Copilot: Is Your Brand Kit Ready?

Andy Bundock: Welcome to episode nine of Next Slide Please. Today we're going to talk about a couple of new things with Copilot
Mark: Some of not my purpose actually.
Andy Bundock: and PowerPoint that are doing the rounds online at the moment. Namely, interactive skills
Mark: But
Andy Bundock: and brand kits So with many posts and videos out there about what Copilot can do now, we've decided to take a deeper
Mark: Right.
Andy Bundock: dive and see what the hype is all about. Just a few weeks ago it was Claude, Claude, Claude, now
Mark: I think we're on the
Andy Bundock: it's Copilot. We can help you decide, is this just another moving target or something we need to consider? Is this something you want to use now?
Mark: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: And help you try and get your head around it basically. So let's get started. I'm Andy Bundock.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I'm Emma Pritchard.
Mark: I'm Mark Robson
PK Steffen: I'm PK Steffen
Andy Bundock: So let's start with interactive slides. This looks like a pretty cool feature. I was dead impressed when I saw what was on the screen when we were researching the pod. So Mark, you seem to get further down the line with this. What did you think of it?
Mark: So I got it to work on my access, which is something as we talked about offline that you guys weren't able to. But then we discovered that I'm kinda rocking the premium membership of Bling
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Ha ha
Mark: Bling, Microsoft 365 I'm like, Yeah, baby, I've got it going on.
PK Steffen: God level.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Jealous, jealous. Yeah.
Andy Bundock: Unlike us immortals over here.
Mark: you know. So yeah, I've got trust fund level membership of Microsoft 365
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Ha ha ha.
Mark: But yeah, so I got it to work and it was good. Like I'm looking at the example I've got here. We're not gonna show this example on the pod today, guys, because we're not, you know, we've not polished it. It's literally just a quick version. But the good news is it's not all HTML. One of things we've been talking about or we've seen examples of is where AI just makes stuff and it's not editable. It's kind of a once and done and you've got to play with it. And I think everybody in the history of AI short history, but I think everybody's experience is that AI is a bit rubbish at editing stuff is made. I don't know if you guys agree. Like it'll make things once and it's great. But then if you want to go back in and tweak it, it sort of goes off on another tangent. It doesn't kind of tweak the thing that's there. It it's reusing all its brain again and it and it's doing something else. So yeah, so the good news is it isn't that it's creating elements that you would be familiar with with shapes and with typefaces, just not in a way that any of us on the call on the podcast would ever do it. It's kind of random layout, it's little blobs
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right.
Mark: here and there, it's not in the template level, it's all on the slide. so yeah, so with that grumbly head on, you're right Andy, the the tech, the interactive is quite good. It's all stuff that we could do already. Because we're kind of high end PowerPoint level users, but the fact that it did it in a couple of seconds and came up with some ideas, yeah, great. Happy days. The one thing I want to say is, I'm just struggling for a user for it. Who's it gonna be? Your person at a corporate company who needs to come up with an interactive thing for their activity, they're gonna need it branded to within an inch of its life, even if it's just for internal. Your person just playing about, they're not really gonna need an interactive poll, I feel. I mean they might do. I mean, maybe it's for kind
Andy Bundock: Good point.
Mark: of like public speakers. Maybe it's for that sort of people, you know, where their their brand isn't massive because you're already there, you're already in in the event, and so they can play with interactive while talking through their with them with you. but yeah, so that that's my only problem with it, is you need such a high level of Microsoft I'm not really sure why I have that level, but I do. So you
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Ha ha
Mark: need that, but then you need the branding, which isn't there yet. We're gonna talk more about that later. But yes, I'm I'm struggling for a user and some notes I made earlier is I feel it's a bit like the iPhone duo. I really want an iPhone duo. But who's
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Hahaha.
Mark: gonna fork out two grand for this phone just so that
Andy Bundock: I didn't realise they were two grand.
Mark: it can stand on its side and be your bedside clock?
Andy Bundock: I did not know it was that much money. I saw that on your post the
Mark: That's what no no no that's what
Andy Bundock: other day and I was like, huh?
Mark: No, that's where
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah,
Mark: it starts.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: that's nuts.
Mark: If you want the two terabyte one, it's like 3.2k for a phone. You
Emma | Birdbox Designs: oh my goodness.
Mark: know, good old Apple. But people
Andy Bundock: Sorry, that's.
Mark: will buy it and yeah, but I I feel like it's that. It's like a lovely, charming solution, but with a few flaws. So what what about anybody else? Any any other thoughts on it?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: So I couldn't get my hands on it, Mark. I did obviously look at a few people who were running through what it does and I thought, wow, this is brilliant. So for me, it wasn't really what it produced that was the wow factor, but it was like everybody's reaction to how good it was by using just a prompt. So we're talking about a skill inside Copilot in PowerPoint. So you can just click on create me an interactive slide and obviously do some prompting and it's meant to come up with these interactive slides, which... look amazing to be fair and including me I thought wow this is brilliant but actually I haven't tested it so it's I can't really be really too excited about it because I haven't been able to get my hands on it and I don't know whether it really works I don't know how much prompting you need to give it I want I'd probably want to have more of a play around before I kind of said I was impressed.
Mark: Then it's just to answer one of those things, the prompting was minimal. It
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right
Mark: was kind of like follow the instructions from the video, say what you want, and then helpfully, rather than just being a blank box for prompting, it's giving you limited options. It's saying, Do
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes, I like that.
Mark: you want this? Do you want that? Do you want the other? But again with that, it didn't feel like I don't know if I'm just being pain a pain here, but it didn't give you like all the options, right? It didn't give you that Fine customization. It was kinda like It was like a multiple choice, you know, choice
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Hmm.
Mark: of twenty options. Do you want one of these? Yeah, sure. you want one of these? Yeah, sure. Chuck that in. But it wasn't like I want one of these, but I want it in blue, you know, like that pain in the butt level, shall we say. So
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Mark: yeah, it definitely was helpful and definitely better than like a wide open you need the right prompt terminology to pop in there.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right.
