May 7, 2004 Note From the Executive Editor I've got some terrific Spring CEOExpress surprises in store for you, so read on! May New and Notable: Since the last member letter, we have received some great ideas for new services and features from the CEOExpressSelect membership. We have implemented two of them and wanted to let you in on the plan. Our fabulous new "CEO Scratch Pad" feature: This excellent suggestion came from Rick Manganello, CEO of Wind Mill International, an Inc 500 company that helps the government manage defense programs more effectively. Rick wanted to be able to jot down notes that would be available from anywhere. Toby McGuire of my staff then built the CEOExpress "Scratch Pad" (see demo) that accomplishes what Rick was looking for and much more. We turned this feature on this morning, and you will find the "note icon" for the "CEO Scratch Pad" next to your name in the upper left corner of your personal page. Please enjoy this free upgrade to your CEOExpressSelect membership. I'll let Rick tell you what it does: "This new note feature is truly remarkable. It lets me make notes, record purchases, paste confirmations, and maintain date-synchronized reminders right on the keyboard, without paper or printer. Since I work from multiple computers world-wide, I no longer have to carry a pocket full of notes or use someone's printer along the way. Any browser can access CEOExpress, and that in turn has my information at my fingertips. A million thanks to Patricia and her incredible team for a near-instantaneous rollout of an impeccable capability!" Rick Manganello An extra bonus: We will shortly have this functionality available for your handheld device so that you can send and access notes between your handheld and desktop. Our CEOExpress private label Corporate product will also be adding this functionality—with the added capability of managing group reminders and collaboration. Ad-Free Log-in page: CEOExpressSelect member, Joe Smith, asked for an ad-free log-in page. We are happy to accommodate. Now, if you are traveling, or just want to avoid the ads on the public CEOExpress, you can go directly to your new "preferred member" login page at https://www.ceoexpress.com/login. This URL should be easy for you to remember when traveling. If you sign out of your CEOExpressSelect account each time you leave your computer, simply set https://www.ceoexpress.com/login as your homepage, and you'll never have to deal with ads on our public site again. Thanks for the suggestion Joe! May's "Did you know we had this feature?": Did you know that we have a "Remote Sign Out" security feature that lets you instantaneously sign out of every computer in the world that you have ever used to access CEOExpress, no matter where you are? Here's a real life example of why it is such a great feature: A year ago I signed into my CEOExpressSelect page while in the Zurich airport. They called my plane and I ran to the gate. I couldn't remember if I had signed out of my home page or not, so when I arrived in London, I logged into my CEOExpress homepage at the airport, and remotely signed out of all computers that I was signed into with one quick key stroke! You can find this feature in the upper left hand corner of your homepage. May's Software Tip: Build Great PowerPoint Presentations: OK, so I have promised to tell you about some great tools and tricks for PowerPoint. There is a lot of bad and amateurish PowerPoint around. I'm sure you've seen as much as I have. Hiring a pro to do your slides is nice, but it can be very expensive and more importantly very time consuming with all the back and forth discussion that is required. Building great PowerPoint presentations is not hard and there are terrific tools that can make you look great, quickly and easily. I have created a multimedia presentation that incorporates all the tools below. Here is my PowerPoint tool box: Professional Templates: Professionally created templates are inexpensive and make an enormous difference in your presentation. I use templates from Presentation Pro and love them, but there are other excellent options that are have more "a la carte" options such as Corbis Biz Presenter. Do not use the templates found within PowerPoint—everyone has seen them a thousand times. RoboScreenCapture: I can't live without this tool—I not only use it for PowerPoint, but for a hundred other uses every day. You can capture a picture of anything on your desktop and crop it to the right size in 3 seconds. It is blindingly simple and inexpensive. You can capture a picture of a website or document and insert into your slide presentation without having to ask for help. You can even mail the captured picture directly out of the program. There is a free trial, so there's no risk. See an example in the "sample presentation" below. Biz Art: Terrific, high quality, business only, royalty free art. Perfect for presentations and many other business applications. $59 and worth every penny. Click Here Articulate Presenter: I consider this one of my three most indispensable software programs. This program allows you to distribute your narrated PowerPoint presentation in a flash format that is much smaller in size than standard PowerPoint and can be viewed by everyone with a browser. And you can do it by yourself. Flash programmers cost at least $150/hour with the simplest flash presentation costing well over $1500. With Articulate Presenter a non-technical user can create rich-media presentations by integrating narration and interactivity with a standard PowerPoint file. At the press of the button, your presentation is transformed to a sophisticated flash presentation that can be seen in any browser or burned to a self extracting CD. You've been reading my words for years, now you can hear me :-) See and listen to this sample presentation that I created in literally five minutes this morning to show you how it works (make certain your speakers are on). There is a free trial of this software and I would encourage you to take it for a test drive. It's not cheap, but will pay for itself in your first presentation. Free Trial CEOExpress Web Conference: Interested in a free live web conference with yours truly talking about PowerPoint and some tricks of the trade like using Articulate Presenter and all the great animation tools? Just click here and let us know you are interested. If there is enough interest, we'll set it up. You can also tell us about other web conferences that would interest you. June Newsletter: Next month, I will introduce you to a mind mapping software program. Once you start using it, you will use every day for every project you work on. Promise. Shameless Self Promotion: Don't forget our great new CEOExpress Baseball Caps. Those who have already purchased a hat (or 3) love them. Those who haven't - shame on you! Wear one proudly and help spread the word. I would greatly appreciate it. Newsletter Archives: To refer to a previous newsletter, visit our Newsletter Archive. I hope you are having a great spring and I look forward to hearing your response to the CEO Scratch Pad. As usual, feel free to send me a note. I truly enjoy hearing from you. Best regards, Patricia Pomerleau CEO CEOExpress Company LLC 617 482 1200 CEOExpress Corporate | Scratch Pad | CEOX Baseball Caps | Newsletter Archive