So you've loaded your presentation onto your laptop, packed the projector, printed the leave-behind visuals and are ready to enter the meeting room to pitch to your dream client.
After taking 10-15 minutes to set-up, make your introductions, say 'yes please' to the offer of a drink and placed your leave-behind visuals at the appropriate table settings, you are ready to go.
As a method of presentation delivery there is an extremely dated feel about this method. Enter, into the meeting room, Idea Flight. The ability to present peer-to-peer isn't a new concept, but it is via iPad (or any other tablet). What you are immediately placing in front of the audience is a tactile and immersive device that has the ability to present content at 100% of it's size at optimum quality and clarity.
Sure you are going to possibly have to shell out a little more money to allow each of your audience members to view the content, rather than share, if they do not have access to an iPad themselves, but the spectacle and intrigue you create is a great opening salvo. You immediately have the client hooked, they can interact rather than sit and stare, you make them a key component of the pitch presentation. For those that can not afford the outlay to purchase numerous iPads the VGA connector can be used to display the presentation on a large screen.
Idea Flight homescreen
Idea Flight is a simple idea that is executed very well
Your options are to either be a passenger or a pilot. The pilot being a presenter, the passenger being the audience. Passenger is the default download user type and for a small figure you can upgrade the application to a presenter profile.
The pilot can simply share his PDF presentation to any iPad on the same Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth range (max of 16 iPads via Wi-Fi and 4 via Bluetooth). Installing the PDF for viewing capabilities can be achieved by sideloading in iTunes or accessing a DropBox account.
Once in presentation mode the pilot can swipe through pages, zoom, pan, rotate and add notes. The pilot has complete control by default. The passenger is presented with a direct replica of the pilot's screen, including animation, with a minor time delay. An added extra of being able to 'unlock' a presentation gives full access to the interactive features to the passengers. On completion of your presentation you can also allow the passengers to download the presentation to their devices for offline reading.
What the iPad and Idea Flight encourage is a change to the meeting room environment, it adds a personal touch and engages both presenter and audience in a manner that helps break boundaries.
Clearly there are huge advantages in being able to present iPad prototypes in this method, but there are also key advantages to presenting web visuals also. People still have pre-conceptions about the browser 'fold' and where it should sit. As the iPad has a 1024x768 viewable space you are, in effect, displaying the optimum amount of browser content. Before too long 1024x768 will be a thing of the past, but you can at least answer the question confidentially for the time-being.
In time I am hoping to see the introduction of a file sharing option where pilot and passenger do not have to be sat on the same network or within the same Bluetooth range. This will clearly mirror screen sharing applications that already exist but would also complete a very capable and well considered application by Conde Nast.