Mark: but yeah, yeah, it was interesting. What did you think of the
Andy Bundock: What did you think PK? I know you're all over HTML, aren't you? You love it, but in this use case, what did you think? Did you think it was used well or misplaced?
PK Steffen: Well I mean c can I circle back to that? I think what Mark's bringing up a bit about the prompt is that that's the big thing here. just a few weeks ago it was Claude, Claude, Claude, right? Claude was doing everything.
Andy Bundock: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
PK Steffen: And then suddenly Copilot has has leapfrogged Claude now. I think the big change here is the skills have really started to become baked in. You know, like Mark was saying, you
Mark: Yeah.
PK Steffen: know, talking about prompts, before it was all prompt engineering. Now we've got
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Huh.
PK Steffen: skills which are basically prompts that have been engineered and baked in and they're in the program and you click and you use them. And that's what most users want is they want something they can click and get something out of it. in playing with it, this is really timely because I've got a client who wants me to build a PowerPoint deck that is ready for copilot.
Mark: Right?
Andy Bundock: Yeah,
PK Steffen: In playing with it, you know, there's I've I found that sometimes you do still get an image on the slide rather than PowerPoint objects. And then you have to
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right.
PK Steffen: add in a little bit of a prompt saying use this skill but also make sure that it's all PowerPoint objects, etc. So we still have to be playing around with it and and so yeah, I I I think it's still kind of early days. It's it's it's really promising, but I I still think for most people it's
Mark: Proxy, but I guess nothing.
PK Steffen: early days because For example, with this client, I've got to build their brand kit and then I've got to get their template ready, which means you've got to have every different option that Copilot would want in in their template so it doesn't drop some text just off on the slide somewhere. So you've got to you've got to get the template ready, you've got to have the brand kit ready. And
Mark: So it doesn't prompt some text and stuff on the slides in the template right now.
PK Steffen: for most users, it's it's a lot of work. But I do think it's it's good for people to be thinking about. The interactive part is cool, but I think only a small subset of people are gonna want that. if
Mark: Yeah.
PK Steffen: I think
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
PK Steffen: If if I think of Gartner where I used to work, they're really well known for their magic quadrant and hype cycle. And for years we were looking for an interactive chart tool. We researched that heavily because if someone could click on on magic quadrant and figure out why that company was up in the upper right and get drilled down with some details, that would be really powerful. But that's kind of a a web based thing, because the it it's on their website. I'm not sure about how You can use that in in a in a PowerPoint deck, Andy. So if it's HTML and it's out on the web, then that's that's really cool because people can drill down, et cetera.
Mark: Okay.
Andy Bundock: This is my trip up with it because one of the first things that I saw on these videos we
Mark: Function.
Andy Bundock: all watched was an interactive table. So you had last year's figures in a column, this year's figures in a column, next year's figures in another column that might say potential bottlenecks or potential areas that could stop us from achieving these. they were going, look, click on it all and it changes that, you know, and I was like, that's great, but that means the presenter has to click on
Mark: That's what I think about.
Andy Bundock: each of those things to get to that data or to highlight the certain thing they want to highlight. Now for me, if you're,
Mark: Yeah, we can keep my buttons.
Andy Bundock: want to, you should be in control of leading your audience to those things that you want
Mark: Those things.
Andy Bundock: them to think about.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: Whether it's, you know, when I was using training decks is like, okay, How many pie charts have you seen that show market share when you're looking at tiny little figures on the screen, when in actual fact you want a massive 24 % in the corner, a tiny little pie chart that shows the breakdown in colors? But the point is I want to lead them towards that figure. On a website, you are staring at a screen and you're clicking, you're defining the journey you
Mark: That's fine. You are scaring your screen, you're like.
Andy Bundock: go through from bit to bit. I'll click on that, I want that information. I'll click on that. The audience aren't sitting there clicking your
Mark: Yeah, it's obviously.
Andy Bundock: presentation for you, you are clicking it. So I would rather
Mark: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: pull that chart apart, split it up into three slides and go, here's where we were last year, highlight last year. We did really well because click,
PK Steffen: Yes. Exactly.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: here's where we are this year. This is what we've done so far. Click. Here's the kicker, guys. This is the information
Mark: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: I want you to focus upon. This is the decision I want you to make based on this number here. And I define when you see it and how you see it. And doing an interactive
Mark: Exactly.
Andy Bundock: chart doesn't give me that.
Mark: No, so when I you know, I like I cut my chops on keynote and I did that for years. And then when I started learning PowerPoint, I found that you could turn anything into a trigger, right? Just like a website. And I'm like, that's so cool, that's gonna change my world, blah blah blah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Ha ha
Mark: And then in six years, nobody's ever asked me for it. And when I've
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Nobody wants it, yeah.
Mark: demonstrated it, nobody ever wants it. 'Cause to your point, Andy,
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Mark: you want to guide through the story. You don't want people going, and what about if we chose this direction? Now I there's a school of thought about Prezi. And don't know if you've ever worked with Prezi before.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Mark: And Prezi is people like that sort of choose your own journey vibe to it, you know, where like you know, the big thing is where they've got a big picture and you kind of zoom into bits of it. Still don't really understand how you'd do that as a presenter. Again, to your point, Andy, you want to guide through that you're in charge. It's not like Dungeons and Dragons, everybody in the audience chooses their own adventure, but yeah, I just I think it's brilliant.
PK Steffen: No, no. You you with with with Prezi if you don't
Andy Bundock: Well, to-
PK Steffen: if you don't have a structure and and you don't figure out what that path and what that journey is through those clicks, it's a rabbit hole. So you you really have to have structure with Prezi. But I I going back to what Andy said, Andy's literally said most presenters pull a number out of a chart and then show that number. We do it in a different way when when you're presenting. in a Q and A session, maybe that kind of interactivity could be useful. But again, I think it's a it's a small subset of presenters like like Mark was saying.
Andy Bundock: Well, two things. One, hidden slides with a trigger
Mark: Slides.
Andy Bundock: will buy you minutes. And if you've got a 20 minute attention span
Mark: Quite good.
