Sales Graphics Blog

Almost every company can celebrate an instance of innovation, but when it comes down to it few businesses sit at the bleeding edge of their industry for decades at a time. Sales Graphics has pushed to be one of those few.

Fifty years ago we brought Mad Men to the top of their game with fuse-lit pyrotechnic bar charts so big they required their own carrying case. This was the front lines of innovation at the time, but as a family-owned business that expects to live on for generations, the world didn’t stop at fireworks.

We were one of the first presentation agencies to blaze trails on laptops and today we’re an industry leader of iPad presentations. As new technologies emerge we’ll be at the front-lines there as well, insofar as these technologies make sense for the businesses that use them.

So what kind of technologies could affect the future of presentations? Here are five innovations that could change the future of our industry:

Presentation Technology #1. Motion Gesture Technology – Kinect

Microsoft aims to bring motion gestures into every aspect of our lives, but in a world so motivated by tactile feedback, it’s hard to envision that we’ll see Kinect-type technology replacing much of what we do. There are some industries that could see dramatic change with motion gestures and presentations is one of them. Goodbye dead batteries and half-functioning clickers. Hello switching slides with the swipe of your hand.

Presentation Technology #2: The Anywhere (and Anything) Screen – Microsoft LightSpace Technology

We don’t mean to give Microsoft preferential treatment on this list, but it doesn’t take long to see the power of the technologies demonstrated in the Microsoft LightSpace demo above. This R & D project aims to bring the kind of multi-touch interactions we’re used to experiencing with LCD devices onto every surface. Need to present but don’t have a screen? Use the table, hand someone a video. Anything’s possible here.

Presentation Technology #3: New Concepts of Presentation Management

Marketers in the industry would have us believe that the future of presentation management lives in the cloud, but until the Internet is ubiquitous and fail-proof, this browser-based presentation approach is far from perfect. Expect to lose those long cable transfers and super-sized emails, but don’t rest in the cloud because the real future is much more versatile than that.

Presentation Technology #4: Li-Fi and Other Forms of Data Transfer & Interaction

Researchers have been increasingly keen on a new form of data transfer called Li-fi. Li-fi uses a flickering light to transfer bits of data with a few attractive benefits. Harald Haas from the University of Edinburgh, UK says of the technology:

“There are around 14 billion light bulbs worldwide, they just need to be replaced with LED ones that transmit data. We reckon VLC is a factor of ten cheaper than Wi-Fi.” Because it uses light rather than radio-frequency signals, VLC could be used safely in aircraft, integrated into medical devices and hospitals where Wi-Fi is banned, or even underwater, where Wi-Fi doesn’t work at all.

Perhaps this is the answer to our cloud-based presentation problem, but this kind of ubiquitous data transfer technology coupled with the mobile explosion could also give rise to more than a few forms of interaction. Live-polling, more engagement and audience feedback. This could give rise to an entirely new dimension in the world of presentations.

Presentation Technology #5: Feedback and Metrics

As more of what we do becomes wired to data streams, presenters will have access to unimaginable sets of data. Our clients who use CustomShow can already see data points like how long recipients are spending with each slide, but this is just the beginning. As presentation-related data becomes ubiquitous, the ones who can make meaning of it will change the industry.

Conclusion

Back in the days of pyrotechnic bar charts none of this was possible, but as cars learn to drive themselves the industry is fast-evolving. Here at Sales Graphics technology may be our platform, but stories and design are our language. That, we’re sure, will always be the same.

Thank you to the Fitting Group, who is featuring our CustomShow presentation software in Challenger Brand News this week. We are indeed going up against Goliath in the form of Microsoft PowerPoint. The good news is that no one loves PowerPoint, everyone simply tolerates it.

As mentioned in the article, we’ve been able to convince major brands to switch to CustomShow. Our customers include “DIRECTV, CNN, Bravo, The New Yorker, A&E, ELLE, The Wall Street Journal and Dior. And that’s just the short list.”

Here’s what Challenger Brand News has to say about CustomShow:

Beyond being dazzling, CustomShow sports a number of boons. On the one hand, it allows control over the information being presented in a way that ensures that the company’s brand guidelines are consistent. But on the other, it allows quick and easy customization of presentations to permit flexibility.

More than anything, CustomShow is a presentation program for a world with a short attention span and high visual expectations.

And they don’t even mention our new Web meeting capability, which plays high-definition video smoothly. You can find the entire Challenger Brand article here.

In this week’s Cover Story, BusinessWeek makes a strong case for the need to innovate during a recession. “Managing Through a Crisis” discusses many of the managerial challenges of getting through hard economic times. What’s interesting about the article is how looking at previous recessions shows that, for companies that can take advantage of lower prices and reduced competition, economic hard times can be great growth opportunities.

“You should be thinking of innovative ways to become more efficient, to improve your processes and think out of the box in those realms so that when the recession is over you are thinking out of the box and you’re prepared to innovate in other ways.”