The Evoca Voice Comments Recorder plugin for WordPress enables bloggers and website hosts to invite online visitors to record voice comments, in addition to typing a standard text comment. This innovative online voice recording feature is available for anyone using WordPress.org web software to build a blog or website. Getting the Evoca voice commenting plugin is easy at the WordPress website or with an Evoca Express account.

Evoca’s launch of its Voice Comments Recorder plugin coincides with the WordCamp Savannah 2010 conference being held August 20-21 and with the return of educators and students to classrooms and campuses around the world. “Evoca has been a favorite voice recording service for language educators everywhere”, remarked Murem Sharpe, Evoca CEO. “Our new WordPress voice commenting feature enables instructors and students to exchange voice recordings for language practice and feedback sessions, threaded together with text comments.” It is incorporated directly within the standard WordPress commenting system, so educators can review recordings before publishing them online, just as they do with text comments.

WordPress users can create password-protected pages for language classes based on the Evoca voice commenting feature. English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and foreign language instruction is a multi-billion dollar sector. Evoca readily handles high volumes of recordings with its scalable software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform.

With over 11 million downloads of WordPress version 3.0, WordPress is the most popular web software in use today. It is used by over 300 of the 10,000 largest websites worldwide.

For more information about Evoca’s voice-to-web service subscriptions, visit www.evoca.com. A 30-day Evoca Express free trial subscription is available.

Our friend, T.J. Walker , CEO of Media Training Worldwide and top communications expert, offers practical advice about getting feedback from the home team before you take your speech on the road in front of bigger audiences. He encourages you to try out your speech with a smaller audience – a “free focus group.”

Evoca can help you rehearse and get feedback. Record your speech using your phone, just like a mic, use Skype, or our online recorder.  Then email the voice recording right from your Evoca Express account to your inner circle to get feedback. Listen to it yourself, too. Once you’ve perfected it, you can email the entire recording or excerpts to the media in the cities where you are scheduled to deliver it. Need a transcription, too? You can order it online or email it to your in-house transcriber.

Take it away T.J. …

So you have just finished what you think is one of your run-of-the mill presentations, but this time it is to a group twice the normal size in one of your regional offices. After your speech, you are approached by three people.

• Suzy says to you, “Great job on the presentation.”

• Sam says, “Nice speech today!”

• Finally, Jim says (with a big smile), “I won’t forget your speech today, that’s for sure.”

You smile to your colleagues and you smile to yourself. You think, “Darn it, I AM good.” There is only one problem: your speech may have been horrible. How can that be, you may ask, given all of the unsolicited praise? Unfortunately, praise like that is meaningless when it is so general and abstract. Let’s look again at the praise you received.

• Suzy says, “Great job on the presentation.” What she really means is “Please recommend me for that promotion to New York City.”

• Sam says, “Nice speech today!” What he really means is, “I deserve a raise.”

• And when Jim says, “I won’t forget your speech today, that’s for sure.” He really means, “I won’t forget it because you put me to sleep in the first 30 seconds and I never heard it in the first place. Thanks for the time to catch up on my shuteye!”

When you receive praise from audience members immediately after you speak, here is what you should do if you are looking for meaningful feedback.

• Say, “Thank you. What part of the speech stands out for you?” or “What part of the speech was most helpful.”

If the person complimenting you says something like, “Oh, everything about your speech was great,” then you know your speech was a disaster and the person complimenting you is just giving your praise for other reasons, perhaps sympathy.

You should always probe audience members for what they remember in your speech. Which stories stick in their brains? How would they summarize your speech to a colleague tomorrow who was not in attendance? This research is golden for a speaker and it is FREE!

If you try out new material or a new story in a speech and nobody comments on it, maybe it wasn’t so great after all. If everyone tells you after the speech that they loved the story you told (almost as an afterthought) near the end of your speech about the time you went to San Diego and pulled an all-nighter with your team in order to close the sale the next day, then maybe you give that story a more prominent placement in your next presentation, as long as it makes the point you desire.

