In an article from the October issue of Inc., the CEO Serious Energy Kevin Surace acknowledges that “the vast majority of presentations are terrible.” In an attempt to help us out with our presentations, he offers these five colorful tips to Inc. readers:

1. Do not use PowerPoint. You do not want your presentation to look like everyone else’s presentation. So, good God, use Keynote, the Mac software that combines video and images and has great transitions that flow from one to the next.
2. Do not use bullet points. You should be shot for putting stuff in bullet points. Why would you put text on a slide? You want people looking at you. If you need to give stats, highlight a few things people should remember, or provide the numbers in a visual context, such as a pie chart or an image. Steve Jobs will put one word onscreen, like broken, and then talk about how he’s going to fix it. You’ve left people with the word broken.
3. Do not be self-effacing. They came to see you, the expert. Stand up and be the expert. You’re there to entertain. People are sitting in a room, coffee is running out, the lights are dim, and they’re starting to nod off. I bring up the energy level. I have said before, “Everybody stand up and stretch the legs. Now, we’ll all be able to learn from each other.” I’m friendly, energetic, and try to have fun. That means I never talk from behind the podium. It’s a brick wall between you and the audience.
4. Do not leave out the emotion. Lots of people want to be careful and professional when giving a talk. I want to emote. The best musicals are the ones where the girl loses the guy, and she sings about everything it was meant to be. You cry alongside her. Swing your audience’s emotions back and forth. You need to go in and say, “Here’s how bad life is. Here is what it can be. Here’s how we can get there together.”
5. Do not bore us with facts. People think it’s all about facts. I saw a guy who stood up and presented so many facts that I wanted to kill myself. He was brilliant. But how did that benefit me? If you say, “I’m going to present 19 slides on the technology we make at Timbuck Widgets,” nobody cares. It’s boring. What they do want to hear is how you’re going to make their life better. They wasted 30 minutes of their life to listen to you. Show them how these facts are going to change their lives.

 Surace is no novice in the realm of public speaking – he makes about 50 presentations a year on sustainability and green job creation. While many of these tips seem more practical in theatre than in public speaking, there is no doubt that following his advice is sure to capture an audience.

Based on our internal survey, it appears that people want to sleep in (31%) more than they want breakfast treats or beers on Fridays (both 0%), but a few people are interested in a once a month happy hour (21%) and a quarterly fun day (16%), so we will probably do a little bit of each. The toughest part is trying to figure out how to offer a Sleep In Pass to people who already sleep in without a pass.

The Interactive Account Manager delivers Internet marketing solutions to clients by identifying client needs and working with internal agency team to define projects and assign/manage agency resources to complete assignments on time and within budget.

Responsibilities

• Interfaces with the various departments of the agency to ensure smooth implementation of interactive marketing programs for clients
• Helps in the preparation of client proposals, estimates, statements of work, invoices, and reports
• Coordinates project timing and budgets with all relevant agency personnel
• Assists in developing strategic interactive marketing plans
• Maintain team status report and work in progress reports for active clients
• Reviews creative, copy, layouts, and interactive demo materials and secures client approvals
• Participates in website development review, testing and quality control
• Ensures project delivery on budget and on time
• Educates clients about the benefits of interactive marketing
• Actively seeks additional projects/new business from clients
• Stays current on marketing trends and technology
• Performs additional duties as assigned

Qualifications

• 4+ years Internet marketing experience, including SEO, email marketing, banner advertising and social marketing
• Experience in the development, design and management of websites, including experience with content management systems
• A solid understanding of Internet technologies and protocols
• Strong interpersonal and presentation skills
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills with the ability to effectively communicate with all levels of company personnel
• Leadership and team-building skills
• Strong analytical, organizational and decision-making skills

Qualified candidates should email resume to Elizabeth Lester.

For the interactive department, it was like seeing a celebrity. The excited chatter came when we spotted the Google Street View car while driving this week. If we didn’t have to return to work from our lunch outing, the plan would have been to follow it. Yes, and we would have checked Google Street View to see our blurred passenger faces. We’re geeks like that. But the reality is, none of us really knew how they worked their 360 degrees of magic. We did some research, so we thought we’d share:

• Google Street View launched in 2007.
• The mapping service depicts cities across the United States and in 29 other countries from ground level.
• On every street photographed, the user can scroll 360 degrees as well as up and down.
• The towering rooftop instrument houses 15 lenses looking in all directions.
• Once photos are taken, they are fed into a computer that blurs faces and license plates that would otherwise be recognizable.
• Technicians stitch photos into 360-degree views available in Google Maps.
• Processing these new images takes several months.
• Areas not accessible by car, like pedestrian areas, narrow streets, alleys and ski resorts, are sometimes covered by Google Trikes (tricycles) or snowmobiles.
• If you don’t want your house to be shown, you can just click on the “Report a problem” on the bottom left-hand side of the Street View image, submit a request, and they’ll blur the image.

