Using iPad at Conferences

[ragdollmomof2]

I don't have my iPad yet, but as soon as I do I plan to use it for note taking at meetings, workshops and conferences. Here's my question. Often at conferences, the speaker will hand out their PowerPoint presentation in paper format for note taking purposes. Then, of course, you have to find a place to file those papers. I have binders and binders filled with such. Is there a way to go to a conference with an iPad and get PP notes onto my iPad and be able to take notes that way? Does my question make sense? I'm just rying to divest myself of the endless paper trail.

Thanks

 

[BrennB]

I just finished day 2 of a 3 day conference and have been using my ipad as a notetaker. IF you can get the PPT in a digital format via email you can open it and mark it up. Or if you get it in advance you can scan it as a pdf or put it in your dropbox to access (providing you have 3g or wifi at the conference).
I did not have any access to the digital ppt file so I just used a txt app to take my notes and refer to certain slides. I would hope that as time goes on presenters will make their files available and "go green" so we do have access to actually write the printout.

That said, I loved using the ipad for notes and I was not the only one there with an ipad (I counted 5 in a room of about 50 -60 people) and we are not a technical type of business...in fact there were 5 ipads and maybe 4 or 5 laptops total.

 

[MattIM]

Whenever you go to a conference, one of the things everyone should ask event organizers is to have all presentations available in pdf or electronic format. In fact the more participants ask for soft copy, the more these conferences become 'green'.

I attended a project management conference last year and rather than have all of the handouts and documentation in hard copy, they passed out cd's. So when you went to various presentations you can pull up the material on your laptop.

This year, event organizers have promised to make the materials available on the cloud intranet so people can pull up information on their smart phones and tablets.

 

[zorah]

This is all a great idea. I attend seminars a few times a year and now with an iPad would love to have the ppt available. I hate having to carry paper around that I will just lose anyway. I guess it does come down to asking the presenter ahead of time. The last conference I attended was pre iPad, and I had my netbook but it only gets 3 hour battery life so I ended up just leaving it behind. And the ppt handouts were like 60/40, as in maybe 40% gave a hard copy. My notes were a scrawled mess and worthless! But I also don't like having stacks of paper. And with Save2PDF, those Power Points can be converted to PDF and then annotated. Sweet.

 

[Hal05154]

I would recommend you look at Audionote. I am using it for school (after 20+ years of being out!) and I love it for notetaking. It records the lecture and timestamps my notes for review with the recording. BIG plus.

If you dead set for ppt files, I'd suggest getting the speakers email in advance and requesting the file if you don't think the files will be made available by the conference organizers.

 

[TJK]

I have spoken at a lot of conferences. Sometimes the conference organizers ask me in advance for my PPT files but maybe only 50/50. I always encourage anyone who wants a copy of the presentation to give me their email address or bring a thumb drive. I don't mind either way.