Presentations are one of the most common ways we communicate our ideas to our colleagues and prospective clients.
The challenge is making them stand out while avoiding the worst crime of all — being boring. And with reports showing that we’re spending more time in meetings than ever before, making the most of them is increasingly important. They are, literally, how we do business. And that means you need to make yours engaging, lucid, persuasive, and entertaining.
Thankfully, there is a way to breathe new life into your presentations and wow your audience with special effects and features that’ll keep them sitting on the edge of their seats. Introducing Prezi!
While best for non-linear presentations, Prezi is a cloud-based alternative to traditional presentation software, such as PowerPoint and Keynote, which enables you to utilise a large ‘canvas’ to dynamically ‘zoom’ to relevant content. Prezi is all about creating a story from images, text, videos, graphics, and more. It’s not about going from slide to slide but from one story element to another ‒ your audience will feel more like they’re at the movies than in a boardroom.
One great feature is that it’s specifically designed with touch navigation in mind. So whether you’re using a touchscreen or a tablet, you’ll have complete hands-on control.
It’s this ability to zoom in and out that really gives a wow factor to your presentations. Rather than clicking from one slide to the next you can now explore a ‘canvas’ that lets you focus on the details while zooming out to see the big picture — ultimately highlighting how (and where) concepts are interconnected. All from one screen.
It’s also a great tool to encourage collaboration. Stored in the cloud your presentation can be viewed by people at their leisure no matter where they are. And if you’re working on a group project, up to ten people can cooperate in real time and build your presentation on a single, shared canvas.
If you’ve already started working on your presentation in PowerPoint, don’t fret. Prezi comes with a convenient import feature so you can easily transfer what you’re already created.
So now we know the basics, let’s get started in setting up your first presentation.
6 steps to wowing your audience
Step one:
Visit www.prezi.com and sign up (for free). Then click on “Create New Prezi” to get started.
Step two:
You now need to decide on a metaphor for your message (for example, stairs leading to an open door can represent progress towards a goal). Once done, you need to find that image (using either Prezi’s own free templates, checking online, your organisations image-bank, or a stock-image website, etc.). This image will become your background canvas.
Note: With the right visual metaphor you’ll capture your audience’s attention and make your overall message far easier to understand. Your presentation is as much about that message as it is trying to convey an interesting story. You want it to be unique and interesting; and this is best accomplished through a combination of words and visual choices that let your presentation pop.
Step three:
After you select an image/template you can start designing your presentation. Simply click on the canvas, create a text field, and start typing.
Note: You can start typing right away but text fields make it easier to zoom in and out.
Step four:
Start making it your own by personalising your text. Choose the font, its size and colour. From there you can scale, rotate and move the text to get the most impact from your message.
Step five:
Now’s the time to start inserting additional pictures, some diagrams, a video or two, even sound effects. Anything and everything to best convey the message you want to communicate.
Step six:
With all the infrastructure in place you can start editing the zooming path (using the left-hand menu) to fully animate your presentation. Go from ‘location to location’ on your canvas, zoom in and out, turn elements upside down, and more. A truly dynamic way to explore connecting relationships within your message. It’s also a great way to rehearse everything before saving and exporting.
Sharing is caring
Now it’s time to save and export your presentation so that you can share your brilliance with the world. There are quite a few options to choose from:
Export as a Portable Prezi
Find the Prezi you wish to save as a Portable Prezi and click on the Share thumbnail. Select ‘Export to portable prezi’.
Give your Portable Prezi file a name and chose the location you want to save it to. The file will be saved as a zip file that you can unzip and use (start Prezi.exe (for PC) or the Prezi file (for Mac) to load your Portable Prezi). You can also attach the zip file to your email and send it to those you want to share it with. A Portable Prezi is especially handy in situations where you don’t have access to the Internet, or to send to conference organizers before you present. It contains a non-editable version of your Prezi, as well as software that will play your Prezi on both Windows and Mac PCs. However, if you need to play embedded You Tube videos you will still need to have internet access.
Note: A Portable Prezi is entirely self-contained and requires no installation, at the same time it doesn’t install anything onto your computer either. So it’s the best and safest way to share your Prezi.
Export as PDF
You can also export your Prezi as a PDF, but chances are that you won’t be able to get the most out of your animations and embedded videos if you do. You’ll find the option to export as PFD under the Share thumbnail too.
Save as an open file
Alternatively, if you have a public Prezi account so that anybody with internet access can view your Prezi.
Time to get rid of boredom in the boardroom
And that’s it. Prezi really is an easy-to-use application that, in essence, lets you draw information to best convey a memorable and persuasive message that goes far beyond the bullet-point outlines of traditional presentation solutions.
While presentations and meetings may be a necessity, there’s no reason why they can’t actually be entertaining, useful and a productive use of everyone’s time.