Andy Bundock: and you can claw back three, because that's a big percentage, right? And so you've got that, I've done it before where
Mark: That's right. That's a big percentage, right? So you pop that up.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right.
Andy Bundock: I've got like things revealing on the slide, bottles emptying and numbers coming out of things. Isn't
Mark: but to be a post out camera.
Andy Bundock: it cool? A layer of delight, but a massive number, big on the screen. and there's a little button underneath it with a little arrow. You click on that and it will go to the next slide that's hidden and that brings in all the chart. If someone says, well, I'll stop you there. I want to know more about this. I need to know a deeper dive. I need you to qualify
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: your figures here. You click on the button, in slides the boring table.
Mark: Like stuff.
Andy Bundock: If they don't, when you click right arrow to go through your next presentation, it skips that hidden slide and you just bought yourself three minutes. That's killer. And that's where you would use a trigger. As regards other triggers I've done before
Mark: pretty good.
Andy Bundock: with using... probably PowerPoint I think, sales presenters that are think interactive touchscreens that are around
Mark: I will present us up on we think interactive touchscreen.
Andy Bundock: at the airport for duty free and you've got like big buttons across the top click on it and it just brings in that's when the user defines their own journey click on a button on this information this flavor this different type of whether
Mark: That's where they use it. It's not fine, it's their own character, but it's it water later.
Andy Bundock: it be Fags, booze, what have you. So done that stuff before.
PK Steffen: It I mean I'm gonna be grumpy now for a minute. Can I be grumpy? Can I can it can I have permission to be grumpy? I'm taking I'm taking the the grumpy
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Mark: Yes.
Andy Bundock: We're all in touch with the Grand PK.
PK Steffen: hat off of Mark, putting on on my head now. I mean on
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Share the grumpy.
Andy Bundock: Right.
PK Steffen: honestly, Andy, th that's cool and everything, but we we have ways of telling data stories, right? And and there's different levels. So I mean you you can annotate from a chart and and and you at least pull out the numbers and and tell people that. You can then illustrate. You could take two parts of a chart and and use, you know, light and then dark to to show various different aspects of that. Or you can get to the level of data storytelling, right? if you think about the New York Times, the way they do that on on on the data stories, we do that in presentations all day long. And there's there's like different levels. You know, it's annotate, illustrate, or s or tell a story. This is this doesn't fit in there. So I'm kinda like wow, that's cool. But you know, I mean I I again use case, it's like
Andy Bundock: No, I think I'm getting in there with you with the grumpy hat.
PK Steffen: I I don't know. I mean, I think a lot of it's kind of this magic prompt thing again f f for me. Now, the brand kit and getting PowerPoint to work with your template, that's that's cool. I mean that's also kinda sk it's also kinda scary
Mark: Yeah.
PK Steffen: 'cause it's gonna get rid of some of our stuff. But anyway, I know, I know, next section, I know, but but
Andy Bundock: No, that's the next section. You've gone ahead.
PK Steffen: Sorry, I'm ending my grumpy now. Sorry, go ahead.
Andy Bundock: I'm just... right... It's a grump fest everybody!
Mark: Just let me carry that grump on a little bit more. Well, actually no, no, that I'm not because you've taken the hat off, I found a little optimism.
PK Steffen: Yeah, yeah,
Mark: No, I've I've found
PK Steffen: yeah. It's yours.
Mark: some I found some optimism. No, so one of the things we talk about often, either on the pod or off the pod, is that you know, people should always practice their deck and know it inside out and don't look at your slides and all of that. And that's obviously a luxury for people who aren't in a rush. So in in my experience decks are kind of built quickly, presented quickly, and you know, they they have to look at it because they've only just built it. But if you're somebody who is presenting the same presentation again and again and again and again, one of the things in the training that I do is that I sort of recommend that you know it so inside out that you can kind of read the room and play it a little bit like jazz. So I'm a bit of a jazz head, apologies. But you know like jazz is never played the same way twice. Right, there's the core tune, and then you go off with some twiddly trumpets or you go off with a drum solo. But the the core is the same, but you're playing it. And so where this could work is to your point, Andy, it's like your hidden stat. And you're like, Okay, they're really feeling this bit that I'm talking about. Let's click on that avenue and go down that road and forget like two and three. We're just gonna skip straight to four because I can feel the the vibe is that. But
Andy Bundock: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Mark: again, it's such a small group of people who are A that good at presenting, B that good at building slides, C have that god level tier of office. So yeah. It's it's a funny one.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Also, I'm not
Andy Bundock: I think also, on that, just thought
Mark: Do all that.
Andy Bundock: while you were saying that, pitches, so you could, in a pitch, you've gotta read that room fast. If they're not digging it, you need to be able to go, they're not feeling this right. I could just click on this little hidden button in the corner and it will slide in an arrow or something that maybe goes skip straight to the bit that I know that they want to, are
Mark: Yeah pitch, you've got you've got to read that real fast. Right, I can just feel colours. Straight to the mid I know and then they don't want to turn two.
Andy Bundock: really interested in because we're limited on time.
Mark: Or or if they say like, you know
Andy Bundock: That would, I think would work.
Mark: or if they say like, Can you tell me more about this? And your normal answer might be like, yeah, I can find you that in an email and I'll send you that later or something like that, then you're already starting to lose the investors. If you've already got like a more two or three slides for each bit as you go along, then you can go like, sure, let's dig into that and floop and you you kind of down another avenue. That could be interesting.
Andy Bundock: But my counter to that is, do you need a skill or an interactive slide button to make that for you or can you just have the hidden slide?
Mark: skill or interactive slide button to make that for you or can you just go I it's kind of been around for a while.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: No, mean interactive slides have been around for a while and like we've all said, our clients have not really ever asked for them. I'm just not, I'm not really sure it's, I think it's really cool,
Mark: No
PK Steffen: Huh.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: but I think if you genuinely want something that's interactive, you're probably not going to build it in PowerPoint. For example, friend of the show, Damon Nofar he's been building stuff with Google AI studio. That's really interactive and his results are amazing. So I'm not sure I'd then jump into.
