You may love or hate President Obama, but you have to admit that his presentation skills are outstanding in every way, which is not bad for an obscure state lawmaker. I spend my life presenting whether it be to customers, employees or my children (they may be 24 and 25 years old but it still takes a good amount of thought, preparation and rehearsal to get agreement!). It's pretty much a daily occurrence for me, but still I know that if I was judged as a school report, it would say, "could do better", Alistair needs to  "try harder".

Last Friday I sent myself off on a one day refresher "masterclass in presentation skills" course facilitated by “Speak First”. I do recommend them highly despite a very difficult and awkward day that exposed my weaknesses. Speak First are experts at helping you with public speaking. I quickly realized that I had heard much of it before and had forgotten most of it. I had got myself into the habit of assuming that a bit of content with good detail, a fine graphical set of slides and a bit of personality would do the trick….product sold.

My weaknesses and highly developed bad habits were soon exposed on video. I had forgotten the importance of body language, delivery, gaining empathy and being authentic (as Obama is). My laziness had become apparent with respect to proper preparation, eliciting the state of the audience and using the power of story telling. I haven’t been using the language of leaders such as contrast, repetition and rhetoric.

Over the years I have seen numerous folk from my colleagues to industry leaders, good promising people, me included, fail abysmally to get their message across or win that deal, because they failed to prepare properly and rehearse. In these difficult times, it's time to retrain. Presentation skills in Acentic’s business is the most important skill and I for one need to get better. It got Obama to the White House.

That was a quote we got from one of our followers on Twitter, a regular traveler who often stays in hotels. Today’s savvy travelers like to bring their personal electronics (iPod, iPhone, Mp3 players, smart phones, PCs) with them on the road or in the air. They carry a lot of content with them including their own photos, music and other user-generated content. Why wouldn’t they want to connect to the hotel LCD screen so they can get to their personal content? We think it’s a great idea and that’s why we’ve made it possible for guests to access their content with our in-room digital TV systems. So next time you stay in a hotel with Acentic’s system you can plug into the TV and see pictures of your son’s graduation on the big screen or listen to your favorite tunes while relaxing or working in your hotel room. It’s a no-brainer, hotel guests are demanding it, and now we’re making it happen.

What event is happening this week where you can see Quentin Tarantino’s new movie? It’s the same place that was featured on the HBO show, Entourage, when the boys screened their movie there; it will be the place that screens Heath Ledger’s very last film and this week it will host all of Hollywood’s elite?  The answer is: Cannes Film Festival, one of the oldest, most influential and prestigious film festivals in the world. This year Acentic will be there! Well, we’ll be there with our digital TV system in the hotels of Cannes showing a new trailer area on the hotel’s TV system to coincide with the festival.

Acentic’s all new Welcome Page now includes a dedicated movie trailer area. Acting as the ‘default’ page on the iTV platform, this page is enabled the minute the guests are checked into their room, meaning that as soon as they step into their bedroom, they know exactly what great movies are playing in the hotel.

It’s good for the hotel because the Welcome Page is a great platform to support the hotels branding and brings with it the additional dynamic of playing movie trailers helping to increase revenue. It’s also good for the guest because they need to stay on top of what films are out there if they’re going to be rubbing elbows with Francis Ford Coppola and Brad Pitt.

Cannes visitors (whether they are launching a film, career or reputation or just visiting in the hopes of running into celebrities) can relax in their room and check out the trailers for new films that are available to watch on demand.

Our team is always trying to improve our digital TV uptime to get to system perfection. Right now we’re at 99.2%, which is pretty bloody good if you think that Telco’s usually only warrant 97% for business grade.  Of course we’re always up for improving it and we do operate a 24/7 NOC with a ‘live view’ system proactively generating warning messages. However, that can’t compare to the real thing – real feedback from our customers. We actually love it!

Here is an example of how feedback could really help improve service. We recently were talking with a friend of Acentic’s, we’ll call him Bob. Bob just got home from his one-night stay at a lovely 5-star hotel, which turned out to be not so lovely after a night of not so high quality service. Bob complained about the in room internet not working, the staff being rude, the lighting in the room too dim, the shower leaking and about being overcharged on the bill. In fact the one thing Bob did not complain about was the TV system.  He actually had a grand time listening to the system’s radio while getting dressed. Now we all know there are lots of reasons that even a luxury hotel property could fail at providing its guests with the highest quality services. But what is the best way to help get everything right in the future? As a guest you have the power, in essence it is your duty, to report both the good and bad points of your hotel stay. It is the best way for the Hotel and its staff to improve.

Our goal at Acentic is to achieve 100% guest satisfaction and system perfection. If the TV system fails, the best way for us to find out and get it working again quickly is if someone reports it to the hotel.  Nothing will help us improve more than actual feedback from the end users (hotel guests) – negative or positive we need to know and so does the hotel! Help us get to 99.8%, our NOC target for 2009.

Everyone has been there, you’re stuck in your hotel room and there is nothing to do – maybe your flight got cancelled, or you’re staying in a quiet town for work. There is nothing to keep you occupied but the hotel TV. All you want is to be able to bring your favorite programs with you.

Lots of hotels are beginning to see this need and they’re starting to add short content on demand to add to the standard movie selection. Lots of time you just don’t have the concentration for a full-length movie, but you would like to zone out and laugh to your favorite Friends episode or chill out with the nature show, Planet Earth. Acentic has partnered up with content providers to allow hotels to show guests the comedy, drama, documentaries, nature shows, etc that they would watch if they were at home (Planet Earth, Friends and others like the award winning hospital drama, ER and the BBC’s classic comedy, Fawlty Towers).

In an evermore stressful working environment - and trading conditions - what better way to relax, than to dip into some of the ‘self-help’ programming available on demand. Guests can select the programme to suit their needs, with titles that guarantee to give you a good nights sleep, and leave you full of confidence and reinvigorated for the day ahead. You could even make the most of your hotel stay and workout with an on-demand yoga class!