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!

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.

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.

Watch him explain all in this video

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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.

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