Mark: So I'm not sure if I then don't get a point
Andy Bundock: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: PowerPoint to build something interactive on that level. I get the use
Mark: to build something interactive level.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: cases that you brought up, but in reality, I've never been asked by any of those, any of my clients in any of those situations to build something like that. So yeah.
Andy Bundock: Yeah,
PK Steffen: I've
Andy Bundock: like I
PK Steffen: I I've
Andy Bundock: say, my kiosk stuff, the touch
Mark: So
Andy Bundock: screens and whatever, it getting on for two decades ago now, you know, so, and
Mark: Showing your age Andy
Andy Bundock: nothing since, you know, it's a very,
Mark: Yes.
Andy Bundock: very small use case.
Mark: Yeah.
PK Steffen: I I've I've I've built interactive decks in Prezi before because they contain regionalization and the presenter wanted to go down one path in in Asia, another path in n North America, or, you know, if they were you know, in Dubai or something like that, and the Prezi file was a two gigabyte file by the time we got done with it. And no one
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Wow.
PK Steffen: They couldn't download it in in Mumbai. They couldn't even get onto the machine to work. So I mean I I mean th i th this stuff i it's cool and everything, but we stopped using Prezi because it's like nobody can figure out what the structure was
Andy Bundock: There's one thing I wanna pick up on that you just said there, and that's the word cool. And we've come across this before, haven't we Emma?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Ha ha ha ha.
Andy Bundock: I saw, actually I saw a post today,
Mark: Actually, that's all a question.
Andy Bundock: someone put up on LinkedIn. It looked great. It was called the anatomy of a burger and it had a slider across the top. and the slider opened the burger up. And in doing so, the text came out and explained there was the top bun and there was the lettuce and there was the tomato, there was the cheese and there's a burger. And I was like, that's really cool. And I was like, but how would
Mark: Okay.
Andy Bundock: I present that? And I'm starting to get into a situation where there are presentations that you can create within presentation tools, and there are documents that you can create within presentation tools. If it's a document you want to send to someone and they drive it themselves, then this works perfectly. And there are requirements for that. We've all had them come in to our intrays.
Mark: Send us a legitimate seldom then this won't work. And that would be a comment. Yeah.
PK Steffen: True. That's true. That's true. That's true.
Andy Bundock: That's actually a workable thing. But the thing is, as much as the structure and the way it's been put together, it's screamed AI. It looked exactly like a generic output.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: There was no negative space, all the typefaces are the same, the wonderful vertical lines down the side of text boxes that every single
Mark: Side basically have a monitor or down the side.
PK Steffen: Ooh, grumpy.
Andy Bundock: AI output has these days. And it's like em dash of text, isn't it? Seeing the telltale signs. So...
Mark: It's not the dash of text, is it unclear outline?
PK Steffen: Ooo!
Andy Bundock: And I was like, I looked, great, and then I looked at my second look, was like,
Mark: And then just a a flag on that play, as they say in American football or whatever. the I love the idea of like sending a document that is then interactive, but nobody ever presses bloody play.
PK Steffen: Ha ha ha
Mark: When they get their PowerPoint through that you've spent weeks and months and hours making this interaction on, they're just gonna look at it in the back end and go, okay, fine. They're like, No, you've got to press play and and nobody does. I've I mean this is a PPSX thing. Have you played with that?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: Yes, I've done with them, but I've used those before,
Mark: But and I've done that for about ten, twenty clients and then they're like, Yeah, nobody opened it 'cause they didn't know what it was. And like, Okay
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Aww.
Andy Bundock: Yeah, that's right.
PK Steffen: So I mean
Mark: Little weep inside.
PK Steffen: There is something about this that is interesting, you know, sending it off to the client, letting them go through it. One of the really cool things about AI, you know, driven design when it comes to presentations is that you get all of the metrics that you would you would get from a website, because it's HTML.
Mark: Mm.
PK Steffen: So I can
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right.
PK Steffen: see if someone has clicked, I can see where they went and I and all of that sort of stuff. I mean Maybe we're being grumpy because we don't see the use case and there are plenty of use cases like you know, Andy brought up pitch, we we've got a report, we've got something where you just wanna send it and you the u user interacts with it. It's it's different than than presenting, right? Than which is what we do most of.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
PK Steffen: but yeah, it being HTML, you actually get you can look at the analytics, you can figure out who's opened that presentation, where they clicked, where they went, all of that sort of stuff.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Amazing
PK Steffen: So if they if they came back with a negative
Andy Bundock: Yes.
PK Steffen: response you might actually know, Well, you guys didn't go into here and we really need to discuss X, right? So
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right?
Andy Bundock: But PK, if you're packaging up HTML within a thing that you send to someone, wouldn't it be better to just host it and send them a link?
Mark: Mm-hmm.
PK Steffen: Well, Gamma is hosting it for you. I mean if you share something out of keynote it it it's up in the cloud, right? So yeah, I mean you you you are you are pretty much hosting it,
Mark: Yeah, I just wanted to finish off with so back to your point, PK, about the HTML. I just wanna say again, the version that I've got, I don't know if it's just because of the level of office of 365 I'm on, but it's no HTML at all. It's building an interactive deck how we would, with, you know, press this to go to slide one, press this to go to slide three. So I'm pretty sure there's gonna be zero reporting on it. So I think it's great, you're right in with the HTML ones, but This the first one that I was managed to get my hands on is nothing. It's just like a a deck we would have built manually.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: that's interesting.
PK Steffen: So
Andy Bundock: That's interesting, yeah. think we're straying into this is so the parallels with the the Claude Design post episode that we did, you know, watch this space is only going to get
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Hmm.
Andy Bundock: better. Uncanny, aren't they really?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Absolutely.
PK Steffen: Well it's so so well, when I was researching it, some of the videos that I was watching said we're using PowerPoint in in the web. They were using the web version. And
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes.
PK Steffen: I think that again comes back to which which flavor of copilot, which version of copilot are you using? I think some
Andy Bundock: Hmm.
PK Steffen: of the videos I watched they were using Copilot on the web for a particular reason. I don't
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes, I agree.
