I’ve been noodling with the delightful Wordle.net application for a few months now. Initially, I used Wordle to create word clouds that I use as art in PowerPoint presentations.

For example, I entered my opening remarks on a presentation about Social Media for Business, and Wordle generated a unique and relevant welcome slide image. The main subject of the presentation “pops” — with supporting words adding meaningful visual subtext.

Two More Reasons Web Marketers Will Love Wordle. Since my initial Wordle experiment, I’ve managed to find two other terrific web marketing uses for this simply delicious product:

1. Try the Eye-Popping Web Copy Exercise. On occasion, prospects will call to tell me that they’re all about “enter product / service here“. When I go to visit their websites, however — I often struggle to find any words that support their claims! So, when I enter web page copy into Wordle — and the name of the product doesn’t “pop” — I have a visual demonstration of a potential copy writing problem that may be damaging to web marketing success. Try this exercise with your own website!
2. Dig the Most Amazing Brand Exercise Ever. Ah, the pricey “brand brainstorming” mission. Ad agencies generate Scotch-fueled words to present as your new corporate “vision and values statement” or “the cornerstone of brand messaging”. Rubbish. Instead of disconnecting from your customers, use your customers’ very words to discover your REAL brand image, as it exists today. Pump your latest testimonials and product reviews into Wordle. Which words pop? (That’s your real brand, not something made-up and wildly out-of-touch with reality.)

Brand Reality Check. As a personal example, I popped in my LinkedIn recommendations and a few offline testimonials I’ve received for my own, personal “Laura Bergells Brand” reality check. You can see the results below. I’m a smidge dismayed by the hugeness of the word “work”. I always thought my work product appeared playful and effortless.

Turns out, I’m delusional.

I’m also alarmed that the word “creative” is absent — but the words “hand” and “months” are in there — eh? It appears I have some work to do on my image!

Sales psychology 101. If you use your customers’ words in your messaging, you’re more likely to resonate positively with your audience. You’ll be in harmony. You’ll also appear more authentic and credible. Trustworthy.

All these qualities are important for online marketing!

What creative uses have you found for using Wordle? If you have a Wordle brand exercise or other creative use you’d like to share, point me to it!

The saddest part of our digital world has got to be the demise of the beloved album cover. Many album covers served as art — a joy to look at.

By contrast, CD covers are mostly small and sad. And now, with MP3 downloads, the art of the package seems to be gone forever. No more lookie, no more touchie. (Looking and touching a little plastic iPod fails to excite.)

However, not all album covers were of, uh, Sgt. Pepper quality!

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I know –I promised “no more embeds” — but I’m trashing that promise. This slideshow from Slideshare just makes me giggle.

(Oh, it’s 3 degrees outside. Give me a break — I need to warm myself up from within!)

Now, let me ask you — what’s your vote for best — and worst — album cover ever?

I know several web developers who poo-poo anything that is free.

Seriously!

They deeply suspect Open Source-anything, describing the whole phenomenon as some sort of communist plot.

One Windows programmer I know adamantly quoted an old cliche, “You get what you pay for. And if it is free, it cannot be good. And I am always willing to pay extra for quality support.”

(Can anybody really boast of quality support from Microsoft? Anybody? Anybody? )

I have found that many Open Source software solutions that I use offer not only more stable software, but often much better support than paid programs — and yes, for free. (At the end of this post, I will share my top 6 list of open source solutions I cannot live without!)

If “you get what you pay for” is your stumbling block for trying Open Source software, know this: the folks at Source Forge, Joomla, WordPress, or many other freeware sites are happy to accept your donations for their often superior solutions! If you pay them only half of what you would pay for a buggy paid version of the same tool, I am sure the Open Source community would be delighted.

And here is what you DON’T get with Open Source software —  You don’t get some passionless tech support drone pointing the finger at someone else and trying to get you to hang up (“oh, that’s not our software. Must be your hardware. Call them. Let me talk to my supervisor before I escalate you to Level 3. Thank you for calling….”)

With Open Source, you don’t use the phone: you most often use an online forum to post your tech questions — and often get an answer in minutes, not days. And the people who answer are decidedly passionate about developing the very best solutions — so they are acutely interested in responding to your problems. 

