Today, Intrigue is giving a big business presentation. We have a meeting with a potential client that we would really like to work with on an ongoing basis. Actually, we’ve already done a few small projects for this client before, but we’re interested in diversifying and increasing the work we do for them.
The basic premise of the presentation is to show the client what we at Intrigue do, and more importantly, CAN DO. Sometimes, even when a person knows you, it can be very beneficial to prepare a small presentation to package your services and talents. Our client allowed us the opportunity to come in and “show our stuff”. It was a very welcome moment as it would be wonderful to be working with this account on a regular basis.
However, the problem was that we had less than a week to prepare the presentation and a budget of ZERO. Well, ok then! We’re a creative group – this should be straightforward. All we needed was a plan. So the idea was to create a slideshow with some of our best work.
Carolyn lent her Mac Powerbook for the presentation. As Intrigue’s tech-support guy, it was my job to make sure the ‘book was updated and up to speed as it’s not used on a daily basis. It had last been updated around November of last year. Not too bad, but it definitely needed a full check-up. Sure enough, I found some minor problems with it that needed correcting. Thankfully, it was all no big deal and I updated the OS with a few minor patches as well.
As for the presentation itself, I had to figure out what to use for the actual slideshow. Originally, we were going to use Powerpoint, but it just seemed like major overkill for what we wanted – which was just a simple slideshow. No animation, no funky soundtrack, no special effects. Just slides and a simple cross-fade transition.
One neat trick in the Finder of both Mac OSX 10.4 and 10.5 is that you can create an instant slideshow from a folder full of images. Really basic, get-the-job-done type of slideshow. Ohhhh… this was almost too easy! So I set up a folder of images to do a quick test. All looked good at first. Then I realized it wasn’t going to be THAT easy after all. It turns out that the slides were not being played in alphabetical order as they are listed in the Finder. I’m not actually sure WHAT order it was using, but I sure couldn’t figure it out.
This was no good to me.
Next idea was to try building it in iPhoto. I’ve done that before and I know that the slide order can be set any way you want. Yes, it did require some extra prep work to get things imported and set up properly, but it was more than sufficient to handle the job. All I needed now was the final set of slides to drop into the show in iPhoto.
Jen and Carolyn would be handling that aspect of the presentation. They gathered together images from some of our best projects and designed some great looking slides. It’s really tough to condense 15+ years worth of design work into about 30 or so slides but we wanted to keep the presentation to just a few minutes. Nobody wants to sit through slides for hours anyway, so it was fine. So 30 slides it was – divided up to show our Design, Photography and Production prowess.
As time was winding down, I got the final slide list and proceeded to load up the show in iPhoto. The order was set and I let it play for a quick run through. Some settings were tweaked and… it was ready to go! With just a few minutes to spare, Rob and Mike – who looked dapper in their suits and ties – grabbed the Powerbook and some other materials and zoomed off to give what is sure to be a killer presentation – and it cost us virtually nothing but some time and ingenuity.