PK Steffen: I don't wanna get into the differences between XML and HTML and where it's hosted and all that sort of stuff. But I think what what we should point out here is that your copilot version, like we've already said, Mark's got the the God level version of of copilot compared to the rest of us. That copilot version matters, right? Wh
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
PK Steffen: where you're using it prob
Andy Bundock: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mark: Mm-hmm.
PK Steffen: probably matters as well.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: talking about.
Andy Bundock: Yeah,
Mark: Yeah, and it's
Andy Bundock: and how they roll it out to us mere mortals will count too.
Mark: Well, I think I think that's part of the problem as well, right? Because there's all the talk of like where are they making their money from. And so while I think there'll be less well, more transparency, and you'd be like, 'cause at the moment it's a minefield, right? It's like, what level do you need to get this? And there's like this level, but yeah, there's this this level with go faster stripes on, and there's this level. And there's not just like a one, two, three. It's a typical for me, it's a typical Microsoft branding issue of like way too many options and it's just like boil it down to like here's like entry
Andy Bundock: Yeah, I
Mark: level copilot here's really good copilot and I had to work with AI to find out which level I needed to get the things I needed. So yeah I think I think it's crazy. But you know they're gonna make you pay for it. They're not just gonna give all this stuff for free because
PK Steffen: Yes.
Mark: otherwise the whole model falls on its head, right? There's all these stories you hear about These guys are all leveraging each other for funding to show that they've got the funding. So at
Andy Bundock: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
PK Steffen: Yeah, yeah.
Mark: some point they're gonna have to start making you pay for it. And so I'm not sure it will filter down to your kind of common garden 365 level
Andy Bundock: Yeah, I just hope my pension supplier isn't investing in the...
Mark: Exactly.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: And then talking about sort of videos and research that you've seen, has anybody seen anybody test it, these interactive slides specifically for sort of accessibility? Because I'm wondering if
Andy Bundock: Good point.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: it's sort of built on HTML versus PowerPoint objects, like, does
Mark: Mm.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: it carry things over like the alt text or the reading order or keyboard navigation
Mark: Mm.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: and screen readers and things like that? I'm not really sure how interactive it would be for everybody. Or is it just people that
Mark: Mm-hmm.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: can see it? So I have searched, but I couldn't find any good sort of reviews or research on that.
Andy Bundock: think to cap this off. If you're
Mark: It picks can pick off.
Andy Bundock: watching this or you're listening to this and you're screaming at your device going, you don't know what you're talking about. Probably because we don't. We're in the dark. Please tell us, comment, tell us what
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes, tell us. Tell us. us.
Andy Bundock: we want to know for ourselves. There's so many new things happening every single day that like can't keep up. if you know more than we do, please tell us because we'd love to find out. let's move on to the Brand kits Now, for me, this has the potential to be a game changer. I'll say it again, consistency builds trust, and this will really help us get there. There's a few talking points we want to get through here. It's brand kits as well as brand guidelines and
Mark: It's Red Kids, that's red college college.
Andy Bundock: your skills that together will get you a better deck and a better deck to collaborate with. Thoughts, guys?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Okay, I'll go. So I actually did get a chance to try this one and I agree, Andy.
Mark: Okay. Like I actually didn't get a chance to try this one.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: feel like brand kits within Copilot for PowerPoint is going to be a game changer for designers and non-designers, I think. I'll get onto the difference in use cases in a bit, but I do think it is an amazing thing that they've created now. I had a play with it. I gave it my own brand. I uploaded my own PowerPoint
Mark: I'm playing about maybe when I try to play too.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: template. and it did a really good job of picking up all the colors, the elements. It still felt a bit off though, so the font hierarchy was off. It
Mark: Still felt a bit hot though, so
Emma | Birdbox Designs: didn't really like my logo. It didn't even bother putting that in. It also didn't pick up my master slides, which I was quite annoyed about because my templates got a good master slide sitting behind it, and it just created its own version of the master slides.
Mark: chest plates got big glasses like sitting behind it and it just created its own virtually anything on the slides.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: But I could see how this is going to be a real time saver.
Mark: See how this is going to be a real time center and it's going to make people if you are collaborating together, like you said, happy people set place and producing Apple project.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: and it's going to make people who are collaborating together, like you said, Andy, be both in the same place and produce things that look similar and on brand. So I'm excited. I'm not sure it's quite there yet. I could have done a few more prompting and a bit more tweaking, but the sort of first passes that I did, it was okay.
Mark: I'll see that.
Andy Bundock: Mark, what are your thoughts?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Anyone else try it?
Mark: I I looked more at the video. I haven't had a chance to try it myself. I've got a little grumpy hat on again about it. I think it's I think it's brilliant. Don't get me wrong, and you know, when we reconvene on whatever the fifteenth of September twenty twenty seven is, I think we'll be in a different place. Might the you know, might be Armageddon, the world might be over by then as well. But I think we'll be in a different place and this will be a different thing. My question is like Who's gonna have the time and the patience from our clients that we work with? Who's gonna have the time and the patience to upload all these things? Or are we saying that it's gonna be our job to do that? And then can we save it as a template file and send it to the clients? What's your experience on that?
PK Steffen: So I mean I this is a very timely discussion. You know, I said earlier I've got a client who wants me to get their template copilot ready. if you're having problems with this, you have to download the the copilot ready template and look at how that's set up. It's got instructions in there to modify your template. Basically, what you're doing is taking your template and stretching it out so you have a one column, two column, three column, four column. five column, six column, whatever whatever it's got in there, and matching that to your template so that Copilot doesn't just kinda drop some text off somewhere odd on the slide or something like that. Mark,
Mark: Mm.
PK Steffen: you're making
Andy Bundock: Okay.
PK Steffen: a really good point. like this healthcare client that I've got, it's they're a big organization. They've got a lot of employees. They want to put the investment into building the brand kit, which is their logo and and their fonts. I I I think you should have your icons and various other different things that you're adding in there, 'cause if you're gonna spend this time on this, you should really build a a good brand kit and that's gonna give you all the branding that you want. And then you have to have the template that's ready. It is a lot of work, Mark. You're you're absolutely right. I don't think the average person's gonna be doing this.
