Too often, we have all suffered death by PowerPoint with hundreds of slides presented in stuffy meeting rooms. So, we have all experienced the almost physical pain of poorly designed slides, clashing or hard to see colours, layouts that confuse and obscure the content, graphics and text crashing into the template, and images and pictures that do more to confuse than to enlighten.
Many of these problems come from the fact that presenters are not designers and certainly not experts in PowerPoint, but they are expected to tackle designing an attractive, interesting presentation with little help.
Some of the problems come from the almost infinite customisability of PowerPoint – there are simply too many options, menus, submenus and commands available. Users have a dashboard more akin to a 747 than to the small family car that they actually need.
Jan Schultink had spent many years working at McKinsey and Company helping to develop clear visualisations for staff and clients, and ten years ago recognised that PowerPoint was, for many, simply too complex and too large and was hindering users in getting their content and their message across. So, he developed SlideMagic.
SlideMagic has been designed to simplify the process of content creation – allowing the user to focus on their message rather than having to manage style. Its easy-to-use interface with clear templates and AI generated imagery reduces styling overload. Its grid-based structure ensures consistency and quality in the presentation, allowing the creator and the audience to see the core messages. Premium users can then export their finished product to .ppt or .pdf formats for safe distribution.
Breaking Down Barriers
Of course, the biggest problem with any application is that elephant in the corner – PowerPoint. It is so embedded in large companies that it is very hard to break into the market – which is why SlideMagic are looking at the student marketplace. These users have not yet become addicted to PowerPoint and are looking for solutions to help them focus on creating quality content quickly rather than having to spend hours learning PowerPoint. This makes SlideMagic’s templates, grids and AI enabled image generation perfect.
SlideMagic uses AI to recommend and generate imagery suited to your presentation while you’re writing. Non-technical audiences can generate their presentations quickly and then focus on their work again.
Reaching the student market
This desire to support the student users was the reason Jan uses InAcademia. Just like SlideMagic itself, InAcademia is designed to be simple for the students to use – by using their existing student credentials they can validate their status in less than five clicks. No need to set up accounts with third parties or to share personal data with companies.
SlideMagic benefits from a service that is integrated into their platform, making a seamless validation process which supports the whole philosophy of SlideMagic.
As InAcademia spreads more widely through the R&E communities, more and more users and companies will be able to benefit from this simple, secure and privacy preserving student validation.
To find out more about SlideMagic visit https://get.slidemagic.com/
To find out how InAcademia can support your organisation visit https://inacademia.org
This article is featured on CONNECT 44, the latest issue of the GÉANT CONNECT Magazine!
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