{"id":3788,"date":"2016-07-04T08:31:15","date_gmt":"2016-07-04T07:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/?p=3788"},"modified":"2016-07-04T10:51:15","modified_gmt":"2016-07-04T09:51:15","slug":"automatic-presentations-slidebot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/automatic-presentations-slidebot\/","title":{"rendered":"Automatic presentations? Slidebot!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barely a week goes by that I don’t get asked by someone, somewhere to review something. Usually I politely decline because it’s either not my cup of tea or not very good. I feed back my thoughts in those areas privately. This week, the unsolicited review request came from slidebot.io<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ned Jamieson’s email wasn’t exactly personalised, which normally turns me off, (“Hey Simon,\u00a0I came across you on twitter and I thought I\u2019d reach out to see whether you\u2019d be interested in something I\u2019ve created<\/em>” looks a lot like a copy\/paste\/edit\/pray) but I knew his name from his book<\/a> and Ned’s said lots of\u00a0sensible things in the past<\/a>, so he’s on to a winner :)<\/div><\/div>\n

What my frugal approach to reviewing means is this: the very fact that I’m even publishing this is a kind of recommendation – at the very least it doesn’t suck! :)<\/p>\n

Ned’s baby is slidebot.io<\/a>. \u00a0 Slidebot claims to be able to make “Engaging presentations, without the effort”. Score one point against slidebot before I even test it, because it can’t do that and in truth that’s not<\/strong> what it even tries to do. \u00a0A better claim would be “Engaging slides<\/em>, without the effort”. \u00a0Anyone who thinks that slides and presentations are the same thing is wasting time. Still, I kinda like the idea of a tool which allows people to create attractive slides, easily. Frankly, anything to stop people using bullet-points, mindlessly. ;)<\/p>\n

The guts of slidebot is this claim…<\/p>\n

\n

Within seconds of providing the text you want included in your slide deck, SlideBot automatically designs for you a beautiful and unique presentation.<\/span> Each slide is specifically tailored to your content and you are able to present it, edit it and export it right away.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Naturally, I had to try it. Anything which can make my job faster\/easier gets a look-at. And the interface is clean, easy and fast. Plus one point, so we’re back to a draw before we look at it in detail.<\/p>\n

\"end\"Is it magic?<\/h2>\n

The first big limitation is that it can’t handle anything other than simple statements (or questions). It doesn’t think in any meaningful way. \u00a0If you give it the quote “The road less travelled” you get \u00a0that text superimposed on a road. It’s pretty, but it’s not original.<\/p>\n

Similarly, if give it the text “financing your business” you get a picture of a hand holding dollar bills. Meh.<\/p>\n

And that is both it’s beauty and it’s weakness. The beauty of it is that it gives you something which is visually attractive: within seconds you can automatically create attractive<\/em> slides and within only a few minutes you get an email link telling you where to download from. The weakness is that you get\u00a0automatically<\/strong> create attractive slides. They’re soul-less but effective by comparison to the god-awful standard of most presentations – a definite improvement.<\/p>\n

\"road_\"After just a few slides, you begin to feel a sense of hard-to-define sameness about them all. Perhaps I’m biased because I know they were generated by a computer but they look like they were generated by a computer. They’re good, clean, competent visual slides – but uninspired\u00a0good, clean, competent visual slides.<\/p>\n

That said, I can see two ways the slidebot approach would be a godsend, straight away, without trying.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. As slides which effectively work as chapter headings to break up more technical slides.<\/li>\n
  2. As the starting point for generating some ideas for slides if you’re a bit stuck<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Will it catch on?<\/h2>\n

    I’m unconvinced, but I hope so. The reason I’m unconvinced is that it feels like slidebot is solving a problem for people who, by definition, don’t need it solving. On the one hand, if you’re the kind of person who makes presentation using lots of dense information, perhaps even using bullets etc, you’re not the kind of person who’s going to be able to use slidebot in the first place. \u00a0While on the other hand, if you’re the kind of person who creates visually impactful slides, you’re going to find you can probably do a better job.<\/p>\n

    The fee of $19 a month isn’t high, though, so it’s got legs there!<\/p>\n

    Who’s it most useful for?<\/h2>\n

    Despite my reservations, I can imagine it getting used a lot by people who haven’t had any presentation skills training and who know they need to move on from death by bullet point. If you’re making the occasional presentation and you’re looking for a head start in looking flashy, this is a great starting point.<\/p>\n

    So not for the professional or experienced presenter but a good leg up for the aspirational one… In my head, I can see it being handy for accountants or lawyers, for example, as they explore how to make their presentations better.<\/p>\n

    Are there any gotchas?<\/h2>\n

    Well it’s a computer program, so you need tweak things manually, obviously. That should be so self-evident that it’s not a gotcha.<\/p>\n

    What is a gotcha, however, is that some of the images project better than others. Don’t assume the images will work – test them by projecting. If they don’t work, it’s an easy matter to change them but you’d better check first. If you’re using a monitor of any kind rather than a data projector my experience is that you’re fine though.<\/p>\n

    Oh, and one biggie… I tested this with my wife, who’s got to give a presentation tomorrow. (Don’t panic, it’s all done and dusted, this was a test.) It’s a real world example. She liked the interface, liked the simplicity, got all excited and then when slides arrived laughed out loud because she thought it was a joke…<\/p>\n

    I must admit, I’m struggling to see why a slide with the text CPD should create a police car. None of the six or seven replacements we tried worked either. Obviously the image-matching algorithm works better if you give it a phrase – and equally obviously the system doesn’t know what CPD is. (To be fair, neither do a lot of organisations! ;) \u00a0)<\/p>\n

    Caution – I’ve not tested this fully, so there could be others ;)<\/p>\n

    Will I use it?<\/h2>\n

    Personally, no. For me it falls unhelpfully between two stools (see above) – but what I will do is recommend it to clients sometimes, when I find they need something to break them out of a mould and they’re the kind of client who likes both gadgets and having a recommendation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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