Please practically plan your prezi presentation

At the 2011 AUSOUG Conference I gave a presentation on simply called Oracle Apex 4.1 Security.

The exciting thing was (well, I thought it was exciting) I gave powerpoint the flick and used Prezi instead. I've got oraclenerd to thank for putting me onto it.

Planning

• Plan - it's an easy thing to say, particularly with a new presentation technique, however plan the talk as much as you can. I find it best going big picture first, then keep drilling down to details Fits well with the prezi technology.
• Map out your list of topics - When I write a powerpoint presentation I do a similar thing. I list out my major points, decide on their order, then expand on each. 
• Map out your "slide" order - I found this important with the security presentation. I had a map of my infrastructure and I thought this will work really well in this style, but I wasn't sure what order to run with.  In the case of prezi, you need a physical path to follow, and the better planned that is - the better the presentation will look. I'm sure this will come easier over time. Consider it story-boarding.
• Zoom ideas (instead of slide) come - prezi has a different delivery style to powerpoint. Where powerpoint is slide after slide, and interesting interactions and features can be delivered between slides, zooming lends itself to different techniques, different delivery ideas. And unfortunately, you can add animation (not yet anyway) so bear that in mind because I came across that yearn regularly.
• Then list zoom locations, just like slide deck - I think when I noted this I meant to make it easier for you to know what's coming up. I wrote one up to remind myself of the general order - but forgot on the day, it was ok though because I practiced!
• Put in brackets your idea/what you might mention - this will help if it takes you a while to write your presentation. Ideas sound great at the time, you capture the frame, then you forget a month later what the revelation was that you were going to share with the audience. The comments will also be handy for on-line viewers, but maybe not necessary on the day of delivery - although a one-liner around a frame while talking might be valuable to your audience, you'll see it in a few of mine.

Creating

• Place your images/test in each slide - when I first started I found myself shifting things around until near perfection for each frame. I think there is more value in bundling your bits and worry about them later, so
• Lay them out generally as you'd think you'd need them - finer tuning of image location, added words etc can come later again.
• I've also been finding myself worrying about frame locations later - perhaps do the major ones first - particularly since there is a slide sorter now, making it even easier to add content where ever you like 
• When "later" comes - that's when you can do the finer points. A bit like writing a report, get the data right, then think about layout.

The slide sorter is really handy. That came along for my Apex Security presentation, and made a big difference in playing around compared to when I rewrote the Apex Performance from powerpoint to prezi.

Don't worry about the slide sorter when you want to add say, slide 8 out of 120. There are little dots in the lines between frames where you can create a new frame. Check out the prezi tutorials, they answer everything.

You might find this interesting, I kept the notes I made from my first run through. I made a few notes, I found this better than trying to fix things up on the fly. Just do a run through, note down what needs attention and maybe where, then work through your list.

So, some insight into my brain:

/*
-medieval castle - where is word defence in depth
-skips layer 8
-put monitor around browser
-question audience for hands! ff vs ie vs chrome
-skips xss
-zoom out a bit more before apex & db
- zoomed to apex area
-seems to skip something before "protect your items" - just mouse
- changed protect your... to green
-highlight tamper popup name
-is dr evil last before xss
-add pic of trojan horse
-put escape_sc after escaped html
-skips dbms assert
-zoom out to db first, skips out too fast
-my dmz comment after cloud?
-zoom to computation section of apex_dml_lock...
-skips tde heading - nope, was mouse
-zoom out to db after driving_site
-frame vpd redness
-add comment "per page for :APP_USER" - changed mind
add red comment  under added to all queries "user_name = :APP_USER"
remove p_name from p_set_context!!
get trace of policy in use, to prove performance question
-highlight set_context block
-under chart under "fires for every page", add "thanks to the session pool"
-zoom down to equation: pic of lego man with APEX_PUBLIC_USER shirt + pic of
-pool + pic of party
-add "automagically" in green in data encrypted...
-after zoom out to apex + db, zoom to apex
-duplicate zoom on user groups
-add "apis exist" under blue line at "allocate to your apex users"
-remove "authentication scheme definition" from view on custom attributes
-add to custom authentication source "-- this is a documented example" in
-green, then " but it doesn't work" in red somewhere - doesn't it????? - not anymore
-change post auth code to be just "select 'Y'"
-add on same page in green "because it solves a problem" in blue bar
-add 4.1 to evaluation point for authorisation schemes, default changed

save this for blog
count the 4.1s*/

And at the end of the day, it turned out really well - despite the fact I overslept and made it to the venue with 10 minutes to spare before my presentation, and I forgot my dongle for my (vital) clicker.

The delivery style is fresh, probably not for everyone - I can't see someone like Connor adapting this technology. His style is more suited for powerpoint. If you've never seen it, try watch him some time - especially his presentation on optimizer statistics. It's similar to Dick Hardt & Larry Lessig.

Scott