Thrilled was how I would describe my reaction when my wife gave me an iPod for Christmas last year. Being so compact (I have the 30 gig, color video version), it sure takes up a lot less travel room in my briefcase than my old CD player, not to mention the CD case of 20 or so discs (the iPod currently has over 1600 of my favorite songs on it). Of course, with a laptop and luggage, it still makes for a formidable effort to travel around in my legal marketing consulting business.
So, imagine my delight when I saw the post by John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing about using an iPod instead of a laptop for presentations. It got my attention I’ll tell ya. With a simple software package called iPresent It (works on both a PC and Mac), and an AV cable, you’re in business. John understands that this doesn’t work with an iPod Nano.
Before passing on this marketing (presentation) tip, I wanted to try it out myself. So, I downloaded a free trial of the software from ZappTek and found an AV cable on eBay (my wining bid was $.01 plus $6.29 shipping, or you can order it from Apple for $19.00 plus shipping),and put it to the test. Although you can’t include your slide automation from PowerPoint®, I got around that by inserting more slides in sequence as if automated. The iPod itself does allow two choices on how your slides enter. I LOVE it.
Okay! I’m going to try it on site once or twice before switching completely, but I have practiced an upcoming presentation to a Canadian Bar Association using the iPod, and it works like a charm. Now if I can only figure out how to reduce my luggage to the size of an iPod (okay the size of my briefcase), I’d be a happy camper.