Working Smarter : Screencast

Video: a Cartoon That Makes it Easy to Understand the Credit Crisis

Aaron Stannard — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:00:00 GMT

When I was perusing some of my favorite blogs this morning I came across these two videos which artfully use visualization to explain a complex economic problem, the 2008-2009 credit crisis.

The cartoon probably doesn't address some of the important nuances of the crisis, but it succeeds where most of the major newspapers and opinion pages have failed: it explains a complex economic problem in a way that is fun and easy for the masses to understand.

This is why "a picture is worth a thousand words." Most people think visually – when we’re given a piece of information our brain attempts to understand it by visualizing it. This is why analogies are so popular – we describe a massive decrease in the index of a stock market as a “crash” because a crash is something that our brain can visualize into something more understandable. So how come more people don't try to communicate using visuals like these cartoons?

Because communicating visually used to be hard - it used to require that you have some sort of artistic talent, but no longer. That's no longer true with products like SmartDraw, which have automated just about any drawing that the average businessperson might need. So why not learn how to communicate visually and become a effective communicator, like the author of these cartoons?

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter.

Build PowerPoint® Presentations Directly from SmartDraw 2009.5

Aaron Stannard — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:45:00 GMT

Well, it’s that time of year—time for a major update to SmartDraw 2009. The biggest feature in this update is our improved storyboarding capability – if you’re a regular reader, you’re probably familiar with the benefits and practice of storyboarding presentations. In SmartDraw 2009.5, we made storyboarding even better—now you can literally build your entire PowerPoint® presentation from SmartDraw using our storyboarding SmartTemplates.

If you’d like a demonstration, feel free to watch the screencast below:

This SmartDraw screencast requires plug-ins enabled and the latest Adobe Flash Player installed.

Other New SD2009.5 Features:

In addition to the storyboarding, we’ve also made some other improvements to SmartDraw 2009:

Integration with Microsoft Project® - One feature that’s been requested for a long time is the ability to import and export Gantt charts (project charts) to and from Microsoft Project®. Well, all of you project managers out there have your wish. You can now import and export Gantt charts from SmartDraw 2009.5 to Microsoft Project®.
Import Chart and Graph Data Directly from Excel® Files – In the original release of SmartDraw 2009, you could only import Excel® data by copying it to the clipboard. In 2009.5, you can import data directly from Excel® files themselves, which is much easier. SmartDraw 2009.5 also accepts data import from .CSV and .TXT files if you used delimited data.

If you’re a SmartDraw 2009 owner then I highly recommend that you download the patch and try out these new features. If you have any feedback please feel free to use our contact form. I read all of the email from that form myself.

SD2009 Owners: Download the 2009.5 Patch (it’s free)

If you’re a SmartDraw 2009 owner (most blog readers are), you can download the 2009.5 patch right here.

If you don’t own SmartDraw 2009, you can upgrade existing versions of SmartDraw or try it for free.

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter.

Three Ways SmartDraw 2009 Can Make Presenting Easier for You

Aaron Stannard — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:24:00 GMT

Given that we just published a free eCourse all about creating presentations with captivating introductions, I think now is a good time to remind some of our readers about all of the cool ways that SmartDraw can make life easier for the average businessperson. Most of us are not regular presenters—perhaps a few times a year we have to present a proposal, report, marketing piece or training seminar.

I certainly fall into that class of presenter and I suspect that most of our readers do also; fortunately, our product, SmartDraw, can make life a lot easier for average presenters like you and me. Here’s how:

Plan Your Content Using Storyboard Templates

The key to having a good presentation is having your material organized in a logical, coherent fashion. Storyboards are an effective way of achieving this type of organization quickly, easily and efficiently.

If you want a refresher on why it’s a good idea to use storyboarding when you’re planning a presentation, check out this earlier post I wrote entitled “Having Trouble Putting a Presentation Together? Try Storyboarding.”

In SmartDraw 2009, you begin by opening up a new instance of SmartDraw and select the “Storyboards” template from the SmartTemplate Selector on the left.

Then you click on the blank storyboard template.

Add new boxes for each main topic. If I’m presenting a new project proposal presentation, I might want to build six slides explaining:

Who is responsible?
What are we doing?
When is this due?
Where are we allocating resources?
Why is this important?
How do we do this?

So I will go ahead and place that onto my storyboard.

And then add the topic-specific details beneath the box of each topic.

And from here, I have a good, rough outline of my entire PowerPoint® presentation. In fact, here’s what this outline would look like in PowerPoint® 2007’s “Outline View:”

Export any Diagram or Chart to PowerPoint® Easily

One of the most popular features that SmartDraw has had over the past several versions is its interoperability with Excel®, Word® and PowerPoint®. With the touch of a single button, you can export any diagram, whether it’s a flowchart, a floor plan, or anything else directly to Microsoft Office®.

To export from SmartDraw to PowerPoint®, simply open up your diagram in SmartDraw.

Click on the “PPT” button on the Quick Access Toolbar.

And then your diagram will appear in your current instance of PowerPoint®. Or if you don’t have a running instance of PowerPoint®, SmartDraw will start one for you.

And that’s it!

