Introducing Prezi's GetSatisfaction Champion of the Month: Roel
Thursday, March 8, 2012 at 3:10AM
Roel wearing his Prezi t-shirtGet Satisfaction is Prezi's open community discussion forum, where our users share best practices, ask questions, and report issues related to their work with Prezi. For the month of March our Prezi GetSatisfaction Champion is Roel van der Plank. He has 311 stars and replied 1307 times to the Prezi community!! This month we asked Roel to tell us a little about himself...
Q: What part of the world are you from and where do you currently live?
A: I live in a small town in the middle of the Netherlands, a small country in Europe between Great Britain and Germany, with relatively many active Prezi users.
Q: How did you first find out about Prezi and how do you use it?
A: I found it by accident. At the time (middle of 2010) I was working on a project in Amsterdam and read a blogpost on the client's local intranet. In that blogpost, someone described a situation in which they taught people to use Prezi as a tool to present themselves to potential employers. Never having heard of Prezi before, I searched for it on the internet, found it, tried it, and was instantly addicted ;-0
The last time I used Prezi professionally was when using it to present the 'winner' of a local contest. The next time I am going to use Prezi is this coming Thursday, to present something we call a 'praatplaat' (which translates poorly in English; literally an image used for talking.) It's a single image which is used for describing (e.g.) the basic functionality of the system. In this case the image contains some hidden information, only visible when zooming in using Prezi.
Q: How did you become involved in the Prezi GetSatisfaction forum?
A: I played around with the Prezi software and saw the potential. On the forum I recognized a few questions that I thought I could answer, perhaps freeing some time with the Prezi team to work on new features.
In those early days, the presence on the forum by the Prezi team was mainly from developers who (presumably) answered questions next to working on the prezi software themselves. By taking some load off their shoulders, I hoped that they would get more time implementing the features I desired ;-0
Q: In what area of Prezi (or what topic) do you feel you have helped the most users out with?
A: In the early days, the documentation was much more limited than today, and simple things like selecting objects could be confusing. There was a period in which people got into trouble for 'losing' objects (making them too small and hence reaching 'the end of the prezi universe'). Nowadays there are many safeguards implemented in Prezi to prevent this problem from occurring, but I remember fixing many prezi's by making a copy, looking for hidden objects and enlarging them, and letting people copy it back.
Q: Why do you think the GetSatisfaction forum for Prezi is a good communication link between our users?
A: The ability to let your community participate is a good thing. People generally like to help, and people who were once looking for help can later become regular responders, 'champions' on the forum, and maybe even prezi employees (and NO, this is NOT a solicitation!). Getting that pat on your shoulder 'Thanx! Really helped' goes a long way ;-0
Q: What is your favorite feature to use in Prezi?
A: I guess other people like the sharing features, like Prezi meeting. I personally like the basic functionality of zooming in.
Q: Tell our users one interesting thing they don't know about you?
A: Well, I grew up in the Netherlands & Norway, got my PhD in theoretical physics, live with 4 females (one girlfriend, our two daughters and one cat), and I am the developer of the UNofficial Prezi player for Android.
But all this is probably either not interesting for the casual reader, or already known.
What people may not know is that the 'avatar' I use at the GetSatisfaction forum is the icon of freemind, my favourite mindmap tool. What I would REALLY like as a Prezi feature is the ability to import (simple) freemind mindmaps to a prezi. That would really make it useful for me.
You too can become a Prezi GetSatisfaction Champion! Help out other users or get involved in community discussions and we might select YOU as the next Prezi Champion.
GetSat, Prezi, freemind in Champion of the Month
Reader Comments (2)
I also enjoy reading the comments, but notice that a lot of people should stay on topic to try and add value to the original blog post.
Great place for Prezi users. Freemind is a great mind mapping tool also.