Great speakers are often great because they use each and every single speech as an opportunity to get a free focus group on how to improve for their next speech. You can to, as long as your probe your audience members after you receive compliments.

Copyright 2010 TJ Walker

To capture Hospice patients’ life stories, professionals and volunteers are using the convenient recording-by-phone service offered by Evoca, providing a precious legacy and family keepsake. Interviewers can record using any phone, just like a microphone, while visiting the patient or during a phone call. The recordings – saved in a password protected account in standard MP3 format – can be downloaded, burned to CDs, and listened to online. Recordings made off-line with digital recording devices also can be uploaded to the Evoca Express account for safekeeping and sharing.

Recalling and preserving their stories is an important activity for patients who want to capture their memories for posterity. Patients’ stories can be kept private or contributed as oral histories for their families, communities, veterans’ associations, and religious organizations. For example, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization more than 50,000 veterans die each month; that’s roughly 28% of all deaths in the United States.

Using the phone as a “mic” for an in-person interview puts the patient at ease.

A phone interview often is easier to schedule with an elderly or disabled patient, who can readily answer a phone call and often likes to talk on the phone.

Hospices can acquire one central Evoca Express Pro subscription or one subscription per patient and family. A family member can also subscribe online to get underway. The person who is managing the Evoca Express account can register up to 30 phone numbers of interviewers – staff, volunteers, family members, or friends. Phone recordings can be made from a registered phone or by using the registered phone number as the password for activating the recording session.

Subscriptions are renewable on a monthly basis and allow for unlimited length of individual recordings and the ability to increase recording storage time. Registered family and friends can use Evoca to record supportive messages, stories, humor, music, and words of love for the patient to play.

To learn more about how to create, save, and share audio recordings visit Evoca’s YouTube channel. Videos also include how to record interviews using Skype, the free international phone service, in case the patient and interviewer are countries or continents away from each other. More information about Evoca voice recording services also is available at Evoca’s online How To guide.

Tips about how to project your best voice during a phone interview are delivered by T.J Walker, one of our favorite experts in media and presentation training.  Sounds like much of T.J.’s advice can apply to both interviewees and interviewers.

You must have high energy. You must sound like you are excited, not bored by your subject matter.  People tell us all the time that their topic is too serious and that they wouldn’t want to sound like some infomercial salesman.   That’s not what we’re suggesting you do.  We realize that your voice is the only criteria an audience has to judge you by.  If you sound boring, they will think you are boring and just tune out.  It’s as simple as that.  Every time we practice with a CEO or executive on bringing their voice above their comfort zone and have them record it and watch the results, they are always pleasantly surprised.  It doesn’t sound like an infomercial salesman at all. It sounds like someone who is just plain interesting and compelling.

Here’s a little tip:  When talking on the phone stand up (even when people can’t see you.)  This will help loosen your vocal cords and give you more energy.  It also helps to bring out natural highs and lows in your voice.

USE NOTES – This isn’t a high school exam, you can have a sheet of paper in front of you with a FEW key bullet points that you want to bring up.

If you add some preplanned SOUND BITES to that sheet, that’s good too.

However, DON’T READ paragraphs off your sheets of paper.  Even if your audience can’t see you, your reading will be obvious to them. You will sound flat and boring.  Bullet points are just memory joggers.

Your message trumps production values. Spend less time worrying about the technology and what microphone is being used, and more time making sure you stay on message.

With permission © 2010 TJ Walker Speaking

Ready for your next phone interview? Whether you’re the interviewer or interviewee, you can record it using Evoca. Check out our How To video: Record phone interviews. This informative video and other Evoca How To videos are available at www.youtube.com/evoca.

It’s a web-based marriage made in cyber heaven … using Skype + Evoca to record your interviewee a mile away or thousands of miles away using Skype and Evoca’s voice-to-web service, Evoca Express. It’s easy to sign up and then use immediately. Record, hang up, and the MP3 recording is right there in your Evoca account to email, post, share, or keep private.

