Lancet, BMJ, Nature Medicine, PNAS among others. Our web pages have been identified as in the top 100 by PC Magazine. We receive 75-100 million hits a year.

Join the Global Supercourse: http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/assist/join.htm

Contact Point: Ron LaPorte, Ph.D., Director, WHO Collaborating centre, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA

Email: super1 at pitt.edu

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Today Slidebay.com launches a new facility: all images found in its searches are tagged in such a way that they will be detected by Zotero allowing you to collect a basket of image references for easy insertion into your presentations and then for easy insertion of the picture credit list.

If you want to really simplify your picture research for presentations, you should immediately

1. install Zotero on your Firefox (you do use Firefox, don’t you?)
2. watch the tutorial demo
3. then head straight to Slidebay Image Search and start picture harvesting!

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In this post, rather than focus on the applications themselves (more on that later), I will focus on the functions. What are the tasks that I want to accomplish, armed only with the software and files on my USB? I will describe the software suite around these functions in later posts, and look forward to your suggestions in the comments. For the time being, here are the spells that I want loaded onto the USB wand:

1. Keep My Files Secure: I want software to encrypt the whole stick so that I can afford to lose the drive without losing my mind. I want to keep a record of my passwords securely so that one password would open the door on all others. I want to be able to recover files deleted by accident on a host computer. I want to be able to erase all trace of any file I have copied temporarily onto a host computer. I want to use a host computer and leave no trace of my presence.
2. Manage My Files Easily: I want a gallery to hold all my images, sounds, and videos. I want tools to help me move files around with ease between the USB stick and the host. I want to be able to locate files easily. I want to collect batches of files (for example, from a camera) and rename them consistently and easily.
3. Retouch, Remix, Edit my Audiovisual Files: I want to be able to run edits on my photos – crop, retouch, apply simple effects to graphics. I want to be able to edit and remix sounds. I want to play and view sounds and videos, and to convert them across formats for different players.
4. Project Presentations Independent of Software on the Host Computer: I want to not have to worry what software is running on the host computer, unwilling to discover while on the podium that there is an older version of PowerPoint running, or they have the wrong fonts installed.
5. Prepare Presentations Impromptu: I want to have independent design capacity to be able to create a set of new slides, or modify the set I brought with me, or recombine slides from the library I carry around without having to worry about whether they have PowerPoint installed or the version.
6. Create Diagrams and Illustrations: I want to have easy diagramming tools that can create visuals neatly for inclusion into my presentations. I want to be able to design flowcharts, process diagrams, Venn diagrams and other illustrations relatively free of the limitations of the standard functions of most presentation software.
7. Prepare Standard Versions of Slidesets for Distribution: I like to distribute slidesets to the audience in the native file so they can read them and use them themselves – remixing my own presentations with theirs. But sometimes I want them to have my presentation in exactly one form, for the record. I want therefore to be able to produce PDF versions, to be able to annotate and edit PDF files, and to be able to combine images and voiceover into standard flash or video-like slideshows.
8. Capture Brainstorms Interactively: I want to be in a position to keep notes when others are speaking or to base my presentations on concepts laid out in a mindmap. I want to be able to work interactively and capture textual and tree-like forms of a discussion or brainstorm as it happens and integrate that into my presentation at will.
9. Manage My Internet Connection Securely: I want to be able to connect to the Internet directly, securely, and tracelessly. I want to be able to upload and download fairly large files securely and swiftly. I want to be able to search resources and collect references conveniently. I want to be able to use web applications as easily as the local applications.
10. Keep my Host Running: Too often have I had problems with the host computer connected to the projector. I want to be able to troubleshoot the host computer and its network and find simple workarounds wherever possible. This way, ideally, I don’t end up ‘apologising for the technology’ that has let me down at the last minute as I am about to start presenting

And, what is more, I want to do this all on a standard 2GB USB drive.

Watch this space for a growing list of programs for the portable presenter. Meantime please feel free to add to the wishlist in the comments below…

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I hope you like them — and that you will put links to your favorites or suggestions in the comments below.

