Zuiprezi - non-linear presentation tool

New “in the cloud” presentation development tools seem to be popping up all the time now. Today, I came across Zuiprezi which allows you create a “non-linear” presentation on a large virtual canvas in which you can navigate and zoom your way around. Read a review on CNET, and/or watch the video below.

While I see the advantages of a dynamic presentation flow, I still think that in most presentation situations a tightly controlled story line works best, especially when time is scarce, for example in VC startup pitch presentations (25 minutes, that’s it). When there is more time, non-linear presentations could work. Especially when a group of people needs to discuss, brainstorm and analyze a complex subject (for example a spaghetti-style workplan for a big engineering project). UPDATE: Another interesting application for this technology might be to visualize complex system dynamics analysis in business. At McKinsey I used to use it (it was called “Business Dynamics” there) to map complex interactions between multiple drivers. This analysis can be very insightful to spot recurring loops (and hence how to accelerate or stop them), but delivers very messy diagrams. See one here. Related postings on my blog: PPTplex, a Microsoft tool for zooming inside PowerPoint