Sign up for an Evoca Express subscription, free trial or Pro or a susbcription with a dedicated Local or Toll-free number. You will register your Skype account during the sign up process. Pro, Local, and Toll-free accounts get up to 30 registered Skype accounts (and phone numbers). The free trial gets you started with 3 registered Skype accounts (and phone) numbers.

If you are already an Evoca Express subscriber, register your Skype account. See how at: http://www.evoca.com/how-to/create-recordings/register-skype-accounts/. Our YouTube How To video about it is at the bottom of the page.  Or go to the video in our YouTube channel directly.

To record your own voice using Skype go to:  http://www.evoca.com/how-to/create-recordings/record-using-skype/. Our YouTube How To video about it is at the bottom of the page. Or go to our YouTube channel video.

To record an interview using Skype go to: http://www.evoca.com/how-to/create-recordings/record-skype-interviews/. Our YouTube How To video about it is at the bottom of the page. Or go to our YouTube channel video.

Reminder: you can also use any of Evoca’s worldwide phone numbers to interview other people or your own voice, right from your registered phone number.

For more Evoca How To articles and videos, visit our online How To section devoted to helping you “empower your voice” with Evoca.

Recording your voice has always been easy with Evoca using any phone, Skype, or computer mic. For Evoca subscribers using their phones to record valuable content such as interviews, conference calls, voice-overs, opinions, testimonials, language lessons, and stories, we have added France, Denmark, Finland, and Norway. This brings our Evoca worldwide phone coverage to 28 international cities and 34 cities in the United States.

Denmark: +45 78 77 50 08
Finland: +358 94 2419 190
France: +33 1 82 88 25 37
Norway: +47 21 05 82 36

Evoca access currently includes the European countries of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, along with Israel and Australia, and countries in Asia and South America. International numbers are listed at the end of the blog post. If you would like to request a phone number for your country, email Evoca Business Development and we will research its availability.

If you are new to Evoca, you can sign up for a free trial subscription and start recording from your phone immediately:

• Call, speak, hang up (or listen, erase and re-record)
• Recordings are instantly saved to your Evoca Express account as MP3 recordings
• You can email the recording, share it online using a standard viral player widgets, post it to Twitter — or keep it private
• For subscribers who want to customize player widgets, they can use our Evoca player wizard to brand it, size it, include an image to make a talking photo, select different player behaviors like loops and instant playback, and lots more.
• It is also convenient to record a phone interview or Skype interview. Conference call recordings are just as easy.

You can learn more at our online How To section at www.evoca.com/how-to and our Evoca YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/evoca. To use another Evoca audio content creation tool, WordPress users can get information about adding the Evoca Audio Recorder plugin to their websites or blogs at the WordPress.org website or the Evoca website.

Here is a complete list of Evoca international phone numbers:

With media companies around the world seeking ways to increase their journalists’ reach and productivity, Evoca (www.evoca.com), the leading global voice-to-web recording service, has been cited as the essential tool to do it. Both professional and citizen journalists use Evoca to record and podcast interviews with newsmakers in the political, financial, environmental, entertainment, travel, domestic and international security, and other dynamic sectors. They also can instantly tweet the entire interview recording or use audio clips for radio programs, voice-overs in videos, and audio highlights embedded in online articles.

Evoca subscriber Orlando Montoya, Savannah-based news producer for Georgia Public Broadcasting (http://www.gpb.org/), is the Voice of the Coast across the state and nation.  Montoya explains how he uses Evoca’s phone-to-web service to record timely interviews from anywhere.

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Montoya cites “With Evoca I can do interviews for the radio wherever I am with a cell phone. Before, I had to make an appointment, drive to the radio station, and hope the production room was free.” In addition to initiating his outbound mobile call from the field or his home office, he adds, “Now I can give my subjects my telephone number. If I am driving I can pull over; it comes directly downloaded to my account and sends me an email that it’s there. And it sounds good.”

As a veteran reporter, Montoya observes that “in these times that we are in, we are doing more with less and we have to be more efficient as an organization.” He says he has been able to “become more flexible and efficient as a reporter.” Orlando Montoya’s reports can be heard across the state on GPB’s 16-station state-wide radio network and locally on WSVH 91.1 FM in Savannah and WWIO 88.9 FM in Brunswick. Montoya’s beat includes such diverse issues as tropical storms, troop deployments, the environment, political scandals, education, art, music, history and culture.

