Useful stats provided by SlideShare here. A third of presentations on their site use LESS than 10 slides! Amazing.
my first iPad presentation!
July 4th, 2011 · Apple Keynote, iPad, iPhone presenter apps
I had to give a talk about the usefulness of the iPad in medicine and decided to bite the bullet and use my iPad rather than the usual laptop+PowerPoint affair. I created the slides in Keynote on my MacPro and saved to my iDisk then opened in Keynote on the iPad.
Once plugged into the VGA projector the view changed to Presenter mode which was great. Much like Keynote or PowerPoint, using the Presenter Mode allows you to see the next slide (makes you look more slick!). Touching the screen with a finger and holding it there activates the “laser” pointer – a red dot on the iPad screen which shows on the main projection screen. This makes you look ever slicker!
Upsides: great-looking slides, Magic Move impresses the audience (don’t overuse, though) and beautiful graphics.
Downsides: you need to be careful how you tap the iPad screen to change slides or you end up going backwards. I must have been dragging my finger slightly to the left. You need to tap lightly with no dragging. The laser effect if not used properly will advance the slides. You need to touch your finger to the screen and hold it firmly on the surface – you can’t tap to activate the laser or your slide will advance.
Will I use it again? Absolutely. Worked like a charm.
Oh, I also tried the same using my iPhone 4 – imported the slides into Keynote and hooked it up to the projector – same quality AND the laser effect and Presenter Mode there too. So if the iPad is too heavy just use your iPhone for your next presentation!
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Apple Keynote app on iPad seems to miss the mark
June 20th, 2011 · Apple Keynote, iPad, Things to avoid, Uncategorized
As an avid Keynote user on the Mac, like others I was excited to have Keynote for the iPad. But there seems to be problems with font substitutions, lack of availability of our Master slides and loads of other problems. Sounds like you need to use standard fonts (i.e. those available on iPad – this excludes the use of Myriad which is Apple’s corporate font), and edit all your slides on the Mac (NOT the iPad or you’ll end up with messed up slides). Speakers notes appear to disappear too.
This is a real shame because lots of us want to edit and add slides on the iPad and reopen the files on the Mac with no corruption of our hard work!
Yet another reason for holding on to that MacBook! The iPad cannot totally replace your Mac.
Full review here.
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Nancy Duarte’s new book is out!
October 5th, 2010 · Communication, Designer worth noting, Nancy Duarte
Nancy Duarte, Queen of Presentation, has a new book called Resonate (available on Amazon). From the description it sounds pretty amazing. I have her other book slide:ology, and that was very impressive. This one is anticipated to be even better. There are so many books on slide design and presentation skills but her’s are right there at the very top. I wish the book well and look forward to getting my copy. I want to take my slides to the next level!
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Using the iPad for presentations
August 6th, 2010 · Apple Keynote, iPad, PowerPoint
Having recently bought an iPad I am excited about the prospect of using it to give my talks. I haven’t used it yet and am anxious about how the whole thing works. Is it as good as using a laptop? My 17″ MacBook Pro is heavy, so being able to project my slides using a light device like the iPad has many attractions.
Gavin Meikle, The presentation Doctor, has used the iPad and has shared his experiences here. Sounds like it’s good but needs more functionality. In particular, we need to be able to show PowerPoint and not just Keynote (fabulous though Keynote is) because (a) PowerPoint is still what most of us use, especially in the Windows world, and (b) converting powerPoint to Keynote does screw up some of the formatting and other slide properties. But hopefully things will improve since these are early days of the iPad and Apple will want to encourage businesses to use iPad for presentations and they must realise that most corporations do not, and probably never will, use Keynote.
Ask me questions on Facebook
July 27th, 2010 · Presentation skills, Presentation style, Public Speaking
If there are any burning questions which I can help with you can contact me using Facebook. My Facebook ID is “drew provan”. I’m very happy to answer questions on slide design, artwork, using iPhone, iPad, and other hardware to give your presentations. So feel free to contact me at any time I am online and I look forward to seeing you on Facebook!
