Just received word that Circus Ponies’ Notebook 3.0 is released. Some of the new features include stickies,
sticky flags, the ability to ‘tear out’ a page, shapes/drawing tools and a revamped interface. Stay tuned for a review as part of the Workflow series here. The home page for Circus Ponies still shows version 2.1, but if you go the Downloads page, you can get v. 3.0. Upgrades cost $19.95, while a full license runs $49.95.
Posts Tagged ‘trial’
Circus Ponies Notebook 3.0 Released
Monday, September 22nd, 2008Present Like Steve Jobs, Without the Black Turtleneck.
Friday, August 8th, 2008BusinessWeek 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.
Presentation Zen
Saturday, June 21st, 2008Jurors 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.
Jury Selection Spread Sheet.
Monday, May 26th, 2008The Mac Lawyer has a guest post article by G. Ware Cornell Jr about his jury selection spread sheet using iWork ’08’s Numbers program. While it might not precisely fit your practice, just seeing the template created by Mr. Cornell provides a great jumping off point…. and the fact that Mr. Cornell created the template “in about ten minutes” should further give you the necessary inspiration. Read the post and download the spreadsheet at The Mac Lawyer.