Instructions for recording an interview using any phone are found at Evoca’s YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/evoca#p/u/0/f_kpsEus9Ho and online How To guide: www.evoca.com/how-to/create-recordings/record-phone-interviews/. Recording interviews using Skype is just as easy, as the Evoca team explains on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/evoca#p/u/4/FugVzEUtAG8 and in our online How To guide: http://www.evoca.com/how-to/create-recordings/record-skype-interviews.  With interviews as a popular method of communication, many writers, researchers, human resources professionals, historians, genealogists, psychologists, and alumni groups find Evoca an easy tool for both the interviewer and interviewee when in-person meetings are not convenient.

Pointing to Evoca’s mission to offer easy-to-use web and phone services to support journalists, bloggers, activists, and anyone with something to say, Evoca CEO Murem Sharpe recalls, “Evoca chose the tagline ‘Empower your voice’ to underscore this mission.” She adds, “We have become an ideal tool for professional and citizen journalists, bloggers, writers, and activists, who understand that real voices from real people make their stories fresh, compelling, and genuine.” Transcriptions of recordings are also available through online ordering.

About Evoca
Evoca (http://www.evoca.com/) is a leading global Voice-to-Web services provider, enabling businesses, organizations and individuals to easily create and share interviews, testimonials, opinions, stories, and language lessons using phone, Skype™, and its browser microphone. Its online recorder also enables recording through any computer mic. Evoca subscribers can share recordings on Facebook, Twitter, websites, and blogs by posting player widgets streamed by Evoca or use recordings within a private group. Evoca’s YouTube channel subscribers how to use its features to record and share interviews, conference calls, testimonials, comments, language practice sessions, voice-overs, storytelling, and for many other audio-based content creation purposes.

Evoca Express is available online as a 30-day free trial, Pro, Local, or Toll-free subscription. Subscribers access the call recording feature by dialing any of its worldwide public phone numbers or Skype (http://www.evoca.com/skype/), and also can get dedicated local or toll-free telephone numbers in over 45 countries and more than 5,000 cities around the globe to invite their audiences and followers to record news, comments, and opinions. It is delivered through Evoca’s highly scalable “Software-as-a-Service” media platform. Large organizations, other web services, and telecommunications partners also can license Evoca Enterprise, its multi-media, enterprise-grade platform delivered through a flexible interface (RESTful HTTP API – applications programming interface).

For more information, visit www.evoca.com or contact Evoca at +1.212.372.7670, toll-free U.S./Canada +1-866-940-9988, businessdevelopment@evoca.com, use our online contact form http://www.evoca.com/contact.php, or record your message using our Skype call recorder contact: evoca-bizdev-call-recorder. Any Evoca Express subscriber can receive the Evoca Express webinar training schedule by emailing: customerservice@evoca.com.

©2010 Evoca LLC. All rights reserved. All copyrights and trademarks mentioned herein are property of their respective owners.

The Cradle of Prayer is intent on sharing the traditional Anglican service beyond the walls of All Saints Anglican Church in Mills River, North Carolina. To achieve the goal of being a 21st century online resource for hope, comfort, and compassion, they turned to Evoca, a leading global audio web services provider. Evoca is making podcasting of prayers, scripture readings, and music very easy for members of religious groups.

