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I just wrapped up a series of three webinars, Presentation Boot Camp for Power Agents, with our friends at TruliaPro. I have attended plenty of webinars and given many talks to audiences of all sizes, but presenting a webinar was an entirely new experience.

What was hardest to get used to was…the silence! I wasn’t nervous about talking to 1,000+ people, but I realized how much I depend on visual and audio cues to develop a connection with my audience, to read how things are going, and adjust. It was as disconcerting as the first time I rehearsed my Ignite talk with the slides timed to auto-advance every 15 seconds. But, just like the Ignite talk or any new presentation experience, practicing was the key. By the third session, the host and I had developed a comfortable back-and-forth dialogue to keep things moving, even though we’ve never actually met in person! (Hai-5, Jovan!)

Session 1: Three Keys to Presentations that Wow

Click to view the full Haiku Deck with Notes

In the first session, Three Keys to Presentations that Wow, we covered some presentation best practices that are central to Haiku Deck, but that can be applied no matter what presentation tool you’re using: in a nutshell, keep things simple, beautiful, and fun. We also touched on the #1 mistake that most presenters make (and which I’ve certainly made myself in the past), which is treating your slides like content-rich documents instead of visual aids to illustrate and enrich your message. Using the Haiku Deck Notes feature is a great way to avoid this pitfall.

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We remain big believers in limiting the amount of text in your presentations and focusing on one idea per slide, but we’ve heard from many of you that sometimes you need just a bit more to work with. And so….to expand the possibilities for presentation ideas and inspiration, Haiku Deck 2.0 includes the ability to add simple, beautiful bulleted or numbered lists, like this one.

Sample Bulleted List

True to form, we’ve designed these new layouts to help you keep your message focused and bring your ideas to life with beautiful imagery, if you choose.

Click “more” for a step-by-step how-to.

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If you’ve already mastered the basics of creating Haiku Deck lists, it’s time to level up with some power tips!

1. Haiku Deck automatically adjusts the spacing for your list, based on the longest item. The less text you have, and the more uniform your items are in length, the better your lists will look.

2. If you need to reorder your list items, the built-in iPad cut and paste feature will save time. Hold your finger on your text, then choose Select or Select All, then Cut, Copy, or Paste.

3. Your list title will be centered by default. To choose left alignment, tap the green Layout icon, select your preferred layout, and tap the green DONE button.

Choose left alignment or centered

4. If you’re using a solid color background, choose one that coordinates with your theme. In the example below, the dark blue color looks great with the Zissou palette for charts and graphs.

Match the background to your theme

5. We’ve purposely limited the number of items in a list to 5, because there’s only so much your audience can absorb at a time! More on why simplicity rules here.

We’d love to see your Haiku Deck lists! Send your links to gallery@haikudeck.com.

Note: This post has been updated to reflect the new publishing flow in Haiku Deck 2.0, which affects how you view your deck online to create Notes. If you haven’t updated your app, please be sure to do that here.

As a Haiku Deck user, you’re already on the leading edge of awesomeness. But we all know there’s always a way to be thatmuchmore awesome, so we want to be sure you know about a quick way to take your Haiku Decks to the next level of awesome: add Notes to the web view of your deck.

If you’ve ever felt like you can’t quite fit what you want to say on a Haiku Deck slide, or if you’d like to try a ridiculously easy way to incorporate best practices into your presentations, trust us–you will love this.

3 Reasons to Add Notes to Your Haiku Deck

1. Add Helpful Detail: Haiku Deck focuses your message by limiting the text on each slide, but if more detail or supplemental resources would add value, Notes gives you a place to do it. Here’s an example of a great Haiku Deck made exponentially more awesome with Notes (props to Bill Risser of Phoenix):

Click to view the full Haiku Deck with Notes (and pick up some great Facebook tips, too)

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We love hearing about why and how people are using Haiku Deck, but it’s also incredibly helpful to hear the reasons why they’re not. Some things people are asking for are in the plans (we hear you, Android users!), but other things we can address, well, now. So please read on if you’ve ever thought or heard these words: “Haiku Deck looks cool, but….”

1. “I’m Not Giving a Presentation Anytime Soon.”

Haiku Deck isn’t just for “real” presentations. You can use Haiku Deck to add rich content to your blog, make a memorable list, send a personal message, recap a favorite book, capture sound bites from an event, or just be creative and have fun. We continue to be inspired by all the amazing ways our community is using Haiku Deck every day.

