Lately it seems that iPad presentation technology is flooding the market. Perhaps enterprise workers are coming to grips with the incredible leap in agility offered by Apple TV and AirPlay. Or maybe we’re just starting to feel the surge of iPad penetration in businesses.
There’s no debate – iPad is probably the most useful presentation tool to invade the shores of businesses globally. Everywhere I travel I see iPad emerging in casual business conversations to help people make a point. I see it in large conference presentations, and in one-on-one ad-hoc presentations in fight.
As evidenced by this article, AirPlay and Apple TV are also becoming a presentation staple; tools that are increasingly finding their way into C-level briefcases. And those executives will continue to enhance their to enhance their iPad presentations with tools that leverage existing PowerPoint decks and streamline the production process to create decks that are worthy of the crisp iPad retina display and 70″ 1080p flat panel screens adorning boardrooms.
Haiku Deck
Relatively new to the iPad and presentation segment, this app is remarkably simple and capable of helping bullet-happy presenters break from verbose and complex slide-making habits. If you ever wanted to present like Steve Jobs, you have to simplify your decks and focus on just a few words and imagery to convey your point.
Haiku Deck is an iPad app for building PowerPoint-compliant presentations. Yawn, right?
What’s unique about this app is that it forces you to use just a few words on each slide and provides an integrated approach for selecting stunning images. And even more unique is the photo acquisition system which leverages a broad library of Creative Commons resources. But the real surprise – it uses the words you provide for each slide to offer up images that are relevant to the points you are trying to make in the presentation.
Brilliant!
An emerging trend – crafting content on the iPad – is embraced by Haiku Deck. iPad (as you know) makes it very easy to use as an idea incubator. It helps you steal those unproductive moments during the work day and transform them into productive assets. In just a few minutes you can put together some very polished presentation content by simply expressing a few thoughts.
Haiku Deck Presentation Mode
And you can present directly from the Haiku app with its integrate slideshow mode. However, there’s a better approach for delivering the last mile of the presentation – SlideShark.
SlideShark
This app is also a web service – a web site that will convert your PowerPoint presentations into an iPad-friendly format that can run in the SlideShark app while preserving all the features of the original PowerPoint deck. This is smart because there are nuances about PowerPoint that don’t necessarily translate to iPad, and no one likes to display a dynamic deck as a PDF document [yawn]. And most important, during an iPad presentation you must be able to see the slides on the tablet as well as other meta-data about the presentation including the next slide, presenter notes, and the time utilized vs time remaining.
With SlideShark, you can easily navigate a large collection of slides to zero in on specific elements in an ad-hoc sales conversation. Furthermore, SlideShark brings forth additional features to help salespeople and presenters leverage legacy enterprise investments in slide decks.
SlideShark Dashboard
A key feature is the ability to broadcast the presentation via AirPlay to a large screen, another PC or laptop all while controlling the presentation from the SlideShark iPad app. The SlideShark app shows the presenter a dashboard of important data such as the next slide in the deck, the presenters notes, and other visual cues that help to create strong presentations and compelling business stories.
Haiku Deck + SlideShark
Since Haiku Deck can export its elegant and visually compelling presentations to PowerPoint, and SlideShark can import and convert PowerPoint desks with ease, the combinationg of these tools will enhance your presenting capabilities.
Brilliance(squared)!
Is it just me, or should these apps and services be combined?