Cradle of Prayer offers free MP3 listening and downloads of prayers and soothing classic hymns and songs. Evoca supports playback of daily services and weekly collections. Listeners can email single recordings or entire albums to others. Other religious and spiritual organizations podcast sermons and prayer chains using Evoca. While the Cradle of Prayer sends their website visitors directly to the Cradle of Prayer Evoca account, here are two examples of the players that any Evoca subscriber can embed in their web pages:

• A standard single recording player with a viral share button for posting by visitors to their own web pages, blogs, Facebook, and more, using Evoca’s auto-generated embed code:

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• A customized playlist player displaying images for each recording and including a viral share button. It was created using the Evoca player wizard that generated its embed code:

<div style=”width:400;” id=”flashPlayerHtml_cradle”> <div id=”playerHeader_cradle”> </div> <div class=”evocaFlashPlayer” id=”div_cradle”> <span class=”mceItemObject” classid=”clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000″ codebase=”http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,24,0″ width=”400″ height=”140″> <span name=”movie” value=”http://www.evoca.com/evocaPlayer/ev-pl-4x.swf” class=”mceItemParam”></span> <span name=”quality” value=”high”class=”mceItemParam”></span> <span name=”flashVars” value=”&file=http://www.evoca.com/CradleofPrayer/4thecradleofprayerlisteningroom.playlist?maxResults=20&playlist=right&playlistsize=280&v=4&plugins=http://www.evoca.com/evocaPlayer/ee-plugin.swf&skin=http://www.evoca.com/evocaPlayer/jw-default-skin-no-thumbs.swf&backcolor=0xCCFFFF&frontcolor=0×000000&lightcolor=0×000000&screencolor=0×000000&logo=&defaultImage=http://www.evoca.com/ImageRetriever?oid=A&stretching=uniform&displayclick=play&autostart=false&repeat=false&shuffle=true&volume=80&maxResults=20″ class=”mceItemParam”></span> <span class=”mceItemEmbed” src=”http://www.evoca.com/evocaPlayer/ev-pl-4x.swf” mce_src=”http://www.evoca.com/evocaPlayer/ev-pl-4x.swf” width=”400″ height=”140″ allowfullscreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”always” flashvars=”&file=http://www.evoca.com/CradleofPrayer/4thecradleofprayerlisteningroom.playlist?maxResults=20&playlist=right&playlistsize=280&v=4&plugins=http://www.evoca.com/evocaPlayer/ee-plugin.swf&skin=http://www.evoca.com/evocaPlayer/jw-default-skin-no-thumbs.swf&backcolor=0xCCFFFF&frontcolor=0×000000&lightcolor=0×000000&screencolor=0×000000&logo=&defaultImage=http://www.evoca.com/ImageRetriever?oid=A&stretching=uniform&displayclick=play&autostart=false&repeat=false&shuffle=true&volume=80&maxResults=20″ ></span> </span> </div> <div id=”playerFooter_cradle”> </div> </div>

Stacy Stephens, a co-founder and soprano, opens each service as cantor with a seasonal verse of a hymn, followed by the reading of the prayers and Psalms by co-founder Reverend Paul Blankinship. Anyone can also subscribe to the site to get new recording updates via RSS feeds.

“Evoca makes it easy for listeners of all ages to benefit from our services, which include scripture readings and music. After recording, our cantor simply uploads to our Evoca account, “ said Cathy Rodgers, webmaster of Cradle of Prayer and principal of 7 Waves Marketing. “We then offer our listeners a link to the recordings from our website to listen or download. We have people of all ages who come to our site every day.”

“Cradle of Prayer is an excellent example of how anyone can offer audio listening and downloads right from their Evoca account,” added Murem Sharpe, Evoca CEO. “This fits with Evoca’s mission to make it easy for subscribers — from beginners to experts — to share valuable audio content online.”

About Evoca
Evoca is a leading global voice-to-web services provider that enables businesses, organizations and individuals to easily record interviews, testimonials, opinions, stories, and language lessons using any phone, Skype™, and any computer mic. Evoca subscribers post viral audio widgets on their websites that can share recordings on Facebook, Twitter, websites, and blogs. Evoca Express is available online as a free trial, Pro, Local, or Toll-free subscription. Large organizations, other web services, and telecommunications partners also can license Evoca Enterprise, its multi-media, enterprise-grade platform delivered through a flexible interface.

For more information, visit www.evoca.com or contact Evoca at +1.212.372.7670, toll-free U.S./Canada +1-866-940-9988, businessdevelopment@evoca.com, use our online contact form, or record your message using our Skype call recorder contact: evoca-bizdev-call-recorder. Any Evoca Express subscriber can receive the Evoca Express webinar training schedule by emailing: customerservice@evoca.com.