2. “My Presentation Is Super Data Heavy.”

No problem. You can now easily create your own charts and graphs or pull in your own images and screenshots. With Haiku Deck, you can tell the story behind your numbers in a creative and engaging way, and your audience will be sure to give the hard data their full attention. For a little inspiration, be sure to check out our Charts and Graphs Pinterest board.

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1. Hot Stuff! Most Viewed Haiku Deck

“Most People”

Click to view on Seth Godin’s blog

We’re huge Seth Godin fans, and we were thrilled when he embedded a Haiku Deck to complement his awesome “Most People” post. “Most people don’t care enough to make a difference….Fortunately, you’re not most people, and neither are your best customers.” (Exactly!) Read the short, sweet, gemlike post and check out the most-viewed Haiku Deck of all time here.

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Our mission is to make it simple and fun to create beautiful decks you’ll want to share again and again. Now, to make it even easier to set your story free (and to show off your amazing work to a whole new audience), you can seamlessly integrate your Haiku Deck creations with Slideshare.

Publishing Your Haiku Deck to Slideshare

1. Every Haiku Deck you publish generates a web link. You can email the link to yourself right from the app, or log in to our website to view your deck in My Gallery. (Be sure to sign in to the Haiku Deck website the same way you sign in to Haiku Deck on your iPad.)
2. Locate the buttons immediately below your deck, and click “SHARE.”
   
3. Type in your Slideshare username and password information, click “SHARE,” and a PDF of your deck will be automatically uploaded to your Slideshare profile, including attribution for any images you’ve selected using the built-in Creative Commons image search.
4. You can then sign in to Slideshare to customize the description, tags, and category, all of which help your great ideas get discovered. You can even upload an audio track if you like, since great presentations are more than just slides.

We’ve seen some standout Haiku Decks get featured on the Slideshare home page–The Mindmapping Road, by Haiku Deck Guru Stefanos Karagos of Xplain.co, has received more than 6,000 views to date on the site. In fact, earlier this week, two of the top three “Presentations of the Day” were Haiku Decks! As we described recently on the Slideshare blog, we believe this power-packed partnership puts you on the fast track to slide stardom!

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

Have a Haiku Deck that’s been featured on SlideShare? Let us know, and we’ll add it to our “Featured on SlideShare” Pinterest board.

More Haiku Deck Help

Have a question? We’re always here to help! Drop us a line any time at team@haikudeck.com.

Note: This post has been updated to reflect the new publishing flow in Haiku Deck 2.0. If you haven’t yet updated your app, be sure to do that here.

So you’ve created an amazing Haiku Deck, something you’re proud of. Something you want to show to anyone and everyone, including the innocent bystander standing next to you on the subway platform. Well, we agree. It’s time to set your beautiful story free! And there are so many ways to do it, both straight from the app on your iPad or from the Haiku Deck website. Here’s how!

Sharing from the app

1. Play your deck directly from your iPad, the modern and engaging way to pitch to a small group. And with the parallax effect at work, advancing your slides has never been sexier.

2. Connect your iPad directly to a projector for a “1: many” talk, either through a direct connection with an iPad VGA adaptor.

OR

3. with Apple TV via Airplay. For more on how to do this, check out this blog post.

4. Email your deck to yourself. Doing this generates a very useful web link. By clicking through this link, you will be magically transported to your gallery on the website, where you can add notes, set your privacy, see how many views you’re generating, or get selected for our Gallery or one of our highly prestigious Pinterest boards…must we go on?

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Our friends at Ethos3 have been working for years to fight against the dreaded “Death by Powerpoint.” We caught up with Ethos3′s content writer and blogger Maggie Summers to hear her thoughts on simplicity, and how Haiku Deck can help further the cause. 

Haiku Deck: We’re certainly aligned in our quest for simplicity! Tell us more about your take on it.

Maggie: Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” The very existence of simplicity implies thorough understanding, as well as thoughtful inclusion and careful omission. It’s far easier to maintain complexity than it is to foster simplicity.

Distilling complexity is worth the effort. Ideas are far easier to understand when they’re presented simply. Points are more easily retained when there’s no clutter or extraneous jargon. In reality, most people just turn off and tune out in the face of complexity.

