March 3rd, 2010
If you’re responsible for leading a church or religious community, you may be gearing up for one of the year’s most celebratory seasons: Easter. Easter is the season of the year for all Christian faiths, and Projector123.com is proud to announce special AV support for all pastors, ministers and religious professionals.
This Easter, why not enhance your worship services with an affordable, easy to use LCD projector rental from Projector123.com? Take a look at some of the ideas you could incorporate to make this year’s spring time celebration even more special:
1 – Display beautiful, inspirational images throughout Easter service
2 – Project the Stations of the Cross during your Good Friday meditation service
3 – Share season-appropriate movies such as “In the Blink of an Eye,” “No Greater Love,” or “Jesus of Nazareth.”
4 – Create and display a slide show or photo montage to include members of the congregation, special events, etc.
With projector rentals starting at just $99 per weekend, Projector123.com is the affordable choice for religious professionals who are in search of exciting, captivating ways to expand the congregation and make more of an impact for special chuch services and celebrations.
This year, Easter falls on April 4, so there’s plenty of time to plan a spiritual celebration that’s truly worthy of a King. Plus, renting a projector from Projector123.com is as easy as 1-2-3. Just click here to get started, select your projector, let us know where and when to deliver it, and you’ll be on your way in no time. We can deliver directly to your church or place of worship, so there’s no need for heavy lugging. What’s more, setup is a snap with our quickstart guide, and if you require any additional support, you can call our customer service specialists for 24/7 assistance.
Click here to order your rental projector for Easter services today.
March 1st, 2010
Please enjoy this excellent speaking article by Karen Susman. And when you’re ready to order your rental projector, contact us here at Projector123.com.
Twenty-Three Ways to Connect With Your Audience
(Use Only If You Want Your Audience to Listen and Take Action)
By Karen Susman©
If you want to get your message across to your audience members, you have to connect with them. Here are twenty-two ways to connect before, during and after your presentation.
Connect Before:
| 1. |
Do your homework on your audience. Plan your presentation from their perspective. |
| 2. |
Arrive early to check out the physical and emotional atmosphere. |
| 3. |
Visit with audience members before your presentation. You’ll learn what’s going on and you’ll gather allies. |
| 4. |
Listen to and observe events and speakers that come before you. If you’re scheduled to speak at 8: 15 PM and the meeting starts at 7 PM, arrive at 6:30 PM. (Earlier if you have to test audio/visual equipment.) Adapt your remarks to what you hear, see and feel. |
| 5. |
Refer by name to the speaker before you. Ask permission of an audience member to use his name in reference to your topic. For instance, “As Jim in engineering told me… |
Connect During:
| 6. |
Use your body. Pause before you begin. Walk toward the audience. If you can’t walk toward the audience, lean in. Use eye contact. Move meaningfully with each point you make. |
| 7. |
Energize. The larger the audience and the room, the more energetic you have to be. Animate your face, too. |
| 8. |
Flex your voice range, volume and speed to emphasize and invigorate your remarks. |
| 9. |
Gesture. The bigger the group and room, the bigger the gesture. |
| 10. |
Be prepared to be spontaneous. |
| 11. |
Reveal your personality. |
| 12. |
Don’t read your remarks. Don’t read from slides. |
| 13. |
Enliven your remarks with stories, quotations, examples, analogies, metaphors and unusual visuals. |
| 14. |
Don’t overuse PowerPoint. Less is more. |
| 15. |
Use pictures in your visuals. Put people, faces, animals, your family, etc. in the pictures. This gives your audience an emotional zap that lodges your points in their brains. |
Connect After:
| 16. |
Stick around. The good questions come up during breaks and after your bow. |
| 17. |
Be available. If you’re rushing or packing up your equipment, anyone who wants to speak with you will feel disregarded. Listen to people. If you have to vacate the stage quickly to make room for the next speaker, tell fans you’ll meet with them in hall or at the reception. |
| 18. |
Place yourself by the exit doors at the end of your presentation so you can visit, smile, shake hands and make eye contact. |
| 19. |
Offer to send bonus information via mail or e-mail to audience members. Ask them to specify the requested information on the back of their business cards. |
| 20. |
Follow through by promptly sending out requested material. |
| 21. |
Request the mailing list or cards of attendees. Send them a reminder note within two weeks of your presentation. |
| 22. |
Offer to sign them up for your e-newsletter or an e-mail follow up. |
| 23. |
Write an article for the audience’s newsletter. |
Take advantage of the time before, during and after your presentation to make a connection. You’ll boost your message’s effectiveness and longevity. You’ll be remembered. And, if you are interested in selling products, services or yourself to your audience, you’ll maximize your success.
