| CNet says Oscar-winning "An Inconvenient Truth" made in Powerpoint. Can you say FACT CHECK! | | Date Created: 04 Mar, 2007, 09:25 AM |
 I gave a very brief presentation yesterday for AUSOM, one of Melbourne's oldest Mac user groups.
I actually started my user group experience in 1990 with them and a Mac Plus which I bought from a friend after we both finished our Clinical psychology qualifications.
I was one of three presenters asked to discuss blogging. I was a late inclusion and asked to discuss how I use both iBlog for my fear of flying blog, Flightwise, and Blogwavestudio, which I used for the blog you're reading.
As it turned out I didn't get time for Cyberpsych using Blogwavestudio. Nor did I use Keynote which I think the audience may have expected I would use.
Instead, prior to the talk, I opened both Safari and Firefox, and using their tab features, opened the webpages I wanted to display and discuss. These included the first page of each blog, as well as the site statistics from Sitemeter.com I gather so I can learn how visitors are referred to each blog.
While I got through most of my fear of flying blog discussion, poor old Cyberpsych was left languishing. I had wanted to focus on some of the more popular blog entries I had made, ones that keep being linked to and searched for. These entries usually are my Keynote versus Powerpoint entries, or my tales writ about Switchers and Dumpers.
You can see them under "Top Stories" over on the right.
Now maybe I'll be invited back to give a brief talk - certainly more than 10 minutes - about Keynote, especially after version 4 is released... soon. It won't be so much about its new features - although they have to be covered - but about Keynote's ineffable qualities in eliciting more creative efforts from its users, compared to the stale efforts over-exposed Powerpoint offers.
Indeed, a month or two back, I'd listened to some podcasts featuring the MS Powerpoint team discussing Office and Powerpoint 2007. I've been thinking about blogging about what I heard, and the Microsoft team's positive mentions of Apple's Keynote, for some time. It's still brewing and percolating, but I was compelled to write this blog entry after reading ZDNet Australia's reproduction of a CNet review of Powerpoint 2007.
Why?
Well, predictably, the feature film of Al Gore's Global Warming presentation, named "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar last week for Best Documentary.
Several months ago, listening to late night radio (which I rarely do with so many interesting podcasts on the Shuffle) the film was discussed, and how Powerpoint was used to construct it. Yikes!
So I dialled up the station, got on air, and discussed how in fact it's Apple's Keynote at work, and how Keynote is changing the way people present. One of the radio crew says, "Thanks for that", the other offers a "whatever" type response, as it to say "who really cares".
I'm guessing that now the film has received numerous awards, and most particularly an Academy Award, more people will hear news of it being based on a slide show.
Certainly, the Duarte Design group that helped Gore, featured in an Apple Hot News segment some months back, published a media release, ecstatic about the film's win. You can read more about them at my mate Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen website here from where I've purloined the image top left. (Hope you don't mind, Garr).
So, am I expecting more of what follows from Microsoft-centric sites soon? You bet!
Here is the introductory paragraph to the ZDNet (Aus)/CNet review of Powerpoint 2007:
"PowerPoint is the best-known software for creating slide shows, whether they're used in a grade school history class, for a corporate sales pitch, or, in the most famous example, to warn the world about climate change. As with the rest of the Office 2007, the changes to PowerPoint are ambitious and drastic. The new interface rearranges every function you may have memorised, and the file formats are different. Plus, while you can hide the Ribbon by double-clicking on a tab, there's no going back to a "classic" view of PowerPoint that better resembles 2007's predecessors."
Two things to say here: FACT CHECK!
And second... remember all those school boards and school-based IT pros. who maintained the FUD mantra of "kids should learn at school on the software and hardware platforms they'll use at work"?
Clearly they had no idea it would be easier to switch from Powerpoint 2003 to Keynote than Powerpoint 2003 to 2007. And my guess is the same goes for all the apps. in Office 2007.
If I thought 2005 was the year of the Switcher, 2007 will leave it in the dust.
iPhone, Leopard and new Macs will ramp up the Switcher rates.
And of ZDNet (Aus) and its review author, Elsa Wenzel? I hope they're free range eggs that ended up on your faces. Would be in keeping with your faux pas. |
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