Posts Tagged ‘presentation’

Control Keynote with iPhone/iPod Touch

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

The best announcement out of Macworld this week, the ability to control Keynote ’09 through your iPhone or iPod Touch.  Considering that as the best announcement either says how ho-hum Macworld announcements were, or demonstrates the complete descent into geek deviance by yours truly.  

Yeah, but it’s still really cool.

Along with a super nice ‘presenter’ display mode (something PowerPoint has had for awhile), Keynote ’09 allows you to control your presentation by way of 99¢ app store download (app store link opens iTunes).

The Keynote remote app offers two views: Portrait and Landscape. In Portrait view, you can read your presenter notes. In Landscape view, you can see the next slide. In either view, just swipe to advance to the next slide. Unfortunately, the app does not allow any of the keyboard shortcuts, such as ‘blank’ screen or the ability to jump to a slide. Screenshots below.

Other apps of interest and similar functionality include: Pointer Remote for PowerPoint and Keynote(.99¢); iClickr Powerpoint Remote(Powerpoint only, $9.99).

Update January 8, 2009, 11:46: Considering the rundown on Microsoft’s Keynote at CES here, it looks like even Apple’s ho-hum announcements crush Microsoft…. I mean, c’mon Surface, Ford Sync etc? Garbage none of which helps me do anything better, faster or more efficiently, not too mention Nordquist’s take that Windows 7 ought to be released as Vista SP2 rather than a paid upgrade since it is only a minor upgrade which ‘fixes’ the problems with Vista.

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Present Like Steve Jobs, Without the Black Turtleneck.

Friday, August 8th, 2008

BusinessWeek posted another great piece “Deliver a Presentation Like Steve Jobs.” Highlights include:

Sell the benefit. While most presenters promote product features, Jobs sells benefits. When introducing iTunes movie rentals, Jobs said, “We think there is a better way to deliver movie content to our customers.” Jobs explained the benefit by saying, “We’ve never offered a rental model in music because people want to own their music. You listen to your favorite song thousands of times in your life. But most of us watch movies once, maybe a few times. And renting is a great way to do it. It’s less expensive, doesn’t take up space on our hard drive…” Your listeners are always asking themselves, “What’s in it for me?” Answer the question. Don’t make them guess. Clearly state the benefit of every service, feature, or product.

via TUAW.

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Presentation Zen

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

Jurors present the very most difficult audience, they usually don’t want to be there, start with the belief that everything you do is a lie geared to influence the outcome, hate to waste time anymore than necessary and yet must be taught about very difficult legal, medical, and technical issues in the stilted classroom that we call court. Although I knew enough to embrace elimination of bullet points, irrelevant and ridiculous .gif images, superfluous and magical slide transitions etc. the ability to push things onto a big screen can even lead those who know better astray. In a soft tissue injury trial a few years ago, the complete set of medical records were scanned and available for presentation. When conducting direct examination with the treating physiatrist, each record was popped onto the screen in an attempt to show (1) consistent complaints of pain (credibility); and, (2) sticking to a treatment and physical therapy plan (mitigation). About half-way through, I glanced at the jury box. The jurors not sleeping looked alternately peeved and bored. Lesson (one I already knew, but ignored): Just because technology enables you to do something, doesn’t mean you should.

Although Zen attitude didn’t seem to help the Lakers win, it can certainly have an impact on your presentation skills. Presentation Zen is a blog run by Gary Reynolds and will undoubtedly bring a huge amount of help to your trial presentation skills. Start here, here, and here for a riotous compare and contrast between Bill Gates/Microsoft and Steve Jobs/Apple approaches to presentation. A few pithy points:

The Zen aesthetic values include (but are not limited to):

  • Simplicity
  • Subtlety
  • Elegance
  • Suggestive rather than the descriptive or obvious
  • Naturalness (i.e., nothing artificial or forced),
  • Empty space (or negative space)
  • Stillness, Tranquility
  • Eliminating the non-essential

Whether you are using Circus Ponies Notebook, Keynote or another piece of software, those who ignore the rules of good presentation etiquette do so at the risk of, at best, boring their audience or, at worst, fostering hostility toward you and your client.

Presentation Zen

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