Have you heard? PowerPoint is dead- Prezi is here

What is Prezi?

In a nutshell, Prezi is a Flash-based presentation system that allows users to create incredibly dynamic presentations. Presentations where you can zoom in and out across a large area (no slides), create motion paths, embed images and video and do things that previously needed a pretty competent Flash developer and a whole chunk of time. It kicks traditional slide ware way into touch. And it is very, very easy to learn and use.

Is it better than PowerPoint?

No of course it’s not. I don’t even see it as a competitor. If Microsoft’s tool is the motor car, Prezi is the hand-built kit car for weekend use only. It looks lovely, it fills your heart with joy, it performs wonderfully well on those high mountain roads in summer, when love is in the air and you’re 25... But it's fragile, windy and noisy and you wouldn’t take the kids away in it, for a week skiing in December. Not yet anyway.

Obviously, Prezi is not as broad, flexible, integrated or widely used as Bill's much derided package, so it’s nowhere near PowerPoint as the default option for corporates, but as an expert user of PowerPoint, I could do some things much more easily and powerfully with this little gem, and there are times that I’d choose to use it, without question,  simply because Prezi’s starting position is so different.

Crap presenters will still present badly with Prezi, maybe even worse because there’s less structure to follow than in a PPT template. But designers, poets, CEO’s who want to woo investors, show-offs, me, and people with a little bit of hunger for the new and dangerous will just want to have a go.

Should we learn how to use it?

Of course you should.

Why ?

It differentiates you from 99.99% of the others in your field. Put it more directly. I had a pitch last week for a big chunk of credit-crunch busting work over 2 years. I created a great story, charmed the client, created the visuals and chose to use this (with a PPT backup if all went wrong). It just wowed them. It made us look and feel different to the other people who'd walked into that room before us.  Yes, we did a good job too- 95% our work, 5% these slavic nutcases at Prezi. But it helped . 

You've got to try it out if you call yourself a presenter.  Haven't you?

Creating great visual aids

Remember that great visuals support the spoken words and are there to help the audience understand not as a prompt for the speaker.

1. Do the slides only after you've completed your presentation plan and storyboard or you'll have an overlong, text driven, linear presentation that will lead to dull, text driven slides.


2. If you're working from an existing PowerPoint presentation, use that as your storyboard and add story structure, edit ruthlessly and remove visual, verbal and text clutter.

3. Use pictures and diagrams before words, and use words as little as possible. Use a short word instead of a long word wherever you can. Use only nouns, verbs and key phrases on your slides.

4. Do your best to stick to 3 words per bullet and 3 bullet-points per slide.

5. Explain jargon TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms) and technical terms as you use them.

6. Use muted colours with no unnecessarily complex graphics or animations that can be seen in any light conditions.

7. Follow a strict slide format: every page is laid out exactly the same, making the whole presentation look very consistent.

8. Make sure that each slide has a single message, which is written out in the chart title and clearly supported by the words in the chart body.

9. Use occasional theoretical models & frameworks to structure information: time lines, force field analysis, evaluation of pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses .

10. Follow the example set by newspapers, TV and radio news bulletins.