If you are like me, you don’t want to miss out on this opportunity. The minute I received the email invitation, I followed the link and purchased my VIP ticket.

This event has already been a massive success in London, England and Sydney and Melbourne, Australia attracting over 10,000 people into each venue – and now Peak Potentials is a partner in bringing this monumental live event to the San Jose Convention Center, April 10th – 12th.

So for the first time in the USA, the National Achievers Congress is bringing these names on stage together:

There are different eBook file formats that cater to different electronic readers on the market. Apart from the obvious file and device compatibility, each file format has its advantages and disadvantages. Depending on your target audience, you might choose to publish your eBook in one or several file formats.

Some of the most common file formats at this ... Read More »]]> When we hear the word eBook, our first thoughts might lead us to think of eBooks for sale on Amazon.com or other book vendors which are typically digital versions of books already published in print format. However there are many books for sale that are only published in digital format and there are even more informational eBooks that are distributed free of charge and are mainly used as a means for online lead generation or customer education.

There are different eBook file formats that cater to different electronic readers on the market. Apart from the obvious file and device compatibility, each file format has its advantages and disadvantages. Depending on your target audience, you might choose to publish your eBook in one or several file formats.

Some of the most common file formats at this time are PDF, ePub (compatible with most digital readers except the Amazon Kindle), and Mobipocket a format used by Amazon Kindle. The good news is they can all be designed and exported from Adobe InDesign. You also have the option to export the InDesign file to flash to achieve the curled page effect, but you have to keep in mind that flash is not supported by some tablets and mobile devices.

I have worked on several eBooks for my current employer and given our target audience and where they are most likely to access the files, we decided to stick to interactive pdf. Pdf is universal, supports interactivity, video and audio and can be printed at the same time. The pages are static, which means items stay in the same location no matter what device the pdf is viewed on. ePub and Mobipocket support a fluid text format that adjusts in width and height depending on the size of the reader.

For this post I have shared a few sample pages of some of the recent eBooks I worked on. The animated side ad was used to promote one of the eBooks on a third party site. To brighten up a dry topic of audit, risk and fraud, most of the sample pages shown here have bright colors and use cartoons for imagery.

If you would like to learn more about putting together an eBook, there is a great tutorial on lynda.com that is approximately 6 hours long. You can basically become an eBook pro in a weekend!

Camtasia Studio is more affordable, supports the much needed zoom feature that is lacking in Adobe Captivate but outputs files in a video format that is harder to edit. Basically it records anything ... Read More »]]> No matter what line of business you are in there will come a time when you need to demo your products and services in a more systematic way so you can reach a larger audience in the shortest amount of time possible. There are several products on the market that can package your screen captures, presentations and narration into a distributable format, like videos, flash presentations or eLearning step by step chapters. I have had a chance to work with both Camtasia Studio by TechSmith (approx. $300) and Adobe Captivate (approx $700) and they both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Camtasia Studio is more affordable, supports the much needed zoom feature that is lacking in Adobe Captivate but outputs files in a video format that is harder to edit. Basically it records anything taking place on your screen, even things you would prefer not to show like a popup window showing you just received an email or the occasional delays in response time. It also creates a challenge synchronizing voiceover narration with what is happening on the screen which becomes a bigger issue if you plan to localize the demonstration as some languages need more words to describe the same thing.

Adobe Captivate is a more powerful tool that is better suited for eLearning as it supports quizzes, scoring and integrates with Learning Management Systems. It also happens to be a great tool for software demonstrations as it has more than one recording mode. You can record in full motion which comes out like a video or in manual mode which takes screen captures every time you click on something on the screen. The mouse movement is captured and saved as a separate item on the timeline giving you the flexibility to move it anywhere on the screen and create simulations of features that are still in the making.

Each screen capture is saved on a separate slide that supports multiple timeline levels allowing you to add highlight boxes, buttons and text animations. It also gives you the flexibility to adjust the timing to fit the length of your voiceover narration. In the event something was captured that you don’t want to show in the demo, like a client name or address, you can export that particular screen capture to Photoshop and edit the information with something more appropriate and then import it back to Captivate.

Adobe Captivate still does not support the zoom in feature during recording but it has a zoom effect that you can add to small segments of each slide in editing mode. To me they look a bit fuzzy as it attempts to expand existing pixels and make them appear bigger. However, I have found a way to work around that. I usually ask the product manager to record the demonstration at high screen resolution and then I rescale the project down to 960px width. During editing, when I reach a point where I need to show a particular area a bit more clearly, I use a segment of the screen capture from the initial larger recording using the fade in and fade out effect which makes it seem as if we are zooming in. Hopefully that issue will be addressed in new releases.

