At The Demo Coach, I am always looking for tools and services related to giving memorable presentations and product demos. Below, is a list of my Hidden Gems (best products and services) I have had the pleasure of using myself and highly recommend.
1. A new “visual storytelling” listing will be here soon…
This site is one of the most amazing resources I have found on the Web that you can use to get graphic design work done where people submit their design in a contest and hope that you pick them. If you need design work done such as a logo, stationery, Web pages, WordPress themes, Twitter backgrounds, button and icons, print and advertising, t-shirts and clothing, 99Designs is THE place to start. All you do is list your contest and designers from all over the world will submit designs for you to consider. At the end of the contest, you get to choose the winner, if there is a winner. If you decide that no one has submitted a design that you feel warrants the prize money, you get the money back.
When you use 99Designs, the most important secret I will share with you is that the more you comment on the submissions you get from people, the more designs you will receive. Remember, the people doing the design work for you are not going to make any money until you award a winner. They want to be that winner and they may submit multiple designs for consideration. As an example, I recently held a contest for a logo and had nearly 300 submissions from 48 designers. Remember one thing…99Designs will only produce the design work, which includes all of the artwork files in whatever format you request. You also own the rights to the artwork you pay for.
Vworker.com (aka Rent-A-Coder) has thousands and thousands of programmers all over the world just waiting to help you program just about anything. The programmers will not be paid until you release the funds. That means you get to make absolutely sure that the project is complete before paying for the work. It is very important that you understand that both the programmer and you get rated at the conclusion of a project. Be sure and check the ratings and comments of programmers before awarding them the project. And, in my humble opinion, the best programmers with the most talent and humility come from Romania. Of the dozens and dozens of projects I have run over the past 5 years, many were completed by people from Romania, Argentina, and Australia. While there are many other programming sites like Vworker, this one is my favorite. This is also a good place to get the programming done for the design work you had done at 99Designs.
This is one of the best kept secrets on the Internet. Obviously, there are many things computers cannot do such as pick the best slogan, rate pictures in order of favorite to least, give feedback on a Web site design and hundreds and hundreds of other things. Amazon Mechanical Turks are people sitting at their computers waiting for you to ask them to do something for you. It’s the place to form instant focus groups to do things for you quickly and cheaply. I have run HIT’s (Human Intelligence Tasks) for things such as finding out what are people’s favorite high energy music tracks with 100 results coming back within 24 hours that cost me $.10 for each answer. Plus, you get to approve only the responses that meet your criteria. Incredible.
Searching the Web for most people starts at Google. But, those results are somewhat limited in that they don’t make it easy for you to find bits and bites all in one place. Addictomatic is a simple and free Web site that will automatically search and give you the latest buzz on any topic, all in one place.
Mindmapping is still not well known, but it is one of the most amazing thinking and planning tools on the planet. While mindmapping can easily be done with paper and pencil, there are programs you can use too! My favorite is MindMeister because it is an on-line mindmapping tool that allows for very easy collaboration and shaing. I coach my clients to use mindmapping as a way to brainstorm ideas for presentations and demos. It can also be used as a script when you present.
Have you ever wished you could have perfect grammar on every page on your Web site, executive summary, corporate documents, marketing materials, books, eBooks, and any other written information? Well, you can by using the amazing PhD’ers over at Edit991. Marc Baldwin and his team live and breathe grammar and proper punctuation. All you do is send them a copy of your work and they will return it with everything corrected.
Prezi is a new and amazing way to present information. While most people use PowerPoint or KeyNote to deliver a presentation using slides, Prezi is a free form, non-slide oriented presentation tool. It offers the presenter a freedom in how information is presented along with a very easy way to jump to any point in the presentation. Here is a simple example of what you can do with Prezi:
If you have tons of digital photos hiding on your hard drives and other storage media, it may be time to dust them off. Animoto is a wonderful SAAS product that gives you a really simple way to create a wonderful video of those pictures. You can add music to make it more interesting and it even tries to match the beat to the transitions in the video. It also lets you include video in the video. One of the best uses of Animoto is to create instant gifts for people. They will think you spent hours editing the video when you really only spend minutes arranging the photos in the order you want them to appear. After that, Animoto does all of the hard work for you!
Here’s one I made for the company that remodeled our pool and it took me about 20 minutes:
This is a very interesting gem that will show you the discount codes you need when buying things on-line. Whenever I am about to pay for something on-line, I go to RetailMeNot to see if there is a coupon or discount code. So far, 8 out of 10 times I get to save as much as 50% on some items. Amazing!
11. Inspiration for SAME
Poynter Online – A site by journalists who teach journalists. Great headline ideas. http://www.poynter.org/
Readers Digest – They employ the most talented headline writers in the world. http://www.rd.com/
