Animoto is a way to create animated slideshows using still images, and it has merits to bring alive a possibly dull Powerpoint. But it provides no control over style or production quality; just upload images and music, and Animoto does the rest.

Here a demo I created on a Sunday afternoon, using photos taken during our vacation on Switzerland last August.

Neither she nor her audience could read the fine print so she had her presentations printed and bound, using enough paper to lay waste to entire forests. Even then, so many words per page meant using 8 pt font or … mouse print.

Well, that style of Powerpoint was not an effective style then, and it certainly is not now. We live today in an era of brevity and … get to the point. Audiences want to figuratively know what time it is; they don’t want you go build a clock.

Carmine Gallo has written a terrific piece for BusinessWeek, “Twitter Changes the Game for Pitching.” Twitter is all about brevity and getting to the point because users are only allowed 140 characters, including spaces, for each mini-blog posting. Twitter has changed the communications landscape by forcing us to focus, and get to the point. I believe Twitter has become today’s most powerful social media communications tool. Hope to see you there – www.twitter.com/davidhenderson