10 | September | 2012 | Advocate's Studio

Speaking of presentations, SlideShark, formerly an iPad only app coming from online education purveyor BrainShark, hopes to make the experience of viewing, sharing and projecting PowerPoint files fit in your pocket. It has just released an iPhone app and, like its iPad counterpart, works some behind the scenes magic to make the presentation show as it should on your iDevice screen. The iPhone app permits viewing and zooming of PowerPoint presentations, sharing and tracking of presentations, and connecting to projectors or TVs to blow those tiny presentations back up to audience size. With a SlideShark account, you can also store and access the presentations in the cloud at SlideShark’s site. You can also set auto-play functions to loop your presentation and can utilize a laser-pointer effect during presentations.

All in all, Slideshark is a handy tool if you are on the road and needing to work with presentations.

We have all had to sit through one. Or more. Boring, boring BORING presentations. If you want to do something a bit less soporific with your next slide deck, something more creative than, say, loading your screen up with tiny text, maybe you should try out Haiku Deck. From the mouths of the founders:

Presentation software hasn’t changed very much over the years. It’s been business as usual since the invention of the Internet and mass adoption of mobile devices. We set out that day to change the game. With our product, anyone can create a stunning deck and share it.

Haiku Deck is rooted in a few simple principles. We know everyone has great stories and ideas ready to be set free. We believe crafting a compelling story should be a joyful creative exercise. We yearn for the fabled day when the words, “Let me just fire up this presentation,” …fills an audience with eager anticipation instead of all-consuming dread.

This very sweet iOS app is heavy on graphics and images and ease of use and quite light on boring. For free, you get a bunch of cool themes to get you started. Or, for $2, you can access additional themes to set your presentation apart. Within those themes, you can search and use millions of Creative Commons licensed images or upload your own images for slide backgrounds. For the finishing touch, choose from lots of fonts, image filters and layouts. The results are quite stunning. Share presentations on Facebook or Twitter, view them in the browser at http://haikudeck.com, or, if you really have to, export to PowerPoint or PDF. Lots of great options here and, best of all, say goodbye to snooze-worthy decks!

Here is one I made in, oh, about 5 minutes. I easily shared it via email to myself, uploaded onto Scribd via Google Docs and then embedded here. So easy.

View this document on Scribd

Get a another taste of the results in Haiku Deck’s promo video below. Or visit their gallery for some gorgeous samples here. Or, if you are really taken with them, why not apply for a job? They’re hiring.