When up against work deadlines, every timesaver is a welcome relief. When creating presentations on a deadline, it is essential to have software that will work with you and not against you. PowerPoint is most likely going to be the software you open up when you think "presentation." However, I am here to convince you this should not be your first action! With more and more new companies and solutions for creating better presentations, making the correct choice can be quite overwhelming. In my last posts I have talked about the key to better presentations and why visual presentations are important. I mainly harped on the point that PowerPoint has crippled and prevented us from producing effective presentations. I have put together this mind map on the qualities for which you should be looking in your software of choice to assist in presentations:
I really feel there is no true replacement for the capabilities SmartDraw provides - SmartDraw can help from brainstorming to creating presentations, without needing endless numbers of files for all of your visuals. Personally, I detest searching for all the source files for images that I might have created for my presentation. With SmartDraw, all of your presentations are included in one file, from mind maps to charts. Additionally, if you tend to give quite a few talks, then you can save your commonly used slides for easy re-use. This way, you do not need to go searching through an endless number of presentation files to find that slide you want.
With SmartDraw, you can gather all the research for your presentation using a mind map, you can plan you presentation with a storyboard, you can create all the visuals you need for your presentation, and you can easily convert your SmartDraw presentation to the widely recognizable PowerPoint format. With SmartDraw, you will not be tempted to give in to PowerPoint's text box just itching to be filled with bullet points of information. SmartDraw encourages you to use visuals by making it very easy to create them. However, if you really do need text then SmartDraw will allow you to enter text and bullet points.
If you are intrigued, I would recommend looking at the white paper we wrote with Rick Altman on how SmartDraw reinvents PowerPoint.
Be sure to download a SmartDraw trial and take a look at these related posts:
The Key to Effective Business Presentations
Upgrade Your Presentations to Visual Presentations