I have placed a couple of links to some of the demos I worked on recently using Adobe Captivate. One feeds directly from YouTube which is not as crisp as a flash file but can be viewed on all devices, and one links to a flash file which comes out clearer but cannot be viewed on mobile devices that don’t support flash like an iPad or iPhone.

Both Camtasia Studio and Adobe Captivate are great products, so deciding will be based on your budget and what exactly you need them for. If you can’t decide, try downloading the trial version for both and test them out before you make a final commitment.

View Sample Demo in Flash View Sample Demo From YouTube

While attending the Read More »]]> We all go through different sprouts of productivity depending on what projects we are working on and what time of year it is. Like many, I feel there is something about the months of January and September that mark a beginning of productive seasons part one and part two. In January it is about reassessing our life in general and goals for the year. In September, the typical back to school season, it is about work, training and improving our skills and value. Our birthdays can also act as a milestone for measurement, however unless there are unexpected life events or deadlines on the agenda, this model leaves a large stretch of time that could pass by without much personal and professional skills evaluation.

While attending the Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar in November of 2011, I bought a set of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind Cards that are meant to give daily reminders of some of the points we learned. They are very simple and each card mentions one point taken from the book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth. And of course, there is an app for that! One of the first things I do each morning is randomly pick one of the cards and read it. It sets the tone for my day and helps me stay focused, evaluate where I am at and remember what I need to do to get where I want to go.

Part of our professional evaluation is also comparing our self to someone else in the same industry. If you are in the communication design profession in North America and wondering how much you are worth, you might find the The AIGA/Aquent Survey of Design Salaries for 2011 of interest. This will also help if you are planning to hire someone in that field.

It is common sense, but I did find this quote from T. Harv Eker really resonated with me. “You will be paid in direct proportion to the value you deliver according to the marketplace.” The main word here is value and four factors establish our value in the marketplace; supply, demand, quality, and quantity. Supply and demand are dictated by the market, but quality and quantity is something we can control. For my goals this year, I am aiming to maintain a high quality and start delivering in larger quantity.

While I have bought stocks in the past of public companies that I have personally worked for, in general I really don’t know much about trading yet. Our trainer Courtney Smith did a fantastic job teaching us the fundamentals of low risk and high returns position trading techniques. We learned about the psychology of trading, channel breakout, trend analysis, seasonality, risk management and so much more that are beyond the scope of this blog.

We also spent a lot of time learning how to read and analyze charts and looking for areas where some of the techniques we learned ... Read More »]]> I was in Los Angeles again this weekend attending Freedom Trader Intensive by Peak Potentials; one of the seminars that are included in my Quantum Leap two year self development program.

While I have bought stocks in the past of public companies that I have personally worked for, in general I really don’t know much about trading yet. Our trainer Courtney Smith did a fantastic job teaching us the fundamentals of low risk and high returns position trading techniques. We learned about the psychology of trading, channel breakout, trend analysis, seasonality, risk management and so much more that are beyond the scope of this blog.

We also spent a lot of time learning how to read and analyze charts and looking for areas where some of the techniques we learned were manifesting through historical data. I got to know eps as earnings per share rather than encapsulated postscript. It was all fascinating but the designer in me couldn’t help but think how all of this would almost be impossible if it wasn’t for the visual representation of the data. Working on diagrams and charts are not necessarily my favourite tasks but after this weekend, I will make it a point to treat them with much more respect.

I will end this post with a chart that was shared at the event. The term, a picture is worth a thousand words is familiar to many but for this chart it will have to be adjusted to a picture is worth 70,401! It shows what would have happened if $100 was invested on April 30th 1950 in both the S&P 500 and the Small Caps market with adjustments based on seasonality. Of course there are many other factors to consider, but in general it shows that the markets do perform better from October 1st to May 1st.

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If you would like to improve your presentations and documents using charts and diagrams, there are great video tutorials on Lynda.com. There you will also find a short documentary on Duarte Design, Presentation Design Studio that discusses the power of presentations and how Nancy Duarte started and grew a very successful business based primarily on presentations. She also has two great books, slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations, and Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences that you might find helpful as well.

So much happened in the news as well with politics, global markets, tech industry and so on, but there are always a few incidents that tend to stand out more than others and it is usually those with an emotional experience. For me, ... Read More »]]> This year just flew by for me. It feels like I was getting ready for New Years only a few weeks ago. Looking back, it was probably because it has been one of my most productive years. I managed to squeeze in several trips to Montreal, Toronto, Los Angeles, Palm Springs and Cancun. There were so many new and exciting changes at work. I connected with friends and family on a deeper level, met so many new and forward looking people, learned new skills and started on an exciting journey of personal development training.

