“See, we’re a Mac-based company, so we’re not stuck with PowerPoint. And over the years, we’ve used a variety of presentation programs ranging from AppleWorks to OpenOffice. And in the last three years, we’ve been using Apple’s Keynote software, which is bundled as part of its iWork package
. And quite honestly, it puts PowerPoint to shame,” Blackfriars Communications’ Carl Howe writes for Seeking Alpha.
Howe writes, “Why do I say this? Because I did hundreds of presentations using PowerPoint as an analyst and always dreaded the experience of creating the slides. And Keynote removes that dread and makes us look better because it:”
• Renders slides for maximum impact
• Makes it easy to do common things
• Avoids needless clutter
• Helps presenters present well
Howe writes, “We’re not the first people to observe the Keynote effect. Les Posen at Cyberpsych has a terrific blog article titled, “Just what is it about Keynote
that is changing the way people present?” where he cites a number of famous presenters who have been won over to Keynote
because it allows them to be more creative. And of course, Al Gore did the visuals for his groundbreaking film, “An Inconvenient Truth” in Keynote
. And Garr Reynolds at the site PresentationZen.com notes how the Zen esthetic embodied in Keynote
allows Steve Jobs’ presentations to have much more power and impact than similar presentations by Bill Gates.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Want to know how to wow ’em? Easy, use Apple’s Keynote and not PowerPoint. Chances are that most of the room hasn’t seen a Keynote presentation
and just by breaking out of the PowerPoint rut, you’ll perk up more than few pairs of tired eyes. More info about Apple’s Keynote application here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Grab the room’s attention by using Apple’s Keynote and dumping Microsoft’s PowerPoint – April 12, 2006
Apple’s Keynote makes better-looking presentations than Microsoft’s PowerPoint – December 06, 2004
Clean elegant Keynote: ‘the anti-PowerPoint’ – March 10, 2003
Keynote cleaner and better organized than PowerPoint – February 18, 2003
Bill Gates on Apple’s ‘Keynote’ app: ‘I doubt what they’ve done is as rich as PowerPoint’ – January 09, 2003
Objectively, Keynote’s over look and feel easily out-does PPT.
However, there is one thing that I’m amazed is not available in KN, that is in PPT. The ability to see moving video on the presenter’s screen simultaneously with the presentation screen. On the presenter’s screen I need to be able to see, not just the runtime of the video currently being displayed, but the actual video so that my astronomy presentations can flow more like I’ve rehearsed them. Without this basic capability KN becomes almost unuseable, which is upsetting because KN output quality is significantly better than PPT.
This singular functionality would take PPT completely out of my life once and for all, and, just seems too obvious to have been overlooked – but it was.
Re powerpoint vs keynote: keynote is slick and the slide backgrounds, etc, look better. Frankly, though, if you are selling your presentation on the basis of whether the background or the fonts look better there must be something wrong with your ideas. As a veteran powerpoint wizard, and dabbler in keynote, lately I’ve been doing something remarkable: speaking without slides. Generally that means I interact more with the audience, speak for a shorter period of time (less time for BS visuals), etc.
Not for every situation, but worth considering.
—
And a note re the “Al Gore hater” up above: I’m just curious if, while being repelled by our ex-VP because of his unspecified “lying”, you support the pack-o-lies administration of Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice-Powell-et-al who brought us disappearing WMD and a nonexistent link between Saddam and al-Qaeda? And thousands of limbless veterans?
I’ve created a few Keynote presentations for customers.
Keynote has it flaws that i hope will be fixed, but overall each and every one of the companies got rave reviews and compliments for their presentations.
And i am now receiving phone calls to do more.
If only they knew how easy it is.
The main thing that Keynote lacks in terms of animation is paths and emphasis. They have enter/exit modes that are great, but not so much for actual animation.
Still, I prefer Keynote because it handles video/graphics so much better, shadows are easy and don’t look like crap, and the export to Quicktime is fantastic. I recently used Keynote to produce our booth video for a trade show. It was 1920×1200 and ran beautifully on Windows, and was a lot simpler than using a video editor, because of its excellent support for text, transitions, and videos.
Note to Bush hater above:
Maybe it’s just that everyone KNOWS that liberal Democrats are liars and that their multitude of statements about Saddam’s WMDs were just cynical political posturing and to be expected. Meanwhile, no one expected a Republican president to lie so we were all surprised.
But the record is clear and unambiguous. Either:
a.) Saddam’s WMD arsenal WAS a threat and Bush was right to go after him
or
b.) Hillary, Bill, Al Gore, Pelosi, Kerry, Kennedy, et.al. were/are all liars of the first order and Bush should have ignored those lies instead of acting on them.
Here is just a sampling of evidence to prove my point:
“If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.” — President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
“He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.” — Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb 18, 1998
“Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.” — Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
“We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country… Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.” — Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
“We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.”— Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002
“It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein wiill continue to increase his capability to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.”</i>
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002
“With respect to Saddam Hussein and the threat he presents, we must ask ourselves a simple question: Why? Why is Saddam Hussein pursuing weapons that most nations have agreed to limit or give up? … Why is he seeking to develop unmanned airborne vehicles for delivery of biological agents?”
Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), October 9, 2002
There are hundreds of other examples of similar quotes from Democrats over the years. A simple Google search is all it takes to find them.
I recently found a very interesting website:
http://alreadylinked.com/
There you can purchase ad space for your Blog etc.
I admit that Apple’s Keynote produces arguable the most stylish and amazing looking presentations. However, I’m still using Microsoft Powerpoint, because it’s a multiplatform applicatin that is the industry standard and from my experience offers wider range of features.