Kids: quicker and better than us. Pic Moonwaves.

Is your presentation material dull and lifeless?

Are you confused by digital media devices?

And (let me take a wild stab in the dark here) are you over 30?

There’s a simple, affordable answer. Get a kid on the case.

A kid will sort out all your media issues in about 10 minutes, without the manuals that you lost.

Give a kid your PowerPoint show, and a brief on the sort of pictures and video you want to add, and they’ll put together a near Pixar-grade singin’ dancin’ spectacular.

You’ll need to place a few restraints: all the letters in each word must be the same color, for instance. And an unsupervised kid will inevitably favor the Devil’s Font, Comic Sans.

But they can add a lot of life to a dull show.

Kids are also great for general troubleshooting. Digital technology has progressed faster than the average adult’s ability to cope with it.

The Scene Change technicians meet a lot of presenters who have bought the latest HD video camera, for instance, but don’t know how to actually remove the files from the camera, let alone put together a snappy edited highlights package and author it to Blu-Ray. When the memory card’s full, they buy another card.

They need to get an 11 year-old on the case.

Kids can easily be obtained from your sister-in-law, the neighbors, or borrowed from close friends. Check at home - you may even have some of your own. As a general guide, you can expect the following performance specifications:

8 Year-Old

Basic PPT editing, simple pre-packaged animations and transitions, simple photo editing.

11 year-Old

Advanced PPT custom animation, amusing Photoshop etching and layering work (grafting your head onto animal bodies etc), simple video edits.

14 Year Old

Advanced video editing, titling, Flash programming, publishing of material across all online media, some 3D animation depending on available resources. Check all finished material for music and image rights infringement.

Obviously, if you’re putting together a product launch or corporate announcement, hire a multi-media production house.

But if your presentations are modest and budgetless, put the multi-media producers of tomorrow on the job. For them, it’s as basic as breathing.