Prezi – An exciting, new way to present

Scene 1: Imagine that you’re ready with a presentation full of figures, images, and vital information. You put your best efforts, yet you find the audience bored and uninterested. Throughout the session, you can’t figure out reasons which are probably turning them off. You try to align them with your argument, and with a nearly failed attempt you finish the talk.

Scene 2: You’ve given an impressive presentation, following which a complex question is thrown to you by someone in the audience with reference to some stats in the presentation. You turn to the presentation slide at once for reference, but Alas! You’re lost within the jungle of data and find it difficult to articulate a quick response.

Scene 3: You are presenting about your breakthrough technology startup in front of a group of potential investors. You are trying hard to sell your concept with the help of the latest industry and market updates delivered in the simplest possible language. After the presentation is over, the investors decline your proposal, no matter how promising it looks to you, because the lead investor is not able to verbally understand the functional anatomy and secrets which set your technology as an advanced one. Unexpected, huh?
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Set yourself in all three scenarios and empathize as to what amount of loss it could be. It’s irreversible in all the cases, right? We see the cases where in spite of interesting content, the lean presentation style ruins it all. It equally sucks if you are a great curator or presenter, but don’t possess a good technique of presentation. All presenters would agree that it’s not just about content and style, but it’s also about the design of your presentation that makes an ultimate difference.

If you can observe, in each of the above cases, the common culprit is the absence of storytelling and effective visuals.

Well, “90% of what your brain feels comes through your eyes”! This is what Prezi believes. Prezi, a new tool for creating  presentations, replaces traditional presentation tools such as MS PowerPoint in an incredible way.

What is Prezi? – A Snapshot of its History & Development         

In 2009, three Hungarian entrepreneurs Adam Somlai-Fischer, Peter Halacsy and Peter Arvai, officially launched Prezi with the aim of providing a better solution to solve the basic problem every presenter used to deal with i.e. how to increase audience attention and engagement for a presentation.

Prezi (a Hungarian short form of ‘Presentation’) incorporates the use of the zooming user interface (ZUI) which basically lets the presenters zoom in and out of a particular part of the presentation. It’s kind of an all-around navigation into the subject so that the viewers can receive an immersive and in-depth view of what is being explained. Presenters find it easy to define the concept. The viewers, on the other hand, can follow a dramatic flow and sequentially aligned visuals which help them to receive and process the information effortlessly. Ultimately, it helps in enhancing and retaining the engagement and attention of the audience.

Prezi is an online Flash-based tool. However, post-2010 when the popularity of Flash was on a steady decline, Prezi forethought of penetrating other technologies. As a result of his hard work, it started offering Javascript/HTML5 Editor based technology, starting from Mid-2014. The new technology not only puts Prezi a step ahead in terms of flexibility, but also helps to produce a more seamless visual experience across all the devices. As acknowledged by Prezi CTO Peter Halacsy, Prezi used to work based on a zooming technology, and therefore, it was really difficult to make moderations while providing a different technology platform. But eventually, Prezi team made it possible!

How Prezi makes things so Awesome?

Check out the reasons why you MUST try Prezi as a savvy and pro presenter-cum-speaker.

• Immersive and effective visual play: The zooming technology has a no. of use cases where businesses have successfully tapped the customer attention and curiosity for the product or service demonstrated using Prezi. When the customers or viewers are navigated throughout the idea, they can interact, respond and remember in a more comprehensive way which, in turn, earns a higher share of their minds. This suggests higher chances of brand recall and thus, businesses can close more no. of sales leads effectively. Prezi can be especially helpful for the businesses involving complex products such as engineering and hardware, as well as descriptive services such as education and information.

• Unlimited Storytelling: As the presentation veterans forecast, storytelling is going to remain one of the popular trends for 2016. Various tools are available in the market to assist the presenters for creating an engaging story line. With a strong user base of over 75 million, Prezi enjoys an upper-hand when it comes to a trusted name for contemporary presentation software services.

• Cloud-based data storage service: Today, it is considered a smart way to keep all your data readily available at online cloud service platforms such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Amazon S3 etc. During hectic schedules or unplanned meetings, you can use your Prezi account to access the data. As mentioned before, you can use different options according to your specific needs. You can also save and store Prezis on your personal computer, laptop or iPad.

1. Prezi ZUI, which allows you to use a canvas and a set of tools to place different media such as images, clips, texts etc. and to navigate among them. Using frames and layers, you can combine all these media and create a single, non-linear presentation.
2. Using Prezi Desktop, Prezi Pro or Edu Pro subscribers can avail access to the files offline, work and store the final copies on their personal computers and the size of the final file can go up to 500 MB. To avail these benefits, the subscribers need an officially affiliated email address to sign up.
3. Prezi Viewer for iPad is an app for iPad to let you take control of all the Prezis you have created using an online account. You can fully navigate (zoom in and out) through your Prezis using touch interfaces.

• Team-based work: With Prezi, it’s possible for a team to work simultaneously for creating presentation designs. Through Prezi Collaborate, an online group can co-create or co-edit presentations at the same time, even being distant from one another. Up to 10 individuals can jointly form an online group to conduct meetings or to work on presentations, in real time or if required, some time later.

• A successful global brand: With increasing demands for storytelling and new, interesting ways of making presentations, Prezi is getting a deserving applause. There are many examples where Prezi has outshone the performance. Let’s take a look at some of those success stories.
• Prezi is increasingly being used by the members/presenters at World Economic Forum, FBLA, and TED. According to TED CEO Chris Anderson, Prezi is helping to reinvent the art of presentation. He used Prezi for his TEDGlobal 2010 presentation “How Web Video Powers Global Innovation”.
• Blackboard CEO Michael Chasen, used Prezi at BbWorld 2011 Annual Users’ Conference.
• Among many primary education institutes, Oregon State University and the Dwight School are making considerable use of Prezi for educational purposes.
• The Guardian used Prezi to publish a new world map on its website in 2011.
• Companies like ‘Geared for Imagination’ and ‘Sparked.com’ have also successfully and cost-effectively employed Prezi format to create their marketing communications.

How can you use Prezi?

Let’s briefly look at how you can use Prezi for your next presentation. Prezi is suitable for both, individual as well as business/professional requirements.

Prezi is available for free. However, with a free version, the users can avail a very limited storage space and can’t use features such as brand personalization, offline access, and data privacy. All these features plus additional storage space are available with paid membership plans.

And if you are confused about where to start, let us tell you that it’s very easy to get used to Prezi by  following a simple set of user instructions.

Finally, look at a set of outstanding, award-winning Prezis and you will be amazed to see the potential of Prezi. What are you waiting for? Be ready to see your presentation as the next ‘Awesome’!