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Don’t just show the notes, play the music!
July 12th, 2010 · Presentation skills, Presentation style
Any epidemiologist, medic, scientist or anyone who uses graphical data should watch Hans Rosling’s approach to data presentation. He manages to make something dry, like stats, come to life and have real meaning.
Watch him explain all in this video
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Guy Kawasaki, gifted and engaging public speaker
February 8th, 2010 · Communication, Designer worth noting, Guy Kawasaki, Public Speaking
I just spotted this great keynote delivered by Guy Kawasaki (previous Apple guy, now entrepreneur and speaking guru, How to Change The World). I know nothing about entrepreneurship nor do I want to start up a company but I found this video of his keynote totally mesmerising. His pace is great, slides are good (even with bullet points!) and he holds the audience’s attention. He is natural, informal, uses no technical jargon and his message is crystal clear. If you are preparing to give a talk I recommend you watch this and learn from someone inspirational.
More on how to end a presentation
February 8th, 2010 · Concluding the pesentation, Presentation skills, Presentation style, Public Speaking
One of the nice things about WordPress is that you can see what people are searching for online which brings them to your site. The commonest search string which makes people end up at my site is “how to end a presentation”. I have to say, with all the posts I have written, the vast majority of people are searching mainly for ways to conclude their presentations. You would think that, having managed to get started, then delivering your whole talk and negotiating your way through all those slides, people would be relaxed about the conclusion. But clearly this is not so. Why?
Some of your audience will have drifted off during your pitch so I guess one very important aspect of your presentation is making sure the audience remembers a few key points, if nothing else, from your presentation. If you are marketing, or telling someone about a scientific breakthrough you don’t care if they can’t remember the fine details but you DO want them to retain a few points.
How to end memorably?
This is tricky. I would never use more than one Conclusion slide. I have seen people use 2 or even 3. But that’s just lazy. Keep it to a single slide and try not to cram it full of detail. Reinforce 3 points from your pitch. If you have more than that they will switch off (I know this is a generalisation but it’s true for most audiences). As soon as they see “Conclusions” they start packing up. Their brains will be half way out of the room. They put things in their bags, and sit up straight, ready to leave the room, have coffee, chat, whatever. It’s an audience wake up call! So you only have a very brief window to convey your parting shots — so keep them brief, simple, with as few words as possible. Use the same words as you have used throughout the talk. Don’t ever introduce new material! Your parting slide should simply bring together everything you have been saying throughout your presentation.
Do you leave the Conclusion slide on the screen when you have finished? I still prefer a plain black slide which helps focus the attention back on YOU. If you leave a slide with words or a picture or (God forbid) a “Thank You!” slide, their attention will wander to that and they will pay less attention to you. Having sensory deprivation (namely the black slide) puts the focus fairly and squarely on you. The only thing they can do is listen to you.
You can then move on to the Q&A section which we can deal with at another stage.
Has anyone used Prezi for a presentation?
February 1st, 2010 · Communication, Web presentation
I came across a new platform for presentations called Prezi. Basically this is a Flashed-based program that can be used off-line or on-line to create a kind of storyboard for your presentations. The idea is that you put down all your thoughts for your speech on a single page then link the titles, text and images and when you click “forward” the text slides to the center of the screen then off again once you click forward again.
The beauty of this program is that it gets you away from the PowerPoint/Keynote stack of cards concept and gives you a huge amount of freedom. Visually it is very impressive, though I have not actually delivered a presentation using the software. But I have had a lot of fun playing around with the various tools and have half-created a couple of talks which I will give using Prezi.
There’s an online version and a standalone version. The pricing is a little complex but seems reasonable. I would like an extended demo of the standalone version so I can use it and maybe write about it in my next book. Perhaps the Prezi team will let me have an extension to the 30-day trial (strong hint).
Why not give the free online version a go and see if you like it more than Powerpoint. Let me know how you get on.
I have provided a still shot and a movie of a Prezi show below.
Enjoy!
great presentation thank you slides
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