Picture credits and links to full size pictures — with our thanks to the generous creators. :

• Photo Id 87431231 by zachstern (2004) entitled “the difference engine“.
• Photo Id 235805526 by ms4jah (2006) entitled “Weather Factory“.
• Photo Id 113218540 by Ian David Blüm (2005) entitled “Powerful Purple“.
• Photo Id 447061508 by Guillermo Ruiz de Loizaga (2007) entitled “On“.
• Photo Id 1129937817 by eir@si (2007) entitled “Aldeyjarfoss“.
• Photo Id 165130233 by yewenyi (2005) entitled “Making Clouds“.
• Photo Id 1470336775 by Mark Payton (2007) entitled “27,000 lbs of Thrust“.
• Photo Id 1553703053 by Pierre Guezennec (2007) entitled “The Power of the Light“.
• Photo Id 984731291 by Juju T (2007) entitled “Telegraph Pole“.
• Photo Id 105288359 by jimfrazier (2006) entitled “Union Pacific 3090 in La Fox, Illnois“.

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You want to insert a video into your presentation. Why do you need to do this?

• Maybe you want to play some music while the audience is entering the room and settling in.
• Or you want to insert a moment of humour mid-presentation.
• You might want to demonstrate a short procedure directly in the presentation.
• You might even want to leave the audience with a surprising ‘thank you’ slide.

Whatever your reason, it is entirely possible that in the YouTube collection, there is a video that suits your purpose. The problem: you can’t just download the video to your hard disk and insert into PowerPoint. The native download format from YouTube will not work in PowerPoint.

The Solution

The solution: use YouConvertIt.com for free and painless conversion to Windows media format. (more…)

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We usually end presentations with a Thank-You-for-Your-Attention slide. Yet often their attention is not the only reason we have to thank them. Maybe they are a management group who have given your project the green light. Maybe they are are a foundation board who have approved your grant.

In the midst of our presentation, without being obsequious, we want to show our appreciation for their support. In a cynical mode, we want to give positive feedback to those who have supported us, hoping to encourage them to reward us again. In a more honest sense, it is simply courteous and correct to express thanks.

Leslie Harpold has some simple pointers to writing a personalised Thank You note, that we might want to translate into advice for a few slides that we could insert in the presentation. Her advice:

• Greet the Giver. Go beyond ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’. Address the audience personally. Identify those among them who have been influential in the support decision while making sure that the whole group gets credit for the collective decision.
• Express your Gratitude. Just say the words: Thank You. In my own line of work, non-profit, health-related, support decisions are taken for idealistic reasons but there is a more business-like element too. Funders want a return for their investment. Thus express thanks, but not emotionally, simply acknowledging the fact that they have been selective and their decision has given you the privilege of delivering on their ideals.
• Discuss Use. What are you going to do with their support? How are you going to use their investment? What are the steps to realize the project? This may be the main reason behind your presentation and may turn out to the longest part of your talk.
• Mention the Past, Allude to the Future. Use at least one slide to establish the relationship with your group. Identify the history you have with them, and the similarities between your circumstances and theirs. Specify the next steps in this relationship, not simply in the reporting milestones but in the way this new collaboration will build on your commonalities.
• Sign off with Grace and Express your Regards. Don’t be stingy. Towards the end, say thanks again, professionally and with good humor. Your audience are business people and hopefully you have convinced them of your own worth, now you can simply pass on the credit to those who made your work possible.

What techniques do you use for saying Thank You in your presentations? Add your experience to the comments below.

Picture credit: Photo Id 409405305 by J. Star (2007) entitled “Thank you everyone!”. Published under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.

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• Alexei Kapterev made it
• Over 100,000 people viewed it on Slideshare
• Michael Byatt blogged about it
• Lifehacker.com passed it on
• I devoured it and am spreading the meme.

Here it is, the single must-see presentation-about-making-presentations. Sixty-one slides, four key points, one essential manual. Click the next button and you will be a better presenter within five minutes.

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He is currently finishing his book, aptly entitled Presentation Zen, so his posts are nowadays rather infrequent and filled with the angst of the closing weeks of authorship. I will take the liberty of reflecting on his lessons in this blog but I will limit myself here to just one of them: his discussion of the place of the slideshow inside a presentation. He uses this personal slideshow to illustrate his point:

It is a simple, but very attractive idea, to use a slideshow, mid-presentation, to break the flow and to summarise a point in pictures. I will seek an opportunity to include a slideshow at the first major presentation I make. I can think of at least three reasons why I could use it:

• as a break from my continuous speech,
• as a way of making a point across cultures for audiences who may not have English as a first language, and
• as a means of appealing to the emotion in the audience without resort to a more contrived rhetorics.

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If you prefer a printable set of instructions to lay beside your keyboard as you try this out on one of your files, then try Shailesh N. Humbad’s tutorial: Optimize Shrink Compress Powerpoint Presentations.

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