Enduring Images
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The first image is of Brigid McGrath’s eyes bulging out. This says in one picture what we could never describe in all of the marketing hype that we could possibly compose. She was in attendance for Glen Millar’s 60-minute animation session, in which, by his own admission, he showcases non-stop gratuituous effects. In the process, though, he uncovers techniques and creations that most PowerPoint users would never in their lives think of on their own. Case in point, the whirling dirvish that Millar entitles "Absolute Nonsense" -- upon seeing such a thing, there is an instant sea change in the way they view the potential of the software, and more importantly, their own potential. Hence, the bugged-out eyes, a la McGrath. The next mental image that I keep belongs to Mary Waldera. During Tuesday’s lunch, she spoke on behalf of InfoComm’s Presentation Council, a support group for presentation pros. She cited several examples of members helping members, and among a room of over 200 people, created the sentiment in a way that few others could that we are all on this journey together. The third image is of Nancy Duarte, standing in front of a completely dark room. We like to underexpose our photos, but not this much: a 12-city block-wide power outage plunged our ballrooms into darkness for about five minutes. Nancy was so dialed in to her presentation, she just turned her notebook display around and kept right on going. Her ability to illustrate how rough concepts become finished slides is so captivating, if the lights never came back on, her audience would never have cared. The fourth image is that of Microsoft's Ric Bretschneider, who has attended all three conferences. As Program Manager for PowerPoint, he is responsible for creating the vision for each version and then seeing it through to completion. In the 16 years that we have been hosting end-user conferences and inviting product managers to attend, none has become as immersed in the culture of the event as he has. He takes more notes than anyone; he attends as many of the sessions as he can; he insists upon holding late-night guru sessions; and he coordinates exhaustive surveys and user-feedback initiatives. Like no one who has come before him, he recognizes the value of having a couple hundred users all under one roof, and he takes every opportunity to meet them, listen to them, learn from them. The fifth and sixth images are from Monday's ridiculous and wonderful trivia contest, in which a dozen patrons split up into three teams and play a game that blends Jeopardy and Family Feud (with some shameless ripoffs of Survivor, Millionaire, Match Game, and $20,000 Pyramid), all set to questions about the software. Justin Diminni brought the house down with his 90 seconds of clue-giving during the Taboo portion of the competition. And you couldn't ask for a better sponsor for the trivia contest than Right Seat Software, makers of Vox Proxy. Of course, the vice-versa is equally true: there might not be a better showcase for a product that makes talking animated characters than a game show created about PowerPoint and run as a PowerPoint slide show. And finally, there were two newcomers who stole the show. Korie Pelka from EFI approached us last year about speaking to the issues of content creator and presentation support positions at large corporations. We had no idea she would create such a captivating blend of message, focus, and humor. And Rebecca Levine originally came to San Diego from the Microsoft team to discuss the history of template creation. But a week before the conference, the company authorized the preview of the next version of PowerPoint, and so we turned her sessions upside-down. Instead of a walk down memory lane, we were treated to a peek into the not-so-distant future. (Did we like what we saw? Watch this space...) Each one of these pieces helped create the mosaic of PowerPoint Live ’05. The cliche about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts is borne out at this event. People like Glen Millar and Nancy Duarte do it to bug out the eyes of people like Brigid, who find themselves part of a larger community like the one that Mary Waldera promotes, which is why Ric Bretschneider attends religiously, which is why Microsoft allowed the new version to be shown, which is why next year's event, September 21-24, back in San Diego, will likely reach our capacity of 250. Not all cycles are vicious. • The view from Professor PowerPoint's perspective Flip Flops, Margaritas and Camtasia Studio
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