I sometimes wonder if the engineers and developers at Google wouldn’t have been at home in the Renaissance, since they seem to constantly be thinking of new ways to revolutionize technology, communication, and the flow of information on a weekly basis. As it is, they are finishing out 2011 by releasing a series of new tools and toys that you should know about:

Google Insights. This is an interesting tool that lets you use the world’s largest search engine not just to find information, but also to see what others have been finding lately, too. Want to know which celebrities, music clips, or travel destinations are “hot” right now? Google Insights puts the raw data at your fingertips.

Google Music. Interested in having up to 20,000 songs in the cloud, download them, stream them to play instantly, or sharing them between smart phones and other devices? If so, then this ultra-cool service is built just for you. Google Music is currently only available in the USA, but if you take a trip down South you can activate your account while you are away from your Canadian home. Songs sell for as low as 0.49 each and you can get full albums for as low as $4.99 (US Dollars of course).

Google Chromebook. Want to know what some of the smartest engineers on the planet could do with the concept of a netbook? Not only do these devices – which are coming to big-box stores everywhere this winter – add all kinds of functionality the market, but they also have amazing group-leasing rates for organizations. This one was definitely on my Christmas list… and guess what? Santa had to order it from Amazon.com (not .ca) and delivered it to our Arizona address. You guessed it… not quite available in Canada just yet, but watch for it soon.

If you aren’t already familiar with these new  toys and tools, then I encourage you to take a few minutes to check them out. Not only are they lots of fun, but they could turn out to be incredibly useful, or at the very least, give you a sense of where the Internet is headed.

If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that Google will likely keep releasing new gadgets, platforms, and pieces of software in 2012. And why not? Although not all of them pan out to be the way the company might envision (does anyone remember Google Wave, which was supposed to revolutionize e-mail?), those same technologies and ideas tend to pop up again later. In other words, Google doesn’t limit their ideas strictly to the products that have been launched… they hold onto the best ones and keep building on them through successive products.

Are you looking for a Canadian speaker who can help your audience to get the most out of today’s technology? Contact me today to find have a look at my speaking schedule and availability. I’ll look forward to chatting. Cheers.

For those of you who haven’t tried it yet, public speaking opportunities are a great way to position yourself as a leader in your industry, while making a little bit of cash at the same time. With that being said, however, there are a few things you might want to consider if you aren’t planning on making your first paid speech your last.

There are seven quick tips for creating speeches that are entertaining and informative:

Don’t do “death by PowerPoint.” There was a time when PowerPoint was new, exciting, and cutting-edge… unfortunately, that was for about five minutes in the early 90s. Now, it’s just another tool to supplement your presentation. Rely on it too much, and your audience will start to wonder you are trying to hide beneath all those slides and multimedia clips.

Remember that preparation is the best way to beat stress… In surveys, people regularly report that public speaking is their number one fear – one step ahead of dying. You probably wouldn’t be reading this article if you had a crippling fear of presenting to groups, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a bad case of nerves before speech. It happens to all of us.

The best way around this problem is simply to over-prepare. The more you know, and the more ready you are, the fewer butterflies you’re going to feel in the pit of your stomach as your speech approaches.

… And that that practice makes perfect. By the same token, once you have planned out what you want to say, practice it until you feel comfortable enough with the material that you feel like you could give your speech without notes. That’s not to say that you should go without notes, of course, but that put in enough time to be sure your presentation has a good chance of going smoothly.

Avoid repeating yourself. A sign of a weak or unprepared speaker is that they will come back to the same point again and again, using it as a crutch to stand up for the rest of their presentation on. Your audience doesn’t want to hear the same thing several times over, so break that habit of repeating yourself.

Avoid repeating yourself. See what I mean?

Anticipate the questions your audience will ask, and then be prepared for them. In every topic, there are probably 5 or 10 questions that are naturally going to come up. Anticipate them, and rehearse the answers you’re going to give. By thinking about these things ahead of time, you can give replies that are quick, crisp, and insightful – everything you would want for the rest of your speech.

Treat humor, quotations, and statistics like you would a powerful hot sauce. A good joke, an interesting fact, or a timely quotation can all add a bit of punch to your speech… but only if you don’t overuse them. Consider this as you plan out your major topics and talking points; go too far and you will overwhelm your audience and risk having them lose your main points.

Social media might be one of the newest and greatest thing, but those of us who’ve been around the web design and online marketing industry for a while have seen similar trends take shape before. And while the technology and possibilities might be ever more exciting, some of the same sorry trends are starting to pop up, as well.

Case in point: a lot of men and women who were selling computer support or promotional products a few months ago are now suddenly marketing themselves as “gurus” that can help you find the enlightened path to profits from sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Given that guru actually means “Hindu or Buddhist religious leader and spiritual teacher,” among other definitions, it would seem that these folks are failing in just about every sense of the word. That’s because most of them can’t help you with your social network marketing plan anymore than they can tell you their name in Hindi. What they are realizing, however, is that business owners and online marketers are scrambling for answers, or at least some kind of edge, in this new and increasingly-competitive field.

What you need to know and remember is this: social media is not snake oil; there are customers to be found, and profits to be made, from the major social networking sites, not to mention a handful of others that are still popping up. Neither, however, is a “quick fix” that’s going to replace the hard work of identifying your target market, making a compelling offer, and generating lots of interesting content. Those are the things that have always driven business on the web, and that’s not likely to change for a long time.

The next time you hear or see someone who is practically screaming that social media is changing the way the Internet works, go ahead and believe them. But hold off on sending them a small fortune for their products or advice; just because they don’t know what a guru is doesn’t mean you have to act like you don’t, either.

If you are looking for answers regarding social media marketing, search engine optimization or website design, please do not hesitate to drop me a note.