Much has already been written about the solitary freelancer, working alone, whose only human contact is the mail carrier. So I should not have been surprised when I got together with a small group of presentation designers and heard something similar.
Like many others, David Greenbaum is a PowerPoint specialist at a well-known telecom corporation. Far from the isolated freelancer, David works closely with colleagues every day. He is friendly, outgoing and professionally assertive. Yet, he told me that he almost never meets other presentation designers. The small gathering where he told me this was a rare and welcomed opportunity for him to share ideas, technical tips, and stories that would be appreciated only by another presentation expert.
Occasionally, presentation specialists will meet each other at a conference where several speakers have each brought their tech people. Other than that, there is only one annual gathering, the Presentation Summit, a powerful national conference where presentation experts meet for four days at a hotel.
If you are not lucky enough to be among the 400 Summit attendees, there are always Linkedin groups. But, of course, there you are in front of your computer monitor again.
Luckily, this year there is another option. On June 16, presenters, designers, speakers and other PowerPoint folk will meet at the Wix lounge in Manhattan for an after-hours networking event. The cost, at $35, is reasonable, and a limited number of free tickets are available through the event's sponsors: Aquent, Point Made Animation and Wix.
More information can be found here.