Powering up PowerPoint

Presentation Examples
Click thumbnails to enlarge
Configurative PowerUp
Some of the examples above use the Configurative system to give a level of interactivity beyond PowerPoint's capabilities.
The average PowerPoint or Keynote presentation could lead you to believe that presentation technology hasn't moved on much since the early nineties. But it's not the software that's stuck in the past.
A large part of the problem is the startling lack of commitment a presentation often receives. Your website, your press releases, your adverts and your brochures all get handed over to professionals, but you put your face-to-face pitch together on the train. Most of it is copied and pasted from old presentations, so it only takes a couple of hours - which is just as well, because you meant to start on this weeks ago.
If this sounds familiar - and I bet it does - stop it.

It doesn't matter whether you're presenting in front of multiple screens or balancing a laptop on your lap in a motorway services, bore your audience and you're dead in the water. We all joke about death by bullet point, and then inflict the same torture on our most important prospects.
For some reason, this is one thing many people really don't want to let go of. "In fairness, nobody expects to be entertained by double-grommet sealing techniques, so at least we're giving them what they're expecting.' Yes, but while they were glazed over, they missed the bit where you told them you'd save them £200K a year.
I can fix that. One of the first things I do when I take a brief is work out what the proposition looks like from the customer's point of view, and then look at how we can hang the entire presentation off that angle. You might find that a bit of a shock when we start throwing out the agenda and move the corporate credentials to the back - or even remove them completely - but stick with it, and the audience will stick with you. Trust me on this.

Introducing Little Jem
This one was the brainchild of Steve Purser at Domestic & General. It was inspired thinking, but I may never forgive him for the name he gave to the 3D character who led us through a spectacularly interactive presentation.
The navigation involved guiding LJ through a 3D landscape, following the instructions of the audience. At various points interactive financial modules appeared, which could be amended and stored at the audience's guidance.
Here's a selection of crimes against communication that everybody commits - except you of course...
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