The Mobile Presenter

One of the most popular articles on this site is Remote controlling Keynote for iOS via Bluetooth, which contains a step-be-step description on how to establish a Bluetooth connection between Keynote for iOS (e.g. on an iPad) and the Keynote Remote app (e.g. on an iPhone or iPod Touch). The problem with this article is - that it only worked with iOS 4.x and that Apple broke the Bluetooth connectivity outlined in that article with the iOS 5 update (and iOS 5.0.1 didn't fix it).

Well, the good news is: The just-released iOS 5.1 fixes the problem. You can now establish a Bluetooth connection between Keynote and Keynote Remote (for iOS) again. Hooray!

Note: The WiFi connectivity wasn't affected from the problem.

As speakers slowly come to realize the power of using strong visuals in their presentation slides, the issue of giving proper credits comes up. Most of the time, you will be using someone else's photos, so of course you should be making sure that you are using those photos under a proper license, i.e. either pay for the right to use it or comply with the photo's license, e.g. a Creative Commons license. With the latter, a lot of people seem to think that giving credit to the photographer means that they actually have to put the name inside the photo or at least on the same slide.

I guess everybody who is interested in good presentations (whether seeing them or improving their own presentations) will sooner or later come across TED and their wonderful collection of great and engaging presentations. Once you've become addicted to TED (and believe me - you will), you will want to attend a TED conference. Alas, for mere mortals that's not so easy.

Fortunately, TED invented the TEDx event: Smaller, local, and independently (but under a license from TED) organized events that are much more accessible for the rest of us.

TEDx events can be found all over the world and, of course, also in Germany where I live. Missing, so far, was a TEDx event in my current place of residence, i.e. Stuttgart. But this is about to change, since for a couple of weeks now, I've been a member of the team that is in the process of organizing the first TEDx in Stuttgart.

And even better: Ticket sales are now open! If you're living in the Stuttgart area, here's your chance to attend the first TEDxStuttgart. See you there!

I have been reading Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen blog even before the first book came out. Getting Presentation Zen (The Book) was just the next logical step, since it provides all that useful information you can find on the website in a structured, readable, and easily accessible way. Four years and another two books (Presentation Zen Design and The Naked Presenter) later, there is now a second edition of the original Presentation Zen book. What can we expect from it?

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink

The book starts out by pointing out an - often overlooked - discrepancy between what companies think are good motivation strategies ("carrot & stick") and what science has found out about them, i.e. that they are not always working and that they may even have the opposite effect. The rest of the book then goes on to explore better ways to encourage employees, students, etc.