Hello,<div>I'm Drew Banks, Head of Marketing at Prezi, and I am co-leading (with Prezi co-founder Adam Somlai-Fischer) the Thinking Prezi workshop on October 11 @ Mobility Shifts. I've a few online bios, notably <span></span><a href="http://prezi.com/about/#banks" target="_blank">her<span></span>e</a> and <a href="http://www.drewbanks.com/" target="_blank">here</a>, which more or less correspond with one another. What's not explicit in these bios is the thread of my experience that is most applicable to Mobility Shifts: the use of Internet-based visualization technologies to integrate fragmented media and enable dynamic, locationally independent communication and learning.</div>
<div><br></div><div>At SGI, one of my job titles was Director of Worldwide Communications and Integrated Performance Support. It's a mouthful, I know, but one interesting aspect of this title--other than its length--is the combination of communications and learning functions (Integrated Performance Support involved the development and dissemination curricula to support the development of SGI's 15,000+ employee base). In most companies these two functions are separate, so this merging of them was in and of itself telling. I took this title seriously and searched for a medium that would enable the integration of the two. This was '93/'94 and Mosaic had just recently been released. Having been on Usenet for years, the potential of Internet browsing was so obvious to me that it feels strange to call what I felt an <i>aha</i> moment. But, in retrospect, <i>aha</i> is far too trivial a sentiment. </div>
<div><br></div><div>At the time, few companies were allowing internal use of this new Internet browsing technology, and even fewer had developed intranets. Fewer still had developed a corporate intranet portal, or if they had, it consisted of a simple, alphabetized list of links. I pulled together a cross-functional team and built Silicon Junction, a corporate communication/education platform that became an archetype on which many companies modeled their intranet portals. The media attention Silicon Junction received surprised me (remember, I thought the concept was obvious), and I traveled to conferences around the globe speaking on how to use intranet technology to align and educate your employee base. This experience led to my first book, <i>Beyond Spin.</i></div>
<div><br></div><div>When I was introduced to Prezi almost a year ago, I felt a sense of <i>d</i><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 9px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><i>éjà vu</i></span> reminiscent of my Mosaic <i>aha</i>. Prezi's zoomable, open canvas is an ideal medium for both communication and learning. Because Prezi bridges the non-linearity of ideation and the linearity of story telling, you don't have to interrupt the creative process. You no longer need to brainstorm in one tool and transfer your ideas to another tool to develop your presentation of lesson. It is no surprise that Prezi has been rapidly adopted within education. What is surprising is the breadth of this adoption: K through University. The below two examples demonstrate this breadth:</div>
<div><div><ul><li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK6gbn9Bx80" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK6gbn9Bx80</a></li><li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5kAOE3x1aY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5kAOE3x1aY</a></li>
</ul></div></div><div>Need I say more?</div><br>-- <br><div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:medium"><span style="border-collapse:collapse;color:rgb(136, 136, 136);font-size:15px"><br><span style="border-collapse:collapse;font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px"><div>
<span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><table border="0"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;font-family:arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:small"><img src="http://www.imageurlhost.com/images/jy7l333wr88l3tt0aj6x.png" alt="" width="60" height="60" style="vertical-align:middle"> <br>
</span></td><td style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;font-family:arial, sans-serif;text-align:left"><span style="font-size:small"><span style="color:rgb(128, 128, 128)"><span style="color:rgb(136, 136, 136)"><font color="#808080"><b>Drew Banks, </b>Head of Marketing,</font></span><em style="color:rgb(128, 128, 128)"><span style="color:rgb(136, 136, 136)"> Prezi.com</span></em></span></span><br>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px"><span style="color:rgb(136, 136, 136);font-size:small">857 Montgomery St., 3rd Fl., SF, CA 94133</span></div><span style="font-size:small"><a href="http://prezi.com/jobs" style="color:rgb(0, 0, 204)" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(102, 102, 153)"><br>
Prezi is hiring!</span></a></span><font color="#339966" size="2"><br></font></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div></span><div><span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif"><div><span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Prezi/52193296770" style="color:rgb(0, 0, 204);text-decoration:underline;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:13px" target="_blank"><img width="16" height="16" alt="Facebook" border="0" src="http://images.wisestamp.com/facebook.png" style="padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:5px;padding-left:0px;vertical-align:middle"></a><span style="border-collapse:collapse"> </span><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/company/prezi" style="color:rgb(0, 0, 204);text-decoration:underline;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:13px" target="_blank"><img width="16" height="16" alt="LinkedIn" border="0" src="http://images.wisestamp.com/linkedin.png" style="padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:5px;padding-left:0px;vertical-align:middle"></a><span style="border-collapse:collapse"> </span><a href="http://twitter.com/prezi" style="color:rgb(0, 0, 204);text-decoration:underline;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:13px" target="_blank"><img width="16" height="16" alt="Twitter" border="0" src="http://images.wisestamp.com/twitter.png" style="padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:5px;padding-left:0px;vertical-align:middle"></a></span></span></div>
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