Comments on: There could be life with PowerPoint

By: Eddie Obeng

Eddie Obeng — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:07:52 +0000

Hi Neville
I am Eddie Obeng. I have also trialled the papershow for Jane Rowe and have now used it in a wide range of contexts from intimate 1:1 creativity and planning sessions to medium sized (~100 people) events up to large events (couple of thousand) It takes a lot of nerve since the prototype had some strange habits like switching itself off mid stream and a very sensitive Rocker Switch. Fortunately Jane mangaed to get papershow to listen to my feedback and production version is brilliant!

By: Jane Rowe

Jane Rowe — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:40:55 +0000

@Alex Interesting comment re Eddie Obeng. He has actually be an ambassador for Papershow and has been using the beta version for some months. The Pentacle New World Times blog recently featured some of his work with the product at http://tinyurl.com/5d3xpv. Totally agree re Eddie’s presentations…he’s a very enthusiastic and engaging person.

By: neville

neville — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:12:18 +0000

Heh, it felt like that, Bernie

Tom, I’ve used PPTPlex and it’s rather good. Different kind of a tool, though.

And I wholly agree with you that poor presentations are all to do with the presenter not the tool. So let’s blame Microsoft for making PowerPoint too easy for most people to abuse

Thanks for that tip, Alex.

By: Alex Manchester

Alex Manchester — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:59:43 +0000

Neville, you should try make your way to a presentation by Eddie Obeng (Pentacle Virtual Business School). He uses a camera over a piece of paper, prjected onto the screen, and switches back and forth between that and a PPT slide deck.

I saw him at the Henley KM Forum back in 2006 and it was singularly the best presentation I have ever seen. Garr Reynolds is brilliant too, saw him in Sydney in July – very interactive and a great narrative. Eddie edges him though.

The Papershow thing looks great. I’d expect it to take some practice, but the potential is massive. Look forward to hearing about your experiences with it.

By: Tom Murphy

Tom Murphy — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:10:58 +0000

Neville,

Well of course I would say this since I work for Microsoft, but poor presentations are really the responsibility of the presenter rather than the tool. People argue that presentation software encourages people to create incredibly boring presentations, but you know the same tools also enable incredibly interesting presentations…

I’ve been amazed at the innovation taking place on slides over the past year, suddenly everyone is thinking about how to keep the audience’s attention using whatever presentation software they prefer.

Of course you still regularly hit the six hundred word, slide at 8pt font deck… and then it gets worse because the presenter thinks it would be a great idea to read it to you…

Papershow looks pretty interesting.

I’ve (Microsoft disclaimer) been also playing with PPTPlex recently (http://www.officelabs.com/projects/pptPlex/Pages/default.aspx) . It’s a free download from OfficeLabs (for PowerPoint 2007 only) and offers a very interesting alternative way to approach navigating your presentation – with some pretty cool zooming capabilities.

Of course like a normal presentation, there’s nothing to stop people abusing it… but then that’s what free choice is all about…

Tom

By: Bernie Goldbach

Bernie Goldbach — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:46:14 +0000

When I first spotted Papershow in your Flickr photostream, I thought you were treating yourself to a birthday present.