Rose Padovani is a research and communication officer at OAF, an international development organization which provides a vast amount of up-to-date information to all countries in the world.

Rose' task is one of editing and filtering research reports and statistical data coming from the field and to publish it in a number of formats for the public at large to use. From time to time Rose needs also to report and present to her management the summary of the work produced and a well researched summary of the audience response and feedback.

In these instances Rose has been accustomed to sending emails to management with a PowerPoint presentation attached. In many cases this causes some of the recipients not to see Rose' content at all, while others complain that without the presenter there are a lot of points that needed to be cleared and that are left unanswered. Rose receives a lot of email questions concerning the PowerPoint report and it takes her some time to clarify each individual question in a friendly, positive and exhaustive approach.

Within the complaints Rose receives is one coming from her Technical Officer that suggests to her to record a narration for the presentation so that each one could get a better idea of what she intends at each point. Rose thinks that it is indeed a great idea to do this.

It is now the fourth day in a row that Rose has been testing and trying out the audio features of PowerPoint only to realize how difficult and unreliable this process can get. Rose tells me that she does not feel confident in sending out a presentation that she cannot be sure will play as she wants to.

As I think myself about a solution my memory suddenly clicks back to the guy at the Computer Training department who gave us a fantastic training only a few weeks before. "I am sure he must know" I say silently to myself, and send a rapid-fire set of emails to the training department to rapidly locate that PowerPoint trainer.

Twenty minutes later I have an email from him in my Inbox. It reads:

"No need to stress yourself with that doomed PowerPoint feature. There are other tools that can do that, but you must purchase them separately as complements to your PowerPoint application. It may also require that you convert the whole content to an effective streaming format like Flash, so that the weight of the file gets optimised and the audio can be easily synchronized and edited where needed. I understand this may be a bit of overwork for you on top of an extra expense you would need to incur.

On the other hand, a simpler, effective alternative road would be for you to DELIVER LIVE your PowerPoint presentations and to RECORD them automatically. You could then post and make available these recordings so that anyone who cannot attend can come later and still be able to look at them.

Hope this helps and if you are looking for some immediate solutions..."

How is it possible that we have not thought of this?! Giving the presentations live, allowing for interaction, providing the ability to respond to questions and to clarify any possible ambiguity in the data reported - that's it! The recording is also a perfect complement as it provides access not only to Rose's presentation but also to the questions and answers exchanged during the session.

I am now tapping on Rose shoulder while giving her a memorable 47-teeth smile. She turns and I say:

"Rose, I have found a solution for your problem.

You need a live presentation tool that allows voice conferencing and that provides a full-fledged recording facility.

I know you will not believe me, but I have just exchanged with the PowerPoint trainer and he has told me that there are several unique tools on the market that do just this. He also said not to head off toward the most popular tools like some WebEx, Placeware or Centra he mentioned, because they are too expensive, for now, to do the simple things you need.

He said that there are tools that can do what you need and that cost less than a book. He mentioned Linktivity WebDemo, VoiceCafe OfficeMaster and Groove, but he said that there were also other ones he was investigating. He suggested to try out a few of them before buying anyone, as each has specific advantages and peculiarities."

Rose is now smiling as well while consulting Robin Good's Official Guide To Web Conferencing And Live Presentation Tools.

Do you need the same things Rose has been looking for?

You too, like Rose, can get today a lot more than you are ready to bargain for. A whole new breed of cost-effective live conferencing tools for individuals and small companies are available for immediate use.
You don't need WebEx, Centra or Placeware to do the things that Rose wanted to do.

To find out everything about the best conferencing technologies that you can utilize to deliver PowerPoint presentations online please give a look to:

Robin Good's Official Guide to SOHO Web Conferencing and Live Presentation Tools