By posting your questions, you are evolving the software (so, yes, you get the feeling that you are an important part of the evolution of technology – instead of some annoying customer that needs to be dismissed as quickly as possible because you are tying up the phone lines.) And because many Open Source developers are donating their time, why, you know how passionate and involved and sincere volunteers can be!

They don’t treat you like an idiot at Open Source forums. And no one has ever made me feel like a jerk for asking a tech question.

I suspect that this “community” attitude is the part that makes Open Source seem like a communist plot to my Windows developer colleagues.

When you use Windows, you are a client or a customer. That’s capitalism.

When you use Open Source, you become part of a community. According to my developer friends, that’s communism.

But I look at it this way: when I can find a product that helps me lower my costs so that I can increase my profits — that is sheer capitalism!

Political leanings aside, I hope you try a few Open Source Freebies. Call me a communist, call me a capitalist: I do not care.

I only want to use the best tools for the job. And in many cases, Open Source provides the tools AND the online support community that help me succeed in business.

Here are six free programs I cannot live without –

OpenOffice.org – Download a Suite that includes a Word Processor, SpreadSheet, and Presentation program. Looks and feels pretty much like MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint — and it even opens and saves as .doc, .xls, .ppt and more.

Filezilla – This is a dandy FTP client. You can always pay for an FTP client – but Filezilla works just as well, if not better than many paid-for programs that I currently own! In fact, I initially had to download Filezilla because an FTP client I paid dearly for would not upload my media files as well as Filezilla!

Audacity – This is a multitrack audio editor. Use it to record and edit podcasts, convert wav to mp3, mix your vocal and sound tracks, and much (much) more.

POPFile – This program sorts your email inbox and helps you fight spam intelligently. Free and easy to use. Better than most paid-for anti-spam software I have purchased.

Joomla – This is a very powerful content management system. Lovely for people and companies who intend to build membership sites and need to easily manage tons of content, including multi-media and written articles. I have built a number of sites in Joomla — and offer free do-it-yourself Joomla video tutorials here.

WordPress - Last but not least, this very site is a blog powered by WordPress, one of the most powerful blog platforms on the planet right now. Use WordPress as your blog platform, and you probably can’t go wrong.

Those are just my top six. There are plenty more, of course.

Which are your favorite, can’t-live-without-them Open Source solutions?

I posted a new PowerPoint article here…

The PowerPoint podcast is here…

The PDF with show notes is here….

Paper Airplanes – Download, Print, Cut, Fold – Fun!

Ellen Finkelstein blogs that there are three important components of a PowerPoint presentation: content, design, and delivery.

I’d add another: the audience.

I always start designing and creating content with the audience in mind. Without an audience, there wouldn’t be a need for a PowerPoint presentation in the first place.

It’s a curious epidemic….students are inclined to produce multimedia or PowerPoint presentations in lieu of (or in addition to) writing a traditional term paper.

I hope it’s more along the lines of “in addition to”….but considering some of the sad writing samples I’ve seen lately, I have my suspicions.

In the lbr blog about virtual reference for librarians, you can get links to 6 free stock photography sources. I’ve always enjoyed the more>>

In a rather funny article by “Anonymous” at Australia’s MIS Magazine, “Present Tense” is defined by the author, who is frequently subjected to less than stellar PowerPoint presentations. He coined the expression to describe the anxiety felt as an audience member when he has to endure an annoying PowerPoint presentation combined with a poor presenter.

He vents eloquently, and speaks from the authentic perspective of a highly irritated audience member. If the first rule of presenting is “Think of Your Audience“, Anonymous gives you unique insight into his agitated state of mind. Read on>>>

Your PowerPoint template is different than your PowerPoint layout. Your template provides the visual background (colors, pictures, graphics, gradients, textures, lines, etc.) upon which you lay your content.

Your layout is applied on every slide in the presentation. It’s how you want your content to be arranged on top of your template backdrop . (In the Toolbar: Format, Slide Layout…)

Think about “having a conversation” instead of “giving a presentation.”

Sometimes, we focus so hard on the PowerPoint templates and presentations, that we aren’t focused the audience. And they’re the whole reason that you’re presenting!

As a presenter, you want your audience to be educated, informed, excited, motivated, inspired, persuaded, etc. And face it — most of these intellectual or emotional connections take place during Q&A — which is ususally at the end of the presentation.

Why not provide plenty of opportunities to have a conversation during your presentation? Good conversations are the building blocks of good relationships: start your conversations early, and keep them going throughout your day!