Three Byte Intermedia, Inc., a custom software studio focusing on interactive AV solutions, introduced ActiveDeck 2.0, a media-rich audience engagement tool available as an add-in for PowerPoint 2010. ActiveDeck enables users to quickly and easily create interactive presentations on their Apple iPads.
“One hundred iPads gave birth to ActiveDeck,” says Chris Keitel, a principal at Three Byte. “Last fall the luxury automaker Infiniti wanted to give attendees at their leadership summit a personalized experience that represented the streamlined, technology-enabled experience they were expected to present and emulate at their dealerships. We gave each group of 100 participants iPads, and presenters pushed content to each iPad using software we developed for the summit.”
Keitel reports that the success of the event and the growing popularity and power of the iPad suggested that the software they developed shouldn’t be just a one-off application. “We decided to scale it for presenters to use whenever and wherever they want to make a strong connection with their audience – from classrooms and boardrooms to trade shows and retail stores. We were guided by two principles: Make it easy for presenters and participants to use, and capitalize on the iPad’s abundant opportunities to engage audiences with interactive activities and rich media.”
ActiveDeck is a versatile audience engagement iPad application and is tailored for education, corporate and trade show markets. For example, in the educational market, ActiveDeck enables teachers to use questions, games, polls and surveys to obtain actionable intelligence from their students. ActiveDeck includes quiz/test functionality, which allows the teacher to specify correct answers for multiple-choice questions so they can be graded in real time. Students can see if they answered a question right or wrong via a pop-up feedback feature, which displays instant results on their device.
At the end of a series of questions, individualized score reports and percentages of right/wrong answers can be viewed on the iPad. The teacher can also segment their students into groups and tally the correct answer percentages by each groups' collective performance. Test results and student feedback can be used on the spot to boost classroom participation and engagement or analyzed later to improve future lessons.
In the corporate arena, ActiveDeck can be used to craft custom, interactive iPad presentations that can be simultaneously delivered to on-site and remotely connected participants making ActiveDeck a solution for focus groups, compliance training or product launches.
Those exhibiting or presenting at trade shows can use ActiveDeck to showcase their products and services while gathering valuable customer and market insights.
ActiveDeck consists of three components: The PowerPoint add-in, the iPad app, and the cloud service which ties it all together. All that’s required to get started is PowerPoint 2010 for Windows and the ActiveDeck add-in.
First, the presenter uses the ActiveDeck add-in to make their PowerPoint presentation interactive and to publish it to the cloud.
Next, participants log in via the ActiveDeck app and download the presentation onto their iPad. They can now begin to influence the presentation in real time and contribute valuable feedback to the discussion.
ActiveDeck is built on Microsoft’s Azure platform and securely manages the publication and distribution of presentations in the cloud. All data is encrypted and presentations can be public or password protected. The presenter can use ActiveDeck's analytics capabilities to track who has viewed the presentation and when. Information collected from the audience is stored and available for post-event reporting.
The ActiveDeck single-user demo is available free online. Pricing plans for small (2-99 users) and large (100-300 users) events are offered along with enterprise pricing for an unlimited number of users (with custom software solutions included).