So people of Virginia Beach please make us look good. Cut your grass, dress appropriately and look happy. There is no hiding from the Google Street View car.

On Sunday, the Meridian Group “Super Be-YACHT-es” set out on the open seas to compete in the Chesapeake Bay Wine Classic Foundation’s Wine, Women & Fishing Tournament with proceeds benefiting the Eastern Virginia Medical School breast cancer research efforts.

Here are some things we learned while being 100 nautical miles away from home:

1. Bananas are bad luck on boats, yes even if cooked in banana-nut muffins.
2. Like most things in life, vodka always suffices as a Plan B.
3. Marlin are very angry fish, but I can get more pissed off – who’s your beyatch now fish?
4. People who crew boats are really happy people (and must possess a few recessive genes of crazy).
5. Teamwork does consist of hearing your co-anglers yelling for you when it’s just your fight.
6. Cape does enable user to fly.
7. The boat may seem big, but the ocean is always bigger.
8. Fish don’t like rap music. They prefer Johnny Cash and Sugarland.
9. Side effects of “anti-nausea” medicine include yacking.
10. A hook in your neck is not a valid excuse for losing a fish.
11. Mooning is an acceptable greeting from one boat to another.
12. Cracking a beer at 7 am is completely appropriate and encouraged (as well as “sharing” some of your first beer with the fish)
13. Your marlin is always farther away than you think. Just when you think you’re about to pull it up, it’s probably still half a mile away (same goes for the ride back). Keep reelin’!!
14. If you try calling out another boat through the radio and they don’t answer, TEASE THEM ANYWAY.
15. It may be a good idea to bring a poncho for the immigration home from the North Carolina waters…
16. Advil is a must take before/after a fishing trip.
17. 24 hours later…you will still feel like you are on a boat.

All in all, we caught four marlin, avoided seasickness (for the most part) and enjoyed a beautiful (cell-phone free) day on the water! Click here to check out some pictures from the day.

Check out the excerpt below from an op-ed written by our own Joe Takach in today’s Alt Daily.

“Since I founded the Meridian Group in 1980, I have been a supporter of independent businesses. I have always somewhat shopped at local retailers when I could, knowing I was doing a good deed by supporting small businesses, but I also ate at national chain restaurants, shopped at national chain grocery stores, and stopped for a drink at a national chain bar. I had no idea, however, the impact my own small local purchases could have on the Virginia Beach community until my company developed Independent We Stand, a movement supporting locally-owned businesses across the U.S, sponsored by STIHL Inc. Since we started the movement almost a year ago, I have become an avid “buy localist.””

Want to know why Joe buys local? Read more here.

Going paperless has gotten a lot of buzz in the last few years.  Paper has been victimized by millions of people who think they are being environmentally responsible by following the paperless trend.  You may even be one of these people.  But ask yourself this: how would you feel if your husband or wife sent you an e-card for your anniversary?  

 Paper isn’t looking so bad after all, huh?  Well don’t feel guilty for not joining the paperless revolution.  Paper is 100% recyclable; furthermore, the forest products industry plants 1.7 million trees per day.  Next time you start to follow a trend, don’t forget to ask yourself why?

Take a 30 second break and check out this video, complements of PaperBecause.com and Domtar.

Ever since this ad ran in the Virginian Pilot on Wednesday, 1-XXX-XXX-XXXX has been ringing off the hook.  Oh wait… Looks like these important computer updates weren’t so important after all.  Luckily for Lincoln and Ford owners, they got it straight the following day.  It happens a lot. An out of town company sends a digital file to a local newspaper and asks them to place a local phone number into the ad. Ooops, someone was sleeping on the job. Wonder if they still have one?

Check out these gems found in the Wall Street Journal.  This is what we like to call advertising gold – these ads will have you laughing out loud one minute and flexing in a mirror the next. Way to go, NYSC!

What do you think about NYSC’s new ads?

To celebrate the heat and get out of the office for a bit, Joe took the Meridian Group and Launch teams to Todd Jurich’s 21^st Century Burger Bar for lunch.

Owner Todd Jurich served as a judge at Meridian’s Annual Q back in June and as a grand prize – the winner of the burger category, Team “the Mamas and the Papas” will have their winning burger featured on the menu sometime this year!

We enjoyed our field trip to Burger Bar; great atmosphere and delicious food! Thanks Joe!