Look, No Laptop!
One of the unexpected benefits of SlideRocket has been that I don’t need to take my computer to meetings anymore. This is a welcome change after more than a decade of dragging a laptop around with me wherever I go.
When I’m scheduling a meeting I simply call ahead and ask them to have a computer for me with a projector/monitor connected and the Adobe Flash 9 Player installed (it’s a simple download, but some companies have their computers locked and the IT department needs to be involved). That’s it.
When I walk into the room, I launch a browser, log into SlideRocket, play my presentation, and go into full screen mode. My slides look great and the videos and animations play smoothly. This does require a high-speed Internet connection in the conference room, but that’s common these days.
The nice thing about this approach is that it reduces time spent connecting cables and powering up at the beginning of the meeting, and the conference room computer is usually already connected to the Internet, a big-screen display/projector, and speakers.
- mike
Orli
August 14, 2007 @ 12:59 pm
Hey Guys,
Any chance to check out your beta?
mikelingle
August 16, 2007 @ 3:49 pm
Just enter your email address at http://www.sliderocket.com and we’ll let you know when we’re letting people in.
- mike
mewcomm
August 21, 2007 @ 9:54 am
While I appreciate the enthusiasm for Slide Rocket, you’ve obviously not done many presentations that were important. No serious person would dare not take their own Laptop and self contained application to a customer site when the stakes are high.
Recently a group of vendors showed up to present to our team without their own laptop. We gave em an HP laptop that has a “Presentation Mode” app in it. At the same time, the Video card had a display driver that conflicted with their app.
Time Lost? 45 minutes while they figured it out. Despite having strong product line to show, they lost a significant amount of time in the demo. The deal was worth several million dollars. Did they lose it? Unknown at this point.
But my point is this….until these apps are stable, proven and ubiquitious…..no serious person will depend solely on the app. And that my friends will be a few years out.
mike whatley
Altadena, Ca
mikelingle
August 23, 2007 @ 10:52 am
Trust me that we are making important presentations to rooms full of executives. The nice thing about SlideRocket is that it runs in most browsers on most major operating systems, so it really is possible to just jump onto someone else’s computer and lead a meeting.
That being said, it’s always best to have a backup. Here are some gotchas to be aware of:
1. The browser needs to be running Adobe’s Flash 9 Player, and you can run into issues where corporate IT departments have locked down their computers so that Flash can’t be installed, which is why I call ahead.
2. You will need a fast Internet connection unless you have cached your presentation and are running the offline version of SlideRocket.
3. Even if you bring your own computer you can run into issues when connecting to a corporate Internet from a conference room.
At the moment, the safest way to operate is probably to bring your own laptop with a cellular modem that will connect you to the Internet from any location.
- mike