So much happened in the news as well with politics, global markets, tech industry and so on, but there are always a few incidents that tend to stand out more than others and it is usually those with an emotional experience. For me, one of those incidents was on October 5th. I was in LA attending my favourite event Adobe Max and staying at the Luxe Hotel across the street from the Staples Center where a copy of USA Today was delivered to my room each morning. One of the headlines that day was “iPhone 4S not quite what was expected”. First it struck me how out of all the things happening in the world, a piece of technology grabs the most prominent spot on the cover page. Later that day, news of Steve Job’s passing was spreading like wild fire.

While I happen to be a PC girl myself (just by coincidence) and don’t own a single Apple product yet, the news saddened me deeply. After all, the whole digital graphic design industry, choice of digital fonts and the reason for many to be at Adobe Max would not be the same if it wasn’t for Steve Jobs. It also saddened me that out of all the days in the year, the headline on the day of his passing had a negative tone about his latest product release.

We could talk for hours about all the contributions he made and impact on the world, but for my notes I will borrow a list from Lance Ulanoff posted on Mashable of some of the top life lessons we can learn from this incredible man. These are points I will review regularly and incorporate in my plans for 2012.

STEVE JOBS 20 LIFE LESSONS

I first heard of responsive designs while attending Adobe Max 2010. The topic of Mobile devices was highlighted during the keynote speech and other sessions. I was already in the process of migrating my existing site, designed in 2005, to WordPress using the Thesis Theme Framework. After the event, I decided to put that project on hold until I gathered more information on responsive designs. I spent weeks looking for the right theme, but only a ... Read More »]]> On a personal level, I do tend to like responsive people. Who wouldn’t appreciate someone who is alert, open and approachable? The same applies to our online presence. We need to make sure that we are approachable and open for business to all no matter what device our site is viewed on.

I first heard of responsive designs while attending Adobe Max 2010. The topic of Mobile devices was highlighted during the keynote speech and other sessions. I was already in the process of migrating my existing site, designed in 2005, to WordPress using the Thesis Theme Framework. After the event, I decided to put that project on hold until I gathered more information on responsive designs. I spent weeks looking for the right theme, but only a handful addressed the issue of mobile devices.

By mid 2011 a few appealing responsive themes started to show up on the market. However, I was faced with the dilemma that many don’t work well on Internet Explorer. In fact some even look distorted, especially on IE 6 & 7. There are many PC users still using XP and Vista and are unable to upgrade their browsers without upgrading windows altogether, especially those in corporate environments and government agencies that tend to take longer to upgrade any software or hardware given the sheer volume of staff. Despite the doubt, I decided to look ahead and Be Responsive. After all, most of my site visitors are most likely marketers or designers and would surf the web using the latest and greatest. If you spot any issues with my site and have the correct CSS to fix it, please send it over!

On the left are a few themes and frameworks that appealed to me. I purchased three of them to do a bit of testing before I decided on Super Skeleton WP designed by Brandon Jones and available on the ThemeForset site. The design is clean and the template is easy to edit.

Another option is to mock up a design that works for your sitemap using Photoshop and send that to a company like PSD to HTML. You can specify your CMS of choice and they will build the theme or template based on your design, needs and configuration. For a large corporate site, I would definitely go that route no matter what CMS you choose. They even offer the option to audit your existing code and make sure it works on all browsers. For most individuals or small companies, it always makes better sense to get a head start using an existing customizable theme. With a bit of PHP and CSS, you can easily change the look and feel of most responsive themes.

If you are new to WordPress, you will love the tutorials available on Lynda.com. They are concise and cover most issues you might encounter. If you are using a good responsive theme, please do send me a link!

Online newsletters offer the advantage of a wider audience, are more customizable and easily personalized, very cheap to distribute, and save a few trees along the way. If you have a blog, you can use weekly ... Read More »]]> Newsletters are an integral part of any business communication efforts. They maintain a customer relationship and can go a long way in educating and persuading prospects and clients to work with you. They give the reader a taste of what your business is all about and an opportunity to elaborate on solutions, topics and case studies that might not be appropriate for a short brochure. They offer a way of interacting with inactive customers and a chance to cross-sell other related products or services.

Online newsletters offer the advantage of a wider audience, are more customizable and easily personalized, very cheap to distribute, and save a few trees along the way. If you have a blog, you can use weekly or monthly newsletters to highlight some of your most recent posts.

However, print newsletters still have a prominent place and stand out in a digital age where every Tom, Dick, and Harry seem to be sending email newsletters. Print newsletters also come in handy at tradeshows and events, and are a perfect companion to any business brochure when talking to new prospects.

In this piece, I have attached samples of two more traditional print newsletters I worked on over the last few years. They are available in short print runs for trade shows and events, and also posted online and emailed in pdf format for wider distribution.