Thursday, June 28, 2012

The power of PowerPoint


‘If you have nothing to say, use PowerPoint’ is the current presentation mantra, claims an old-timer.

BC: Hi, heard that your technology partner had come over to make a presentation…

AD: It was terrible. The machine hung, and then the presentation developed an error. After a few slides, the audio went kaput and finally, the embedded video in the slides didn’t play.

BC: Ah, the art of using technology to make your presentation more effective…

AD: But why blame all of technology for a faulty laptop and a system error?

BC: Because things went wrong even during my times when we used carousels and slideshows… Why are you smiling?

AD: Today is the age of hardware, software and Tupperware. Back then, I guess it was the era of carousels and casseroles.

BC: I remember an instance when a presentation was being made to a client. All of a sudden the carousel acquired a life of its own and began to spin and jump rather violently… Soon slides began popping out of the carousel with rapid clicking noises – it was like a popcorn machine. The Vice President set his team to stand at strategic points around the projector to catch the slides as they flew out.

AD: Now I know how positions like silly point, slip and extra cover originated in cricket...

BC: The point is, technology has always been unreliable.

AD: These days, technology has evolved to remote presentations – webinars…

BC: I don’t think that’s a bad idea - at least the audience can walk away without you noticing it.

AD: Not if you’re Steve Jobs. You can not only learn presentation skills from him, but also pick up pointers on how to handle technology glitches…

BC: Wow, HE had to contend with bad apples as well?

AD: Well, anyone can have a bad day with technology. When Bill Gates launched Windows XP, it crashed for the whole world to see.

BC: Glad to know that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and your technology partner have something in common.

AD: Once, Steve Jobs’ remote failed and he couldn’t move to the next slide.

BC: He must have been rather iRate…

AD: The story is that he simply stopped the presentation and told the audience an anecdote that involved him and his friend Steve Wozniak, from his college days…

BC: Only Steve Jobs can get away with it.

AD: Maybe you could try using Keynote, the Apple presentation software that he used….

BC: I’ll stick to my slide shows, thanks. But podcasts, webcasts, webinars – suddenly presentations sound so complicated…

AD: There’s new technology like Prezi, a cloud-based tool that makes online presentations a breeze…

BC: But how does one demystify these new-age presentations?

AD: Simple, with apps like Pro Presenter that offers assistance when you present from your iPad. Tools like Animoto help you create great presentation videos, bringing together images, video, text and animation. And you can share them online using sites like Slide Boom and Slide Share.

BC: All these options must be making the older lot go nuts.

AD: That reminds me of a phrase coined in the memory of those who went nuts sitting through hours of mindless slides overflowing with data - death by PowerPoint.

BC: Now you know why those little dark circles in each slide are called bullets…

AD: In fact, the hatred for PowerPoint is so intense that in Switzerland, there is a political party called the Anti PowerPoint Party that discourages the use of any presentation software…

BC: Perhaps it’s their way of getting the corporate world to see merit in loudspeakers, banners and slogans…

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Technology, in an instant…


‘Technology’s iffy.’ ‘No, it does things in a jiffy.’ Presenting both sides of the argument...

AD: Hi, how’s your new laptop doing?

BC: Good, but it takes the same time to boot up as my old laptop…

AD: Ah, technology is in the dock again…

BC: You recall the original IBM PC that was launched in the early 80s? It used to take a minute or so to switch on, for DOS to boot up and for me to open Wordstar.

AD: So?

BC: The 8088 processor has evolved to an i7 Processor, the measly 256 kb memory replaced by 2GB RAM and the 10 MB hard disk by a 500GB HDD. Swap DOS with Windows and Wordstar with MS Word – but it still takes the same time…

AD: Are you trying to...

BC: What I'm saying is that for all the talk about technology, nothing much has changed. Operating systems and applications are getting bigger and more complex, and require more hard disk space and RAM capacity to operate. So, while machines are becoming more powerful, the time taken to start up remains the same...

AD: Look, machines that are shut down go into a cold state. Getting them back to working condition takes a few seconds, but that's getting shorter all the time...

BC: How is that?

AD: Scientists are toying with bacteria - Magnetospirillum magneticum - that eats iron and gets magnetized. These living magnets are being used to create high speed hard disks which could speed up your computer.

BC: Doesn’t that strike you as ironical? You protect your machine from virus and then add some bacteria to it…

AD: Forget what strikes me, but it might be of interest to you to note that computers have been struck by a thunderbolt...

BC: The only thunderbolt worth being struck by is the one that struck Michael Corleone in the Godfather...

AD: This one is even better. Thunderbolt is an input-output technology, and the result of a joint collaboration between Apple and Intel. True to its name, it makes computers lightning fast.

BC: But the operating system…

AD: Even operating systems are evolving to stop people like you from cribbing... Windows 8, when used in test conditions with a solid state disk, has been reported to enable system boot up in just a couple of seconds...

BC: Sounds impressive, but what about those who don't have solid state disks?

AD: Well, one option would be to use the hibernate feature in Windows. You can power the system off and go back to your previous session the instant you turn it on. It’s similar to the resume function in Macs.

BC: Everything has to be instant in today’s world, right?

AD: It’s a demand-supply thing. Technology has even made alcohol available in the form of mouth spray for an instant high. Apparently, the effect is very temporary...

BC: I always knew that the highs of technology could never be permanent…

AD: But technology's on a mission to speed up things - there's so much to be done and so little time to do it in. Do you know that we sleep almost a couple of hours lesser than the generation a century ago did?

BC: At this rate, I foresee a future where computers have a sleep mode, but humans don't...

AD: I give up - aren’t you happy that technology makes the world go faster?

BC: I get slightly out of breath when people say that technology runs our world. I would be happier if, for a change, it could just walk alongside us for a while…