There is a nice side effect of people ditching their laptop and carrying a small tablet device instead: presentations get better. But it has nothing to do with technology, it is the setting of the presentation that has changed.

In the absence of a big projector screen or LCD monitor, that small conference room just changed from a mini cinema theater to a discussion table. The attentions is shifting back from the screen to the presenter. The presenter vaguely points at the device and continues "what this chart wants to say is [and out comes the story]". Only when you have to, the iPad gets passed around the table to show that important piece of data on page 37.

Good stuff until Airplay-enabled projects are hooking up our mobile devices to projectors again.

Art: Roy Lichtenstein, The whole room, 1961
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