Prezi

The large workload from catching up on the studies I missed while in China, as well as some group presentations, has resulted in a severe lack of blogging. So it is quite fitting that this one is about a school-related tool - Prezi.

Prezi is a presentation platform, available to some extent on-line, and is similar to PowerPoint. But where PowerPoint focusses on a slide-to-slide basis, Prezi only has one image, but allows users to zoom in and out, as well as move around within the image. The user can capture "frames" from the Prezi, and string them together to create a flow of movement in the Prezi, and can thus convey information in this way.

I first stumbled upon Prezi in Denmark, where 5 Asian exchange students used it to present to our class. It turns out that the software is quite common here at CUHK, and is often used as a supplement to PowerPoint. So we decided to try and use it for our group presentation on entrepreneurship in China.

The power of Prezi, relative to PowerPoint, is that it can be used to tell a story. Moving around within an image lets you display some pieces of information, which you can then tie together in a, literally, big picture. Due to this story-telling nature, we decided to record our presentation - effectively making a 10 minute movie.

It was a lot of work, and not much success - our professor rightly criticized our over-ambitiousness regarding our choice of topic, and the movie format meant that it was difficult to deliver our punch lines extremely clearly. Also, 10 minutes is a long time, so a lot on movement was need within the Prezi, and because people didn't know what was coming, they phased out slightly or got bored. We got some innovative points, but one must truly harness the power of the Prezi when attempting such presentations. I guess I am one step closer.