Prezi Vs. PowerPoint

I have to admit, the straight laced, often dull and graph heavy PowerPoint that has come to be a staple of our management program HAS to go. I am currently working on what may very well be my last formal presentation of my college career, and I am about one text-heavy slide from going off the deep end. On top of that, the formatting malfunctions in the mac-PC transfer of PowerPoint files is getting really old.

My group met today to review our presentation, which we will have to present in our finest business apparel this Thursday. Part of our task is to engage, while maintaining professionalism. Despite my interest in the project we’ve worked on all semester, even I struggled to keep my eyes open. Just looking at the PowerPoint made me feel inexplicably angry. I think we need to get away from the idea that Professional=Boring. … So I suggested scrapping it.

I’ve used Prezi.com for past presentations to great success. It’s quite simple to use. In essence, it is just a blank canvas that allows you to get crafty with the zoom function. However, it’s fresh, fun and something different. Just by putting our content into Prezi and adding the motion path, we created a presentation that was suddenly 100 times more interesting and engaging just by being different. And it only took about an hour!

Prezi also allows you to edit as a group, similar to google docs, which can be very helpful in the review process. You can also export the Prezi from the website to your desktop, if you so desire. The best part… “Prezifying” a PowerPoint can be as simple as importing your slides and adding animations.

If you’ve used Prezzi before, I applaud your efforts to save the world one mundane presentation at a time. If you haven’t, I certainly recommend it. I’ve included a video intro to Prezi here:

You're in the business of what, exactly?

On more than one occasion my friends have made fun of me because I never leave the house without my business cards. It's something I have done since my sophomore year of college.

At first, the business cards were simple. I was a peer adviser to incoming freshmen, so the college gave me business cards with my name, major, and class year... From there, things got more serious.

In the middle of my sophomore year, a friend introduced me to Vistaprint.  I ordered my very first custom order business cards... It cost $3.50 for 250 cards. I kept reformatting them for hours, and was unhappy with them from the moment they arrived at my door.

What on earth was I thinking? As soon as I opened the box I realized I had used my university email address... and the title of student didn't make me sound hardworking enough.... but I kept them, and passed them out for a year or so... I even gave them out at the bar on my 21st birthday.


Maybe I was too early for my time. To be fair, I probably should have ignored my friend as a sophomore. He is the same friend who later convinced me that it was fun and easy to become an ordained minister online, so I did. It is still on my to do list to order business cards reflecting my full name: Reverend Erin E. Caron. But in all honesty, having those business cards as a sophomore really impressed people when I went for interviews.




After coming back from London though, it was time for a change. I was going to be a senior in college... definitely time for a new look, and certainly no longer too premature to be a professional... And so I ordered these:

I am still made fun of relentlessly for having business cards. One of the other interns in my office this summer was so amused by them that he ordered his own with the job title "professional lady lover" and assorted pick up lines. But some people are finally getting it and ordering legit business cards. In all seriousness, you never know when you might randomly meet somebody that could become a valuable part of your network. Although, I don't recommend handing out business cards at a bar on your birthday... I've now made that mistake 2 years running.