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You are welcome to reprint this article as long as the copyright and contact information are included. Contact Karen Susman at 1-888-678-8818 www.karensusman.com karen@karensusman.com
Preparing for an important presentation of your own? Click here to rent a professional grade rental projector at a price you can afford.
February 26th, 2010
This is the final installment of our three-part series of AV tips from pro speakers. Scroll all the way down to find out how to rent a professional, affordable projector for your next presentation.
The Pro Clicker.
For less than $20 at Radio Shack, you can find a simple remote control on/off switch that enables you to swiftly and expertly have your audiovisuals appear when you want them (and disappear when you don’t). This simple gadget plugs into any standard wall outlet and is accompanied by a small hand-held keychain remote that hides easily in the palm of your hand. Simply click the “on” switch when you want to use your audiovisuals, and click the “off” switch to let the whole operation go dark.
Remember, this technique works best on an overhead projector or mechanical slide projector (as opposed to a digital system or laptop that takes time to warm up). If you choose to use a remote control associated with your laptop or projector rental, be sure to practice a bit before your presentation, to ensure you’re not fumbling with the buttons once it’s go-time.
Relax.
Professional speakers agree — the single best way to ensure a great presentation is to simply relax. Your audience can pick up on tension and nervousness, so the more at ease you are, the more receptive your listeners are. Remember to breathe!
We hope you’ve enjoyed this 3-part series on AV Tips and Tricks from Industry Experts. Got a suggestion for a speaking-related article? Post a comment here or email us and we’ll do our best to include it in this blog.
And remember Projector123.com when you need to rent a projector for your next PowerPoint presentation. Here at Projector123.com, we pride ourselves on delivering the highest quality projector rentals at competitive pricing – and we ensure that the entire process is as easy as 1-2-3. Click here to rent a projector now.
February 24th, 2010
Welcome to part two of this three-part series on presentation tips from the pros. Be sure to come back and post a comment to let us know how your presentation went!
AV Is for Support Only.
A common rookie mistake is to read the slide text to your audience. Just imagine for a moment that you were at a train stop, reading the posted train schedule and someone walked up to you and said, “Here, let me help you with that. Train stops here on Monday, 6:20 AM, 6:55AM, 7:15 AM, …” You’d probably look at the person as though they had lost their mind. If your audience can read, all that’s required are a few bullet points (NOT complete sentences) on each slide. Remember, the purpose of your audiovisuals is to support your presentation, not to replace it. Don’t get upstaged by your AV support – allow it to support you.
Familiarize Yourself.
It’s important to know your material – not your speech itself – inside and out. Memorize concepts and ideas; not specific words or sentences. This ensures authenticity in your presentation, and provides you with the confidence you need to bang out a stellar presentation. When you know the material, it becomes easy – almost conversational – to choose exactly what words will best express each concept. The more familiar you are with the material you’re presenting, the more you can count on a smooth and seamless presentation, and a vibrantly receptive audience.
Additionally, take some time to get to know your audience members before your speech (if possible.) Making that connection with people before you approach the podium makes them much more likely to be open to and interested in what you have to say during your presentation.
For a truly professional edge, rent a projector from Projector123.com. We’ll deliver directly to the location you specify, and renting from us is as easy as 1-2-3! Click here to get started.
February 22nd, 2010
In this three-part series, we explore some of the top AV presentation tips from speaking professionals. We hope these will assist you in creating your best presentation ever. Be sure to write us or post a comment to share your own tips or to let us know how your presentation turned out!
Choose Your Color Choices Wisely.
While it’s true that black text on a white background could appear a bit boring, classic color combinations are generally best. If you choose to use color, keep it simple and readable by using contrast. Yellow doesn’t appear easy to view on a white background. When choosing colors, stick with a dark text on a light background: navy on a very pale yellow; dark purple on white; dark green on a very light gray. You can certainly add visual interest with graphics and images as appropriate, but remember: the purpose of the text is to be read and absorbed. Also — as a general rule, never use orange (peach, salmon, etc.) text on a dark blue background (or vice versa) as these color combinations are typically unreadable by individuals who are colorblind.
Always Perform a Visual Check.
AV support is useless if it can’t easily be seen by every member of your audience. Sit in the back row or farthest seat from the projection screen and have a look at your slides – can you read the words or interpret the graphics easily? It’s better to include less on each slide and make the text larger, rather than create a slide that can’t be seen or understood by the entire group.