Mark: She's
PK Steffen: I think it's more kind of enterprise level clients who are gonna want this. And the fact that I've got someone ask me To do it now means that there are people that are watching these videos and and and there's work out there getting getting these templates ready. I haven't had a chance
Andy Bundock: Yes.
PK Steffen: to test it with with their
Mark: Yeah.
PK Steffen: brand of co copilot yet, and we're gonna do testing before I get really deep. and you wanna make sure that your version of Copilot does everything once you've got everything set up correctly. for a lot of people I think this is just something they you need to be thinking about.
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
PK Steffen: It it it ma it may get get to a point where it's it's even easier and you don't need someone like us to set
Mark: Yeah, yeah.
PK Steffen: up set up the template, then th that that will be happy days as as you like to say. yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah. And on that PK
Andy Bundock: Might,
Emma | Birdbox Designs: you're uploading sort of the brand guidelines and all that sort of prep work that you've done with icons and things like that. You uploading it to your copilot. Does it sit on your OneDrive? I mean, I'm not worried so much
Mark: That's the thing.
PK Steffen: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: That's the key. And I was, that's the key, Emma.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: about Microsoft's data policy and what they're doing with it, but does it actually sit on your version of OneDrive or whatever you're using? Or does it sit on theirs? And then what comes out, like what the output is, does that become theirs or yours or do you, yeah, that's the kind of question which I'm not sure we've done yet.
Andy Bundock: That's the key. In principle, the idea of, let's just go up a level, holistically, right? The principle idea of, there is a centrally located
Mark: I think that or let's just really like like for exploring your s
Andy Bundock: master deck that sits on a
Mark: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: OneDrive SharePoint, wherever it sits, that is referenced by everybody. And if you make changes to that one deck, updates to it, it then proliferates down. That in its,
Mark: That one again updates to it, you then kind of wait around that.
Andy Bundock: in principle,
Mark: Principle.
Andy Bundock: is what we've been saying will be a good idea for a long time. The actual rollout of that, and to
Mark: Yeah. The actual rollout of that
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yep.
Andy Bundock: Emma's point, if I make it on my system, I'm using a central point for it to make it all happen from, then how do I port that over to XYZ Corporation? That means I need access
Mark: XY Corporation. Can can you tell us that PK?
Andy Bundock: to their servers. and work on their systems. That's a security issue. IT guys will be tearing their hair out going, I'm not having him anywhere near. Like, we've got sensitive information. So that's an issue.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: Then you've got the, I've got, I'm not on the same version of 365 as they are, or Office, or Enterprise level, or what have you. There's gonna be some incompatibility issues. So there's so many trip ups before we've even put pen to paper. Which is nuts.
Mark: Which I think that's a good idea. I should
Andy Bundock: But the principal idea, as soon as I saw this I was like, oh my god. So I make the brand template with all the fonts and the colours and the usage,
Mark: Right. The colours.
Andy Bundock: the right type of images. I can even put some example slides for
Mark: great.
Andy Bundock: Copilot to follow. Brilliant, excellent. That is fantastic because I've now got a number of 20, 30 slide, single slide decks for it to reference over and above the brand guidelines.
Mark: Slide slide for it for instance to reference on it.
Andy Bundock: over and above the template that I've created and then you get onto skills which we'll get onto in a second which hones it down even further. All of those combined together from an outcome perspective
Mark: Then you get on to see what's going on there once for a second chance to get it first. Together.
Andy Bundock: like great we need to adapt to how this is all working
Mark: We need to adapt to how it is.
Andy Bundock: because before we'd complain about frankendecks and then you give them the master template you created it goes out to half a dozen people and they will break it. You've now got a centrally located system whereby
Mark: Give the birth advanced template creating, it goes out to half a dozen people when it's breaking. We've now got an iPhone system whereby.
Andy Bundock: A PowerPoint captain or a Brand Managers would be loving this I even had one client that said her words
Mark: Stage.
Andy Bundock: No They will be following the brand template or I'll fire them So it is required by the C-suite and the brand managers to say everyone needs to follow this one
Mark: We add the the one to the
Andy Bundock: thing. And we struggle to roll that out amongst
Mark: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: the team. So in principle,
Mark: But it
Andy Bundock: it's great, but
PK Steffen: So
Mark: But it always but it always has been required,
Andy Bundock: how do we roll it out?
Mark: Andy. It's like
Emma | Birdbox Designs: yeah.
Mark: we've always had this. So what I'm struggling is and and PK hopefully you can tell us is how do we get it in there? Is you working alone in your office building it, then can you save it in a box that you then give to them that when they open it,
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right
Mark: it goes blah blah over every machine and and I just don't think it's there, right?
PK Steffen: So I mean in in theory, if they granted me a seat to their account, you know, i as a trusted employee, then I could do that. But the way that Microsoft 365 accounts work, I have so many clients now who want to onboard me as if I'm an employee and my machine cannot handle another MS 365 account. I actually have
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
PK Steffen: a PC that I wipe and I I put a new fresh account on there. So if they were to give me a seat in in their organization, we haven't f figured out how we're gonna do this, then I could just wipe my PC, start fresh, use that as as a seat on their account because I would not want to put it on the machine that I use every day in here in my office. Cause it 'cause MS 365
Andy Bundock: well, no, no, that's a...
PK Steffen: accounts logging in and it's just it gets so complicated.
Andy Bundock: it.
PK Steffen: But I I actually asked them if they could give me a desk that I I could use over at the hospital t to sit down and and work on? because
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Mm-hmm.
PK Steffen: Once I've got all the bits and pieces set up, then I'll go over
Mark: Then once I've got all the bits and pieces out.
PK Steffen: there and do the final building, you know, on on site is
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right.
PK Steffen: what I'm thinking. But I I yeah, it's it's it's a good question 'cause it does get complicated when it comes to to to accounts and all the rest of it when it comes to MS 365
Mark: So
Andy Bundock: Yeah, think...
Mark: you're telling us we we all need a a burner laptop.
PK Steffen: Yes.
Mark: Yeah. .
Andy Bundock: There's also a strict brand adherence toggle button, isn't there? I think brand managers
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes.
