Month: January 2011

I first saw Prezi in one of my MIS class, and it was really a shock to me to see that my fellow classmates can come up such an exciting and polished presentation.

And when we look at Promotion, one of the four marketing mix, it is all about information, communication and presentation. Every student in Sauder knows the importance of presentation and maybe even struggle with it. However, even the most compelling brands or concepts are lost if the face-to-face delivery is weak. A well-planned, well-delivered presentation will help to convince potential clients to choose you over the competition.

Let me introduce you a little bit history about PREZI. Prezi is created by Adam Somlai-Fischer and Peter Halacsy in 2007, as they felt slides limited their ability to develop and explain ideas. The company was started in Budapest—the home town of Peter and Adam, and was officially launched in April 2009.

Prezi is a web-based presentation application and storytelling tool that uses a single canvas instead of traditional slides, text, images, videos and other presentation objects are placed on the infinite canvas and grouped together in frames. The canvas allows users to create non-linear presentations, where users can zoom in and out of a visual map. A path through different objects and frames can be defined, representing the order of the information to be presented.

Prezi doesn’t just flash pictures at you, it takes you on a journey and communicates with the audience how your own mind sees the information, allowing you to express yourself in the most coherent way possible.

So what are you waiting for? Start learning it now and use it in your presentation tomorrow to promoter your ideas!

It is thrilling to see the world’s first class universities making a contribution to the open course movement. The Open Learning Initiative undertaken by the Harvard University Extension School now offers eight free courses. This cluster of courses – the first Harvard has put forward – covers a nice range of topics include Literature, Psychology and Computer Science. Meanwhile, Berkelely, Yale and Stanford are also following the trend to move their courses online and they are all FREE!

It is just the great news for those who are not looking for a degree and have strong independent learning skills. And we as students can also benefit a lot from those open course programs. But if we look at it the other way, isn’t this a trick that university uses to marketing itself. Nowadays, universities also want to make themselves more appealing to attract excellent students around the globe. And using the concepts learned in class, let’s examine how effective is this marketing strategy.

The products that universities offered are their service and classes. But the number is limited and exclusive for students who got accepted. By providing the open class, it helps its potential customers to gain more access to its products and let them become more reachable. Also, from the positive responses received and popularity gained all around the world, these universities increase the value to their products. By uploading the most popular courses online, they are making themselves more identifiable. How about the cost side? It is nearly zero. Isn’t that amazing? And everyone would agree that it is a clever move for those great “Companies”.

If anyone ever wanted to know what a Harvard class was like this might be your chance, and here is the Harvard’s course “Justice” by Michael J. Sandel.