Notes-Over: Conversation with Joel Harband

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Loading...

Joel Harband heads Tuval Software Industries, based in Israel. Notes-Over, their new PowerPoint add-in creates and manages formatted speaker notes coordinated with the slide contents. Not only can notes now be related to individual slides, but you can also link them to individual slide elements like shapes. In this conversation, Joel explains more.

Geetesh: Tell us more about Notes-Over.

Joel: Notes-Over is based on the thesis that good speaker notes are the key to a good presentation. Unfortunately, we all work under deadlines and there isn’t much time to write good speaker notes. Notes-Over answers the need for specialized productivity software for speaker notes.

Notes-Over is a PowerPoint add-in that creates and manages formatted speaker notes that can be linked with slide elements. The note sticks to the slide element, so that when you rearrange or add bullet text items on the slide, the notes are automatically reordered. Notes attached to slide graphics or unattached notes are reordered by up/down arrow controls. A full-featured notes editor lets you dictate notes and cut and paste them between elements. The notes appear on the PowerPoint notes pane and can be distributed as handouts and saved with the presentation.

Geetesh: How did Notes-Over evolve, and how does it integrate with your other products?

Joel: I’m glad you asked that question. The original idea for Notes-Over came from Scott Burmester of Microsoft. When we told him about our Speech-Over product, he right away said: Oh, it reads the PowerPoint notes aloud. The product didn’t exactly work like that at the time, but the idea was so great and simple that now all three products in the Speech-Over Studio suite are based on speaker notes text.

The three products, Notes-Over, Record-Over, and Speech-Over, are organized like a fugue: Notes-Over is standalone, Record-Over includes Notes-Over, and Speech-Over includes Record-Over and Notes-Over.

Altogether, the products broaden the verbal/textual capability of PowerPoint and, at the same time, integrate the verbal with the visual. They support the entire life cycle of a presentation: Notes-Over supports preparation and delivery and Record-Over and Speech-Over support stand-alone slide shows and post-presentation leave-behinds for colleagues that didn’t attend.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.