Andy Bundock: will like that. Look, if we get past all these teething troubles, we just naysayed a bunch of stuff, it's all brand new. Microsoft might make their own problems by making things overly complicated anyway, we all know that. Let's just say they get past that and they can get past the shiny, shiny tools and go, feedback from everyone is, it's. Awful because no one can actually access it. Well, what's the point of having the tool then if no one can use it? Everyone's gonna like and they can
Mark: Right.
Andy Bundock: forget it quite quickly aren't they? But I think from a brand manager's perspective if they get this
Mark: That means from a private manager's perspective.
Andy Bundock: to work properly, I think it's got some real It could grow some real kahunas, right? It but
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah, I agree.
Andy Bundock: I mean but at this moment in time That's just what another one of those situations where you're like this could be so amazing. Please make it work. no, you're not gonna
Mark: For for me it's like do you remember two years ago or maybe even a little bit longer now? But there was like those beautiful images that AI had created, but then when you look down at the hand it had six fingers.
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
Mark: For me, this is kind of that. This is like whoa, the potential of this is epic. But for now, I mean it's not I'm not saying it's making mistakes, but Emma, what you said about it was almost there. You know,
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Mark: I feel like AI's that in a lot of ways. I use it a lot now for just daft day to day stuff. And it's almost there. And then it tells me like I was doing something about Apple the other day and it was like, no, Tim Cook's still the boss of Apple. And it's like, no dude, catch up with the news or you know, it's like, but it it's
Andy Bundock: Wow.
Mark: that's not been released yet because it's you know, that's coming out in September and I'm like, it's September the fifteenth. There's little bits where it's not quite godlike just yet but You know, if the
Andy Bundock: Get get.
Mark: see the visuals where they've gone from six fingers to where we are now and the stuff it can create now is just insane, I think this will be brilliant. And think the end of the road for this is maybe that templates go away. Hate to say it, 'cause I love templates. But maybe if you've got all your brand shenanigans in there and you just tell it what you want it to look like, and as long as it's bringing in the colours and maybe skills that we'll maybe talk about in a second about you know line spacing and margins and all of that is chucked in because I don't know about you guys but my experience with templates is even this one I keep wanging on about this 300 template deck that I've just built and then they come back to me with five different designs that aren't in that template and they said we just built you 300 so
Emma | Birdbox Designs: my goodness.
Andy Bundock: ....
Mark: I I think that's the problem with templates right
PK Steffen: That's true.
Mark: people still want to get more creative outside of the limits of a template. And so maybe
PK Steffen: Sure.
Mark: like brand kits is the way forwards because it's like, well sack off the template, it's gonna put the logo in the right place. It's got the colours, it's got the fonts, it's got the rules, and then let's just see what it creates. So you know, maybe two years time. I'm just gonna be this document.
Andy Bundock: I think I'm going to disagree with you there slightly, Mark. I think that it's a combination. So you've got all your brand elements
Mark: Mm-hmm.
Andy Bundock: up there. have to give, AI tools are just gonna copy somebody else's homework. So if you
Mark: That was kind of.
Andy Bundock: put your own homework in there for it to copy, as in a template deck, example slides, These are cool things I nicked from other people in the team. Or there's a repository for everyone to go. That's a great slide. Sally always uses this one and it always goes down well. Can I have a copy of your chart, that cool chart table, et cetera, Sally? Yep, it's in the so-and-so folder. Brilliant. Point it towards that. You can, think on Cian's video, we'll put a link to Cian's video, which
Mark: I the other was using this one if you don't know how well chart and I'm not chartable chart etcetera tally you know exit the so and so folder work in that because I think
Andy Bundock: everyone should watch actually. And he puts in like forward slash document name and it it tell you can tell it's a reference a specific
Mark: book in a forward Smash document name and it and it was intel intelligence.
Andy Bundock: document slide etc So once you've once you've got your brand
Mark: So once you've got once
Andy Bundock: elements your slides to copy etc, and then you get onto skills where you can Tell it to don't do this always do that. I want you to include this make sure the images are blah That all of a sudden hones it right down and then all of a sudden you've got some very specific things that not only you can use, but
Mark: On the U.
Andy Bundock: you can share in that folder for everybody else to follow as well. And that's the bit that pricked my ears out to make me go, ooh. Now that could be cool. Now as regards skills, now a simple definition if you're not aware of what a skill is, a lot of people are using them at the moment. It is a skill or an MD file is a plain text markdown document that gives AI tools and agents
Mark: A skill or meting bar is a plain text marked down document that is A items with agents.
Andy Bundock: operational instructions and optional supporting resources to perform specific tasks reliably." Quote unquote. Now, if you've got those in place and you can hone it down, you will get a better outcome. It's as simple as
Mark: Now, if you if you cut it twice and you can cut it down, you get a better output.
Andy Bundock: that. Now, what's for me, I think we were talking earlier about adapting to our offering to clients and clients adapting to what they ask for from us. using AI tools and injecting
Mark: Usually I like so and and
Andy Bundock: various different ways of doing it, whether they're going directly to Copilot
Mark: That's been coming directly.
Andy Bundock: or they're in a specific tool like PowerPoint that's got Copilot in it or Claude Add-Ins or Chat GPT. The thing is we need to adapt and how what we offer skills will become
Mark: And next and output of that was killed.
Andy Bundock: currency. What I mean by this is I was chatting to my daughter who plays football. One of her teammates, older brother came down to watch. He's about to go to university.
Mark: What I mean by this is I was chatting to my talking to my teammates of Project. And I was I was chatting to him about the the journey that go on. I was thinking about other problems in terms of they're lamenting about interns and graduates and
Andy Bundock: And I was chatting to him about the journey he's about to go on. And I was thinking about other pods I listened to and they're lamenting about interns and graduates who just left university are struggling to get work. So your CV now needs to be, I've got this, I did that, my experience is this, I did volunteering here, and here's all my skills that I use.
Mark: I skipped like this.