Ready to rent a projector for your next professional presentation? Click here to get started with Projector123.com and find out why marketing professionals and executives all across the U.S. are relying on us for their projector rentals.
February 19th, 2010
Planning a professional dinner meeting? Use these helpful hints for creating a memorable presentation.
Dinner meetings are becoming increasingly popular in industries throughout the U.S. Until recently, these intimate educational sessions were primarily used by pharmaceutical reps in search of uninterrupted time with busy physicians, but today, more and more executives are taking part in educational dinner meetings.
Typically an intimate gathering, a dinner meeting may include anywhere from half a dozen to twenty or so attendees. Because restaurants tend to be dimly lit, it pays to bring an LCD projector rental to ensure that all participants can see and hear the presentation clearly.
Projector123.com rents high-lumen LCD projectors for this very purpose. For as little as $99, you can reserve a professional quality projector rental and be up and running in no time. We’ll deliver to the exact location you specify (hotel, business, private address, restaurant, etc.) one day before your event to ensure that you have the equipment you need when you need it.
Each projector rental includes a quickstart setup guide, 24/7 technical assistance whenever you need it, and return shipping.
Whether you’re a drug rep presenting new drug statistics, or a marketing professional presenting sales data, a rental projector can assist you in using vivid images and demonstrative charts to clarify your points and help you get the sales.
Oh and one final yet important tip — remember to snack before you get there. You’ll be so busy networking before and during dinner (and addressing questions and comments after the meal) that you may not have time to eat! Additionally, even the finest restaurants are often willing to make you a to-go box when you include yourself in the final head count.
Bon appetit and happy presenting!
Order your rental projector today from Projector123.com — we’ll help you in selecting the most optimal unit for your location and group size. Click here to get started.
December 29th, 2009
Integrating social media, especially Twitter, is a great way to enhance audience participation at a panel or conference. It mitigates live feedback, additional engagement — and let’s face it — it just looks impressive to project a screen full of audience tweets while panelists and pundits jabber away.
But the main problem is moderation. If you’re trying to put on a professional event, you can’t risk projecting offensive or radical tweets in front of your audience or behind your panelists. A literally “live feed” of tweets could include such content, especially since anyone on Twitter can contribute their opinions (if they have your hashtag). Vetting audience tweets can also prevent a vocal minority from dominating the discussion on your screens.
The most important element is establishing one or a few “hashtags” which will help classify tweets that are unique to your event. For instance, we might tell our audience to tag their tweets with #proj123. People who tweet about us would add that tag to the end of their messages so that everyone can distinguish those from the millions of tweets that are published every minute.
When we project tweets, we’ll only display those with the hashtag — but we still want to moderate even those. There are three prominent software options that allow live moderation at events like panels and conferences. Here’s a rundown:
Paratweet
Paratweet is designed specifically for conferences and panels — and specifically for simple moderation. A moderator can just click “yes” or “no” next to a live stream of tweets and the good ones will be instantly published to a bold, easy-to-read display. It’s simple and gives you full control. However, if you’re moderating hundreds of tweets per minute, it could get extremely daunting to manually approve each and every tweet.
Unfortunately, Paratweet isn’t free. It’s $80 per month — which isn’t bad, especially since that’ll easily cover a multiple-day conference. For $140 per month, you can operate up to three simultaneous events.
Wiffiti
LocalModa is famous for creating custom digital billboards that display everything from Tweets to text messages and Wiffiti is their publicly-available web app that does roughly the same thing. Wiffiti has tons of functionality beyond just Tweets — it’ll include Flickr images and text messages as well.
But it’s greatest virtue is “auto-moderation.” You can select from three levels: “rated G”, “rated R” or “all messages.” This is great if you don’t have the extra manpower to devote one person to moderating tweets. However, Wiffiti doesn’t allow manual moderation unless you contact them (which probably means it’ll cost you).
Twubs
Like Paratweet, the Twubs Conference Suite is designed specifically for panels and conferences. Twubs bills itself as a start-up company all about hashtags, so their conference package is just one part of their operation. The package includes moderation options and a few other perks like live audio/video streaming and events scheduling via Twitter. You can even embed your moderated Twitter feed online.
Their moderation workflow is more like it is in live television. You can set a time delay for live tweets that gives you a short window to remove unwanted content. If you’re moderating a large number of tweets, this process is easier than manually approving each message in the live stream (like you would with Paratweet).
Since their tools are in beta, Twubs is free. But you’ll have to contact their team about your event in advance — so it might not be the most reliable option.
Screen image at the top of this post used through a Creative Commons 2.0 license courtesy of Flickr user “andyp uk”.
