Apologies to those who either got an inadvertent message about a new podcast this evening.  It will be up shortly, but is not quite ready.

And a second set of apologies to anyone trying to access the podcast from January 18th, Presentation Party Invitation: PowerPoint Live 2007.  An unfortunate ramification of the first error caused this podcast to be temporarily unavailable.  It too will be back up shortly.

Thank you for your patience,
-Ric

When does a party turn into a conference?

How does a conference retain that party feel, but still provide terrific value?

After five successful yearly gatherings, some of the PowerPoint MVPs responsible for the idea behind the PowerPoint Live gather to recall it’s origins and reflect on why it gets rave reviews from attendees.  With panelists Echo Swinford, Glen Miller, Steve Rindsberg and host Ric Bretschneider, this is the first of three recordings from October of 2007.


Panelists Echo Swinford, Glen Miller, Steve Rindsberg and Ric Bretschneider – Photos by Rikk Flohr.

This is the first of three podcasts recorded in October 2007 at PowerPoint Live. 

Listen Now (click below) or Subscribe!

Links mentioned in this show:

Indezine is an online magazine and store for the works of Geetesh Bajaj, one of the most sincere and caring individuals I’ve had the pleasure to come across in this business.  He’s tremendously productive, producing both presentation aids and articles in high quality and volume. 

This week Geetesh asked me to participate in an interview.  Talking about myself is hard, it’s not the point of this site, it’s not the point of most of my work. If you’ve looked at the unfinished domain landing page, you can tell that – I’m much more interested in putting out the blog and podcast than filling you in on my background.  I’ll get around to it, it’s just not a priority.

But if you’re interested then I guess Geetesh has done us both a favor.  You can read the interview here.

In the meantime, I’ll be publishing part two of the NOLA trilogy in the next couple of days.  If you haven’t subscribed to the podcast or general blog, please do!

-Ric

If you liked our first roundtable with Garr Reynolds, there’s another available now.

PeachPit press publisher Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel, publisher of Peachpit and their New Riders series of books recorded a phone conversation with Garr which is now available at their site. 

You can find more information and links at Garr’s post: PZ-related podcasts.

OK, I’m close to publishing the first of three podcasts recorded during PowerPoint Live 2007. 

Why is that interesting?  Well, we had a ton of talented presentation professionals all under one roof.  I hauled the “portable podcast studio” to New Orleans and talked folks into sitting down at the mics.  The result are a trio of podcasts that cover how the conference got started, what it accomplishes, and then focuses on some of the star speakers from this past year’s event.

If you’ve never heard of PowerPoint Live, I invite you to visit the web site: PowerPoint Live  If you’re planning your training and conventions budget for this year, this is one you’ll want to consider attending.
 
Want more proof? Stay tuned!

Listen to Episode One: Presentation Party Invitation: PowerPoint Live 2007

This premiere episode of the Presentations Roundtable Podcast brings together Presentation Zen’s Garr Reynolds, Nancy Duarte of Duarte Design, Howard Cooperstein of Microsoft, and your host Ric Bretschneider.  You are invited to listen in as we discuss the role of books in learning good design, preview both Garr and Nancy’s efforts in this area, and drop some easy to follow hints on creating excellence in your own presentations.

Listen now!

Mentioned in this episode:

Presentation Zen – The Blog
Presentation Zen – The Book
Duarte Design
Elements of Design: Rowena Reed Kostellow and the Structure of Visual Relationships by Gail G. Hannah
Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students by Ellen Lupton

I’m putting the finishing touches on the first podcast for Presentations Roundtable.  This takes a little more effort than the subsequent episodes will, as there are some musical interstitials to be composed, introductions to be recorded, templates to modify etc.  

I’m also working with a new set of hosting software instead of manually editing the RSS feed as I’ve done for other podcasts. We’ll see about that, but for now I want to work on content instead of putting my hands into the guts of the feed every time I release.  (Ouch, nice imagery.)

Anyway, I should have Episode 1: Design and Dead Trees up shortly.

In the meantime I’m adding a link to a post Garr Reynolds’ blog Presentation Zen, where he wrote a bit about the night we recorded the podcast.  We’re mentioned about half-way through the article.

Clockwise from left: Garr Reynolds, Nancy Duarte, Ric Bretschneider, and Howard Cooperstein

Well, some of this is working now, although the server is slow to update a few of the changes.  We’ll be ready to go in a day or so I expect.  It would be quite a trick for anyone to be reading along at this point, but if you are… well howdy.  Welcome to the party. 

-Ric