As an avid user of Evoca phone-to-web services to podcast her literary work online, Alice Shapiro, Atlanta-based poet and Pushcart Prize nominee has partnered with Evoca to launch The Change Interviews project to enable Pushcart Prize winners and 2010 nominees to share their spoken words online. Authors’ voices are recorded and podcast For The Change Interviews project using Evoca’s phone-to-web services.

Annually about 60 authors from dozens of presses in the independent publishing field are named Pushcart Prize winners. Outstanding works of fiction, poetry, memoirs and essays are published in the anthology The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. Founding Editors of the annual anthology include Paul Bowles, Ralph Ellison, Joyce Carol Oates and Reynolds Price. Since 1976 thousands of authors have been honored by the Pushcart Press, recognized as one of the most influential publishers in American history. It was founded by Bill Henderson in 1972, publishing its first book in 1973, Henderson’s The Publish It Yourself Handbook. A harbinger of the contemporary self-publishing market, Henderson initially distributed his book by foot and auto.

Inspired by an author’s instinct to convey the sound of words through readings, Alice Shapiro explained, “I use Evoca as a virtual Internet microphone. I can turn the world into a poetry reading stage, reaching a much broader global audience than traveling from bookstore to bookstore.” Using the phone registered to her Evoca account to make each interview recording, Shapiro asks each author to describe the impact of their association with the prestigious Pushcart Prize and to recite their poems. Upon hang-up, the interview recording is instantly saved as an MP3 recording to her Evoca account. Then she copies and pastes the Evoca-generated player widget code into her website.

Featured poets include Elena Karina Byrne, Bryan Borland, Alice Shapiro, Ray Sharp, Cassie Premo Steele, Lynne Thompson, Bobbie Troy, and Lorraine A. Vail. For example, Ray Sharp, nominated poet, talks about what led him to compose Threnody for the Survivors of September 11, 2001 and recites his own poem.

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The Change Interviews also are available online at Shapiro’s Evoca account for listening and downloading for non-commercial use. Anyone interested in automatically savings new recordings to iTunes or a computer file can subscribe to The Change Interviews RSS feed. Author of poetry collection Cracked: Timeless Topics of Nature, Courage, and Endurance, Shapiro’s poetry readings are streamed from Evoca servers to her website. Shapiro chose Evoca’s phone interview recording method; other Evoca subscribers use the Evoca Skype call recorder to record interviews.

Evoca CEO Murem Sharpe observes, “At a time when the publishing industry is grappling with fierce competition, disruptive technologies, and content ownership controversy, it is refreshing to simply listen to writers recite their work and talk about it. Evoca makes it possible to have this very human listening experience. The Evoca team is pleased that our easy-to-use digital media technologies have contributed to the creation and distribution of authors’ voices.”

About Evoca
Evoca (http://www.evoca.com/) is a leading global Voice-to-Web services provider, enabling businesses, organizations, educators, and individuals to easily create and share interviews, testimonials, opinions, stories, and language lessons using phone, Skype™, and its browser microphone. Its online recorder also enables recording through any computer mic. Evoca subscribers can share recordings on Facebook, Twitter, websites, and blogs by posting player widgets streamed by Evoca or use recordings within a private group. Evoca uses Google Translate to enable its worldwide subscribers to sign up, access its user guide, and record and share languages from around the globe.

Evoca Express is available online as a 30-day free trial, Pro, Local, or Toll-free subscription. Subscribers access the call recording feature by dialing any of its worldwide public phone numbers or Skype, and also can get dedicated local or toll-free telephone numbers in over 45 countries and more than 5,000 cities around the globe. It is delivered through Evoca’s highly scalable “Software-as-a-Service” media platform.

Large organizations, other web services, and telecommunications partners also can license Evoca Enterprise, its multi-media, enterprise-grade platform delivered through a flexible interface (RESTful HTTP API – applications programming interface).