December 28th, 2009
If you don’t yet have plans for New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, there’s still plenty of time to concoct something exciting for you and your family. Here are our best last-minute plans for this momentous holiday.
A Night on the Town
Now is the time to make reservations if you’re planning to head out for New Year’s Eve, as the most popular locations are almost certainly booked solid. Yet there are still plenty of venues with availability, but don’t wait too long!
An Evening with Friends
It’s never too late to gather friends for a fun-filled evening at home. Just provide champagne, noisemakers and music, and you’ve got an instant New Year’s Eve party. You might be surprised by how many folks wait until the last minute to make their New Year’s plans.
A Romantic Evening at Home
Prefer to spend the evening with your sweetie in front of a roaring fire? Call your local grocer or seafood market and reserve a couple of lobsters for an extra-special at-home evening. Break out the china and crystal and ring in the new year in style with an elegant at-home dinner.
No matter what kind of evening you’re planning, you’ll love the excitement and perspective that comes with a projector rental from Projector123.com. An evening at home or with friends becomes even more special when you can watch the ball drop on a larger-than-life screen or wall of the living room, in vivid technicolor. Plus, you’ll get to keep the rental projector through New Year’s Day — what better way to leisurely enjoy a day off from work than by watching your favorite flicks on the big screen (in your own home!) Gather the family and create your own movie fest with a projector rental from Projector123.com.
December 4th, 2009
In this installment, we’ll provide some thoughtful tips for planning a themed holiday party.
Themed Holiday Parties: Fun for All Ages
If you’re planning a party to include folks who don’t know each other particularly well (or you just like to engage people in a party setting), a themed holiday party may be just the ticket. Try these themes on for size:
1 – Holiday Costume Party
No, we’re not talking about dozens of your closest friends all dressed as Santa Claus. Creative costume party themes might include: come dressed as your favorite gift; a “tacky” party where a prize is given for the tackiest attire; come dressed as your favorite holiday food; a pajama party; a red and green party; etc.
2 – Gift Exchange
Instead of hosting a traditional gift exchange where each person brings a gift of a set value and everyone draws names and gifts are assigned accordingly, why not kick it up a notch? Host an ornament exchange, a cookie exchange, a “white elephant” exchange, a liquor exchange, or a handmade item exchange. To make the event even more fun, try a gift swapping game like this one (White Elephant Exchange) or this one (Yankee Swap).
3 – Progressive Dinner
Several couples or families get together to create a progressive dinner. Essentially, it works like this – each family or couple is responsible for one course in the meal. The meal starts at the home responsible for “appetizer” and progresses from house to house for course to course, ending with dessert. Best to skip the alcoholic beverages on this event unless the houses are all within walking distance.
No matter what kind of fun holiday gathering you’re planning this year, spice it up with a projector rental from Projector123.com. Showcase holiday photos, your favorite holiday movies, or a slideshow of past holiday gatherings and events. Click here to rent a projector now.
December 2nd, 2009
In our last installment, we talked about simple ideas to create a fast, easy holiday gathering at home. In this segment, we’ll look at tips to help you plan a successful party outside of your home.
Party On and Party Out – Planning Holiday Gatherings Outside of the Home
There are many reasons to plan a party outside of the home — easy setup and cleanup, availability of a central location, ability to choose a venue that may be more spacious than a private home, etc. Here are some planning points to consider:
1 – What’s your budget?
Are you (or your organization) picking up the tab for the party, or is everyone paying their own way? If it’s the latter, choose a per-person amount that feels reasonable to those who are likely to attend. Be sure to calculate in anyone who won’t be expected to pay (for example, if there is a special guest, speaker, or honoree, the cost of this person’s meal is typically absorbed by the group).
2 – How will you handle the food?
You’ve got plenty of options here — including everything from meeting up at a restaurant where everyone orders off a menu and self-pays, to setting up a fixed-price menu with various options for palates and dietary restrictions, to hosting banquet-style to hiring in a caterer with or without a cash bar. Once you’ve got your budget set, you’ll find it much easier to negotiate with venues and make choices based on what the group can afford.
3 – How many people are likely to attend?
The size of your group is often a determining factor in choosing a location for your event. Some restaurant venues have multiple rooms, suitable for different sized groups, while others have a minimum or maximum party size. Start with the guest list, estimate your attendance, and take into consideration your answers to questions #1 and #2.
You’re party is sure to be a hit – have fun and if you’re planning a trip down memory lane, remember to reserve your projector rental from Projector123.com for the best prices and service available for renting a projector anywhere in the U.S.
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