Creative Commons licensed image by Wesley Fryer

Haiku Deck: And what are your thoughts about Haiku Deck in particular?

We’ve been huge proponents of simplicity since the beginning of Ethos3, so we’re really excited to see this app come into the presentation space. Haiku Deck is essentially a manifestation of the presentation designer’s most important commandment––use big visuals with little text. We think it’s a great resource for the at-home presentation designer striving for simplicity.

Haiku Deck: What’s your advice for people who’d like to simplify their presentation style with Haiku Deck?

Maggie: Don’t be intimidated by Haiku Deck’s two-line per slide limit. Really, the app is doing you a favor by encouraging the use of as little text as possible to convey a point. It forces you to weed out the complicated, and find the simple. How can you disseminate that point in five words instead of ten? How can you narrow that message down into a single, pithy line rather than squeeze it into a bulky two? Simplify.

The two-line limit becomes much less daunting if you restrict yourself to including only one point per slide. There’s no such thing as a presentation that’s too long or too short. In fact, try not to think of length in terms of number of slides at all. More often than not, expanding a 25-slide presentation into a 50-slide presentation presents the same information much more effectively. The quantity of slides isn’t important. The memorability and impact of each individual slide in the deck is what truly matters.

Haiku Deck: What tips do you have for using images effectively?

Maggie: Large visuals also help the presentation designer embrace simplicity. Use visuals that support and nuance the point on a slide. Don’t be overly literal or prosaic with your choice of images. Instead, play up visual metaphors and use humor, irony, and unexpectedness to add depth to the words on the slide. Use text to communicate the essence of your main point, and then use a compelling visual to communicate further its meaning.

Haiku Deck: Any last thoughts?

Maggie: The simple resonates with audiences much more quickly and resoundingly than the complex. Where complexity tends to alienate and dissuade, simplicity implies accessibility and thoughtfulness, inspiring an equal chance at understanding for all.

Here’s a lovely Haiku Deck that Maggie created to capture her thoughts on simplicity:

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

For more tips on embracing simplicity, you might enjoy Maggie’s thoughts on how a presentation is like a backpack on Ethos3.

Would you like to do a guest Q&A for our blog? Please get in touch: catherine@haikudeck.com.

When we interviewed Joby Blume for our blog, one of his key messages was that a presentation is more than just the slides. In his words,

A presentation also needs a presenter. People seem to forget this basic point – slides can be put on SlideShare, or emailed – but without narration that’s not the whole presentation, it’s just the slides. The best way to design slides for SlideShare isn’t the same as the best way to create slides to actually use in a presentation.

Pretty much every presentation design book we’ve read, and every expert we’ve talked to, emphasizes this exact point. And nearly everyone who has put a deck together has fallen into the trap of trying to make their slides work outside of the room in which they’re actually presented. Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen fame calls this kind of hybrid approach–slides that repeat what the presenter says, with too much detail–a slideument. He also advises against it.

Haiku Deck, by design, encourages you to simplify by limiting the amount of text on each slide, but we get that there’s often more to your story. Just last week our friends at Edelman Seattle invited us to do a “Presentation Intervention,” and I put together this deck to explain what we’re about and outline some strategies to make presentations more captivating.

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

I built the deck around high-impact imagery with minimal text, and it worked beautifully in the room, but if you weren’t in the room, the takeaways wouldn’t be as clear. So I’m particularly excited about an awesome new Haiku Deck feature: the ability to add notes to the web view of your deck, so you can complete the picture.

Adding notes to my deck allowed me to explain the ideas behind each slide, so my story can live on outside the room.

Click to view the whole deck with notes.

How to Add Notes to Your Haiku Deck

To add notes to a new Haiku Deck (or to round out one you’ve already created), simply publish your deck and click through to view it on our website. Be sure you’re logged in to the site using the same credentials you use to log in from the app.

When you view your deck, you’ll see title and notes fields on the right. You can add text to either or both fields. Click the blue Save button, or click Preview to see how your text will appear in its final layout. Then advance to the next slide to add more notes.

Once you have your notes the way you like them, you can click Download at the bottom of your screen to create a very snappy-looking PDF you can use as a handout or downloadable ebook. Here’s a sample page:

sample handout page

Please try out the Notes feature, and let us know what you think! In the coming weeks we’ll be on the lookout for Haiku Decks with Notes for our Gallery, so if you create one, please let us know.