Building engaging demos
We created demos for the latest and future Microsoft technologies - CRM 2011 and AX 2012.
We’ve all sat through yawn-worthy demonstrations, where the thing most successfully demonstrated is the appeal of sleep rather than the merits of the thing actually being showcased.
Successful demonstrations are all about engagement, immediacy and believability. They’re ultimately an exercise in storytelling. The story needs to be compelling. It needs to connect with its viewers and to offer real world scenarios that resonate and ring true.
We’re often called on by Microsoft Corp to build their keynote demos. And as with all the ‘Chris special’ projects I bring through the door, these involve short timelines and hard deadlines, adrenalised late nights and tireless long hours, with brainstorms and caffeinated drinks aplenty. We live for this stuff!
With each keynote demo we form a team and we work together to create a narrative that will really exemplify and bring to life the key technical innovations being demonstrated. What better way to make an impression on your audience than to captivate them with a scenario they can relate to?
So what significant demos have we worked on so far this year?
Microsoft Convergence 2011 Keynote Demo, Atlanta
Presented by Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO and Kirill Tatarinov, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Business Solutions, building this keynote called on the skills of many of our Dynamics experts right across the organisation. Working in utmost secrecy, even within Intergen’s ‘four walls’, together we created demos for the latest Microsoft Dynamics technologies – CRM 2011, AX 2011 and NAV 2009 R2 – in in readiness for the big event.
The keynote was presented to more than 9,300 people – not the kind of audience you’d typically encounter closer to home down here in Australasia! It went off without a hitch and I’m told – which is the best measure of success of all – that the audience was well and truly fired up by what they saw. Our GM of Sales, Bruce Smith, tells me people were almost “up out of their seats” the enthusiasm was so palpable.
Steve and Kirill stressed that the Dynamics vision is about simplicity, value and agility. It’s about maximising the productivity of your people by taking advantage of communications and collaboration technologies. It’s about systems that are vibrant, connected and interactive.
This was our brief, our story to tell, and these qualities were borne out in the demo materials we created. Real, engaging examples of simplicity, value and agility at work.
Microsoft’s Virtual Launch of CRM 2011
In February, CRM 2011 was officially released into the world via a virtual launch, and we were engaged to create the demo to showcase CRM 2011 in action. Our accomplished team of demo-makers got together to create a business scenario that would really capture CRM 2011’s full potential and get the world enthused about it. And thus Contoso Property Management was born. It’s a portal powered by Azure, findable by property seekers via Microsoft Tag or Microsoft adCenter (Bing Ads). It connects to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to provide real-time information about Contoso’s property listings. Property locations can be seen through a Microsoft Silverlight Bing Maps control, with handy information overlaid, like commuting data and nearby attractions. Once a person enters their details on the portal, a new lead is generated in Microsoft CRM.
And then there’s powerful dashboarding, embedded Bing search, Twitter widgets and Wikipedia links. And any emails sent through the system make use of an Office 365 account, with inter-company communication taken care of by Lync Online. All the tools the business needs can be sourced online – no need for IT infrastructure, just a laptop, internet access and Microsoft Office.
How’s that for integrated, intuitive computing at the cutting edge? This was a truly multinational distributed team with many members contributing from their summer holiday locations such as mid-winter Japan.
