Software: The Impressive Presentation Style

Our continuing look into presentation styles brings us to the next step, which I like to refer to as "more impressive than Microsoft Office” and is readily identified as a “movie-slide”. This program I refer to is called Prezi and has been used for a variety of innovative presentations including a course I’m currently taking called “Business Information Systems”.


Prezi (prezi.com) first starts out as a GIANT picture that you can post pictures, words, clips and links to help guide your presentation with a “real-world feeling” (quite similar to a roller-coaster). Not all your words, pictures, etc. will be the same size, either. You can use the camera to “zoom” into and out of places to help prove your point to your audience, or to get a better understanding of what you’re trying to tell them (works best with diagrams).

I found a nice, short video (less than 2 minutes) to help show how a Prezi is created:

I don't take credit for the video, but it's very unclear who the narrator, let alone author, truly is.

The Pros for using this program is that it's a new change of pace from having to make slides of information. It helps to add a metaphor background/theme to your presentation to help entertain your audience a bit more than usual.

The Cons for using this program are steadily identified as having to pay for lots of room for many presentations (or you could make multiple accounts for free, but that gets annoying). If you really want to shine in this program, you would need to apply far more practice into this program to learn the shortcut keys to help speed up the creation time of such a detailed presentation (otherwise, the available options aren't too easy to find like the MS PowerPoint Ribbon).

Tune in next blog as we identify the next (and potentially final) stage of presentation styles involving simple computer technology.

Software: The Simple Presentation Style

Our first look into AV options will cover a small variety of presentation styles! Our first style is the Slide Generated Power Point. Our first look should be with a classic tool: Microsoft PowerPoint 2010.

The Pros of using MS PPT 10 include: a customizable ribbon, preset themes, ability to record timing and voice and a popular slide layout control feature called "Slide Master". The customizable ribbon lets you adjust your design, layout, review and home options for some of your more popular customizational preferences like macros, functions and adjustments. Preset themes let you browse a variety of downloaded and online themes to change your text and background to the styles and formats you prefer. With a growing preference for prerecorded presentations, MS PPT 10 lets you, with a single click, to record an automatic presentation, one slide at a time.

Copyright of Randy Glasbergen

The Cons of using MS PPT 10 include: a boring preset slide-to-slide transition and animation settings, timely set-up and editing for new templates and not always capable of being used by older versions of PowerPoint. Slide-to-slide transitions are sometimes overused, ill-chosen and a waste of time between slides. It's best to pick something quick and simple, rather than fancy and choppy. If you just recently started a new template for a good looking presentation, be prepared that you could be in for a few hours of layout work even AFTER you've gathered all your information. The WORST of all the Cons would be uploading your powerpoint to a USB and using another computer without an adaptable version to read your slides correctly. Always make sure you have back up styles of your presentation if you're not bringing your own laptop!

Once Upon A Time...

     Our adventure begins with a hero. This hero has no particular gender, nor characteristics outside of the human gene pool. This hero is just like you and me searching for a solution to our problems we fight and ponder each and every day.

Copyright of Bill Waterson

     Some of these solutions we need are related to our problems in communication. Some of these problems begin with "How do I tell these people about..." or even "How do I promote/sell...". Many of these questions would result in something commonly known as a presentation.

     In the following weeks, I will be blogging about the Pros and Cons about using Audio/Visual options in presentations. I will blog about things from software and hardware to more complex topics like lighting, sound and colour contrasting!