Reimagining Public Education

Editor’s Note:
In the first of a series of contributed articles that showcase ideas we think will spark conversation and make a difference in the world, Sam Chaltain examines how changing the way we see education can lead to better learning experiences. Sam created a prezi to showcase the ongoing work of filmmakers Tom and Amy Valens in capturing the unique educational approach of one Boston public school and to provide important resources on the subject of public education in America. 

I know we're already two months into 2013 and most of us are focused on the year ahead, but, if you can, rewind back to last year for just a moment and think about what were the most talked about education stories of 2012?

I'm guessing your list looks something like this: Low test scores, the Chicago teacher strike, mounting student loan debt, Newtown. What worries me is that no matter what other stories you may recall, they're all likely to fit into one of the following categories: content, conflict, or catastrophe.

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How a Little Spatial Visualization can Give You a Big Boost

Editor’s note 

Small businesses have started using Prezi as a tool for pitching on the go and sharing ideas anywhere. To gain further insight into how Prezi is helping small businesses, we reached out to our friends at Money Crashers and asked them to share their experiences. 

There can be pretty much no doubt that technological innovation has played a key role in supplying small businesses with all the neat tools they need to compete in the modern age. As a member of the Money Crashers team, I am always on the lookout for ways to help individuals and small businesses invest in sound financial decisions. The ability to engage potential clients around the clock through social media, and the use of automation to achieve new levels of efficiency, are two particularly powerful tools that can help a small business take off. 

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Starting up again: My transition from entrepreneur to Prezi data analyst

Marton Trencseni, Data Engineer, Budapest

Hi, I’m Marton and I’m one half of Prezi’s two-person Data Services team. My day-to-day work with my teammate, Zoltan Toth, is aimed at enabling the entire Prezi organization to be truly data-driven. Our goal is to get others to use all the data we have and to ask the right questions and make better product decisions. We spend all day thinking about how to make our data infrastructure better, bigger, and faster.

My job is a challenging and exciting one. I get to spend a lot of my time building fun projects from scratch while learning new technologies. Before joining Prezi, I was involved in a startup of my own that never took off. Coming out of that experience, I had mixed feelings when I started looking for a job. I was afraid I would not fit in at a "regular job" after being an entrepreneur and my own boss for three years. At the same time, I didn't want to join an early-stage startup. I’d had enough of that roller coaster lifestyle for a while. Prezi seemed to be a good middle ground--still a fun startup, but past the very risky early stages, with a steady cash flow, a headcount of around 100, and a nice office. Prezi was an exciting but stable startup opportunity with great people where I could both contribute and learn a lot.

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We're listening...

Today, we released the updated UI for our Editor. It’s a new menu that is cleaner, simpler, and easier to use. It has been an iterative evolution over the past months, and the rumors are true -- Prezi is growing up. We’ve had our braces removed, there’ll be no more sleeping in until noon, we’re ready to step out boldly and beautifully as adults.

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Rediscovering my Inner Geek

Pierre Ingmansson is working as a developer at PreziI used to live in Gothenburg, Sweden. I spent my days working as a software consultant, writing code and tests for customers on big projects spanning several years. The work I did was sometimes challenging and interesting, but mostly I just wrote code to fulfill the rules of a use-case in some document. I made a good living and got better and better at attending several-hour-meetings and writing extensive documentation that would never be read. However, deep down I felt something was wrong.

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