Animate Your Charts and Diagrams in SmartDraw for More Effective Deliveries

If you’d like to have even more control over how you deliver your SmartDraw diagrams during a PowerPoint® presentation, you can pre-animate them directly within SmartDraw 2009 before you export them! Here’s a two minute video which explains how you can sequence any diagram in PowerPoint using SmartDraw:

This SmartDraw screencast requires plug-ins enabled and the latest Adobe Flash Player installed.

And that’s it. This is the last planned blog entry for 2008, so I hope you’ve enjoyed reading! We’ve got a lot planned for 2009 already so we’ll have plenty of great content ready for you when you all return home from the holidays. Thanks for reading and Happy Holidays!

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter.

Screencast: Building Sequenced Charts in PowerPoint® Using SmartDraw 2009

Aaron Stannard — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 05:23:00 GMT

As a follow-up to yesterday's screencast where we demonstrated the difference between the sequenced presentation approach and Death by PowerPoint® we'd like to show you how we actually produced that presentation using SmartDraw 2009. So it is our pleasure to present to you our second screencast this week (there will be a third on Thursday), "Building Sequenced Charts in PowerPoint® Using SmartDraw 2009." Please watch the video below:

This SmartDraw screencast requires plug-ins enabled and the latest Adobe Flash Player installed.

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter.

Screencast: Contrasting Sequencing with Death by PowerPoint®

Aaron Stannard — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 05:51:00 GMT

Over the past few days we have made the case for using animation in your PowerPoint® presentations, and today we intend to reinforce our argument with a powerful illustration. In today's screencast we are going to compare and contrast "Death by PowerPoint®," "Data Dumping," and presentations that use sequencing properly in order to underscore how effective good animation can be. It's our pleasure to present to you, "Contrasting Sequencing with Death by PowerPoint®:"

This SmartDraw screencast requires plug-ins enabled and the latest Adobe Flash Player installed.

If you liked the animated charts that you saw in this presentation the please download a free trial of SmartDraw 2009 and check out our improved PowerPoint® integration features.

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter.

Announcing SmartDraw 2009 – Automatically Sequence SmartDraw Drawings in PowerPoint®

Aaron Stannard — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:38:00 GMT

Normally we don’t focus an entire blog entrie on our product, SmartDraw. But given that we’ve officially released the newest version of SmartDraw today, I thought I might make an exception. Today we released SmartDraw 2009, which comes with a huge number of improvements to the software. Click here if you’d like to read about them in more detail.

There is one SmartDraw 2009 feature in particular that I’d like to discuss: our Smarter PowerPoint® Integration, because it relates directly to a number of the points that we’ve made about using animation to produce more effective PowerPoint® presentations.

What the Feature Does

SmartDraw 2009’s Smarter PowerPoint® Integration adds an entirely new dimension to SmartDraw’s PowerPoint® export capabilities: it allows you to “pre-animate” your SmartDraw drawings within SmartDraw before you export them to PowerPoint®.

You can animate any drawing in SmartDraw 2009 including floor plans, flow charts, org charts, Gantt charts, timelines and any other type of diagram with a few simple clicks of a button. It’s pretty easy.

How this Feature Benefits You

Rick Altman wrote a guest piece for us a while back called “Thriving with Animation,” in which he explained that animation, when used correctly, “isn’t noticed at all. It’s not unlike being a major league baseball umpire who gets no respect for doing a good job.” Putting large amounts of data on a slide and dumping it all at once onto your audience is not an effective technique for getting your point across; however, by using animation, you can sequence your data in a paced, measured fashion that keeps you and your audience on the same page.

It’s hard to appreciate how useful the feature is without seeing it; so if you look below, here is our brand new help video which demonstrates the feature and explains the payoffs concisely:

This SmartDraw screencast requires plug-ins enabled and the latest Adobe Flash Player installed.

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter.

Three Examples of How Processes Improved Our Operations

Aaron Stannard — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:32:00 GMT

In this screencast I quickly review what we've covered in August with respect to business processes, i.e. why businesses need processes, the key employee problem, and so forth. But the real core of this presentation are the three examples of how we've been able to use business processes to improve our own operations here at SmartDraw.com; in these examples I explain what the problems in our organization were and how we were able to largely solve those problems with processes.

For those of you who have been hungry for some real examples this should satisfy your appetite.

This SmartDraw screencast requires plug-ins enabled and the latest Adobe Flash Player installed.

If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter.

Screencast: How to Include SmartDraw Diagrams in PowerPoint® Presentations and Word® Documents

Aaron Stannard — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:00:00 GMT

In this screencast I show you how to embed SmartDraw diagrams into Microsoft Word and PowerPoint; as usual, it's pretty easy to do this in SmartDraw. Leave your comments below!

This SmartDraw screencast requires plug-ins enabled and the latest Adobe Flash Player installed.

Download a free trial of SmartDraw here.

Screencast: How to Export SmartDraw Diagrams to Portable Document Format (PDF)

Aaron Stannard — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:00:00 GMT

In this screencast I will show you how to export any SmartDraw diagram to Portable Document Format, more commonly referred to as PDFs. PDFs are the best way to share SmartDraw documents with coworkers and associates who may not have SmartDraw installed, so watch this screencast if you're interested in learning how to export SmartDraw documents to PDF format (it's really easy.)

This SmartDraw screencast requires Adobe Flash Player 9.

Download a free trial of SmartDraw here.