This is a twelve minute, 44 second movie I made using Keynote. It is a recap of a live presentation made to Softech at their October 2011 meeting.

I will not confess that up until I was working on this particular presentation, I had a passing acquaintance with the amazing capabilities in Keynote. In fact, I have just scratched the surface. Having struggled mightily with Powerpoint, I am convinced that I have found a new reason to love my Macintosh computer.

After watching a couple of short tutorials, I was well on my way to presentation nirvana. I created a custom background image for my slides and In a few hours, I was able to create an effective and visually engaging presentation.

I promised the audience they could get a copy of my slides. Following the live event, I came back to my office where in a relatively short time I did the following from within Keynote:

• Recorded  narration for the slides
• Added live hyperlinks to slides and text
• Exported the slideshow as a Quicktime Movie
• Exported the slideshow as a pdf file that retained all of the live hyperlinks

The built-in ease of use and well thought out workflows for sharing saved me a lot of time with no sacrifices in quality. I have other tools in my arsenal for making slideshows and movies. None are as easy to use as Keynote. Most of them would require significantly more time and resources to produce similar results.And I know there is a lot more I can do with Keynote.It takes visual presentations to a new level. If you have to, you can import or export to Powerpoint.

Keynote also works on the iPad. You can download an app to turn your iPhone or iPad into a presentation controller.

If you make presentations for a living and are on a Mac, take it for a test drive.  You can purchase it as a stand alone application or as part of the iWork suite of software tools from Apple. I am sending out another thank you to Steve Jobs for making something so “insanely great.”

 

I made a short video (1 minute, 48 seconds) of a presentation made by Niki Camerin, an Interior Designer. In this brief movie, Niki explains why it pays to work with an interior designer. She makes her points clearly and is able to visually give us insights into what it would be like to work with her. She keeps the tone light and conversational while including metrics to back-up her statement that she can deliver quality results within the budget of her client.

Why Her Presentation Works

• It is short
• The tone is light and conversational
• She uses words and pictures
• She tell a story

Is there a conversation that captures what it is like to work with you? I recommend you find a way to turn that conversation into a video. Put it up on YouTube and on your web site. It will bring you one step closer to working with clients who are a good match for who you are and the value you provide.

The Tools I used to Make the Video

I captured the video with my iPhone 4. The movie was made using iMovie ’11 and iPhoto. The music came from istockphoto. I got a few tips on using iMovie the way I wanted it to perform from “iMovie ’11 & DVD, the missing manual” by David Pogue and Aaron Miller (available from O’Reilly).