For more information, visit www.evoca.com or contact Evoca at +1.212.372.7670, toll-free U.S./Canada +1-866-940-9988, businessdevelopment@evoca.com, use our online contact form, or record your message using our Skype call recorder contact: evoca-bizdev-call-recorder. Any Evoca Express subscriber can receive the Evoca Express webinar training schedule by emailing: customerservice@evoca.com.

By now you know we are big fans of TJ Walker, expert on media and presentation training and CEO of Media Training Worldwide and blogger at TJWalker.com.

Many Evoca subscribers embed audio recordings within their PowerPoint presentations, either as a link to the web page with an embedded Flash player (provided by Evoca – standard or customized by you) or from their Evoca Express account. Evoca streams the audio playback from our servers. Player widgets can be for a single recording or playlist.

So we are always on the lookout for good advice about using technology in presentations, especially to incorporate voice recordings that bring PowerPoint slides to life. For example, you can let your own customers or supporters record a testimonial  to enliven a success story or case study. Real people’s voices bring credibility to your assertion that your product or service is the best in the market.

With his permission to publish, here are TJ’s:

Ten rules to follow when you are using technology in a presentation

1.    Assume the worst.
2.    Practice using the technology, that includes the laptop, microphone, projector, speaker, microphone, laser and anything that you are going to use in front of people you should practice in advance.
3.    Practice in the same environment as you will be giving your final presentation, i.e., if you are presenting to 400 people in a conference hall using a big projector, then practice in that hall or one similar. Don’t simply practice on your laptop in a hotel room because it’s easy to do anything with your laptop in a hotel room and this will give you a false sense of confidence.
4.    When microphones [and speakers] break and computers freeze, don’t panic and don’t complain. If there is a tech person around, calmly mention that your microphone is no longer working and ask for help. If you computer freezes, calmly restart it without drawing attention to your problems.
5.    Have a plan B. If your PowerPoint stops working, just be ready to talk to people using nothing more than your paper notes.
6.   Test all technology either right before you speak (if possible) or during the largest break of the day (breakfast, lunch or dinner) preceding your presentation so that you can make sure you know how everything works.
7.    If you get lots of feedback from a microphone, just stop talking and step back. This solves most problems right away.
8.   Never, ever try to learn any piece of technology in front of people. Every laptop keyboard is slightly different; every remote control is different. It’s really tough to learn anything new when you have the tension associated with being in front of people and they are staring at you.
9.    If you are going to use PowerPoint with video clips [and/or audio clips] and use a microphone, give yourself an extra hour to rehearse in the room where you will be presenting—because there are a million things that can go wrong.
10.    Never forget, the presentation is about the ideas you have to help, inform, inspire and educate you audience, the presentation is not about your technology.

About Evoca

Evoca (http://www.evoca.com/) is a leading global Voice-to-Web services provider, enabling businesses, organizations and individuals to easily create, post, and share fresh, engaging voice recordings using any phone, Skype™, and its browser microphone. Evoca Express is available as a free 30-day trial, Pro, Local, or Toll-free subscriptions. It provides voice recording and online digital content distribution services through its highly scalable “Software-as-a-Service” media platform, providing worldwide public phone numbers, as well as dedicated local and toll-free telephone numbers available in over 45 countries and more than 5,000 cities around the globe.

Evoca’s Twitter audio update feature, TweeVoca, enables posting of audio recordings to this popular micro-blogging site. Evoca subscribers can also share recordings on Facebook, MySpace, websites, and blogs by posting digital media players streamed by Evoca. Large organizations and partners can license, Evoca Enterprise, its multi-media platform delivered through a flexible interface (RESTful HTTP API – applications programming interface).

For more information, visit www.evoca.com or contact Evoca at +1.212.372.7670, toll-free U.S./Canada +1-866-940-9988, businessdevelopment@evoca.com, use our online contact form http://www.evoca.com/contact.php, or record your message using our Skype call recorder contact: evoca-bizdev-call-recorder. Any Evoca Express subscriber can receive the Evoca Express webinar training schedule by emailing: customerservice@evoca.com.