Last week I had a call from a very exciting new customer that wanted to use Prezi for a presentation they are giving in Vegas on the following Monday.
A pretty tight deadline for us, but to make it even scarier the Prezi had to be created by the Thursday before at mid-day so that the huge legal team could check everything and sign it off in time for Mondays presentation.
When asked ‘Is it do-able in this timeframe’ I calmly smiled and said ‘Yes absolutely we can do that’.
The customer in question seemed a little shocked. They had seen Prezi being used and knew how different it was from PowerPoint. ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ they asked again.
‘Absolutely we can deliver, no problem’.
My secret weapon
You see I know the Prezi software well enough to feel absolutely confident when faced with crazy deadlines because of one amazing feature.
Prezi collaboration is probably one of the most exciting (and time saving) ways to work. It allows you to set up a Prezi, invite your colleagues, and all work together on the same canvass in real time.
And by the way this feature is available in all license types. Amazing right!
Here is how Prezi collaboration looks when working together:
How we use Prezi collaboration
So I went along to the customer site today and spent the first hour mind mapping and planning the Prezi with the customer. We had an absolutely rock solid script, and plenty of great imagery and assets to tap into. More importantly we knew what the Big Picture was going to be and how the content would all link together.
I then set up a Google Hangout with my team of designers (200 miles away) and briefed them on the project. During that briefing I assigned each member of the team (3 for this project) a specific area of the presentation to work on.
Then I went to www.prezi.com and created a new Prezi. Using the sharing option I linked in all 3 team members and made them all Editors of my Prezi.
I then set up and created the Big Picture for everyone to see where their individual parts would be. Each member of the team spent the rest of the day adding content into their assigned area whilst I overlooked everything and made small tweaks with the customer looking over my shoulder and of course keeping in constant contact with my team.
The end result
Of course what this meant was that we didn’t have to keep track of the latest Prezi version, or send files to one another and take it in turns to add content.
We ended up building a Prezi with nearly 60 path points (slides for the newbies) in around 10 hours. All through great planning, sensible management of designers, and one amazing tool enabling us all to collaborate.
More importantly we ended up with one very impressed new customer.
Result 😉
Click here for more info on Prezi collaboration.