Andy Bundock: That will become part of the package you need to put up. These are the skills that I use. And then the hiring managers will go, I now know more about you and the way you work from the skills. I'd like to look at those skills. We could incorporate those into our own. Come in and have a chat. So I think they'll become currency and help the skills that we offer to our clients that go up into this folder or
Mark: I don't mind.
Andy Bundock: how we help them beyond the training we give them. If you use these skills, this will help you to stay on track. That will be helpful and how we adapt.
Mark: And now and how.
Andy Bundock: and how the client asks stuff of us will adapt also. What do you think?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Mark: Can I now come back on you? So yeah,
Andy Bundock: Mm-hmm.
Mark: I'm hearing I think these skills again are brilliant and I think they're definitely gonna be a feature of the future. I but I think it it's it's going away from the end users and I think it's going into more our kind of a world because what you're saying is like it's like a chef's recipe, right? You want A soupcon of this, so we need some we need a template, right? So we've got that built. We need the brand guidelines and we've got to upload them bit by bit. It'll pull from a PDF but it won't do a very good job. And then we need a soupcon of skills, blah blah blah, blah blah blah. And you can use it's just like, I just wanna build a deck and have AI build it for me. I don't wanna add all these little ingredients and blah blah blah to to make it work. I just want to open a file and have it do it for me. And I I think all these things are amazing, but they're all like the ingredients of a complicated recipe that that end user doesn't care about. I have this boring story about once I made macarons, you know, like the French little macarons. And it took
Andy Bundock: Hard to make.
Mark: me it took bloody hard to make. It took me three goes because I'm not you might be surprised to hear, I'm not much of a recipe follower. I sort of scan the recipe and then go, we'll have a bit of this, but I've a bit of that. And w I'll sort of roughly figure it out. Didn't work. So second time I tried to a bit close to the recipe, didn't work. Then I found this US blog from this lady who'd done it and she said, I'm not a recipe follower. And I'm like, great. She goes, With this, you need to follow it to the letter. And like you need to the age, you have to age
Andy Bundock: Hahaha!
Mark: the egg three days outside of the fridge to get them to the perfect consistency so they work in the by the end of it. I made perfect macarons. My third go and like shared with my mates, it's brilliant. But I also thought I'm never making macarons again. And I feel like
Andy Bundock: Yeah
Mark: what you're describing with all these little bits and fiddles and faddles that you've got to put in, it's like, and then you can have a great AI deck. And it's like, well, no, I want it
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I think...
Mark: out of the box and I wanna just go, hey, pull in that chart and make a deck out of it for me.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: you can do that Mark, can tell it to just build your deck and it'll come up with a
Mark: Yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: fairly generic looking thing and if that's fine, one and done, that's great. I think
Mark: Yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: the good thing about all the things that you're saying with all the ingredients, I think you're right, I think it is a lot of effort but I think once it's done, I think the output that you're going to get is going to be so much better and people are going to realise that the effort was worth it. Plus my
Mark: Yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: output will look like your output and Andy's output and PK's output will all look similar Whereas now, you know, how many clients have we been to and we've received like five decks and they all look totally different even though they're meant to be the same brand.
Andy Bundock: Completely, yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: So I think you're right. I think a lot of end users will be like, I can't be bothered. But I think the easier it gets with these skills where you only have to do, you know, tell it once, use this skill rather than prompt, prompt, prompt and like change, change, change. You're doing one skill and actually I love skills. just think I hate the... sort of the constant prompting that you have to keep doing with some of these tools. And I think skills are brilliant. I think they're going to save people so much time.
Mark: I wonder if it's like
Andy Bundock: think that's going to be a...
Mark: an evolution of the you know the the POTX file and maybe that that's something you could build skills into. You give that to the company, it lives on their server, and every time you open it, it's already got all those skills built into it. because again, I'm just struggling to get over this bit like you were talking about, actually going in PK. But when you actually
Emma | Birdbox Designs: right
Mark: go in and you're adding those skills Where are you adding it? Are you adding it to their company wide copilot and it's remembering it for every user?
PK Steffen: I mean you've you've got to have the brand kit set up correctly and then you have to have the template with all the proper layouts that Copilot's gonna want to use.
Mark: Yeah.
PK Steffen: and as as far as the skills are concerned, I'm not building any custom skills for them. I mean I I think that's that's a interesting idea if if I were to build some custom skills. Let's say they needed to create a certain type of executive summary once a month, then that would be a cool custom skill to build. for them. And I think the skills part is really exciting because we can actually build custom skills now. I mean, I I I think there's where you got get that kind of customization that you were talking about, Mark, where the template breaks if if if somebody wants to do X and you haven't built that into it with a skill, copilot potentially, I mean right now it's got it still has to follow the template. So we we we we're we're screwed there. But at some point maybe the skill will be able to modify the template and be able to give us that level of customization because I think you're a hundred percent right about how templates are are powerful but people want extra customization.
Andy Bundock: two things to raise here. Let's break it down. Skills can be very, very tiny little packets of information. They could be really small. The ones I rely upon all the time,
Mark: I think I'm
Andy Bundock: and my two big bugbears, as you all know, right? One thing I've written, I've written a skill way back when, when as soon as I started using any kind of LLM, it was like, you need to restrict the amount of Em dashes you're putting in. There's nothing new there. That's like one of the oldest gripes, right?
Mark: That's like one of the oldest things. Obviously, and I told it, I don't use not use them, I'll use them on that.
Andy Bundock: And I told it, I don't want you to not use them, I want you to use the comma, and every once in a while when you really need to use one, use one. And it went on and went, I'll add to that and put some other typographical things in it, is that what you want? I said, yeah, and saved it, and it's now in any of project folders. You scale that up to a SharePoint
Mark: So you went now with screen back.
Andy Bundock: server, there might be a couple of dozen of these. It might be, always use an apostrophe, never use a prime mark. Like, they're tiny. There could be little things that like,
Mark: Thanks the thought.
Andy Bundock: that go beyond what's in the brand guidelines that are just good grammar and just good use or best practice and little things. It could be a couple of dozen of those things and as time goes by they will evolve and other people will write other ones and then it will be approved by a brand manager whose role will adapt to to consume all of this heavy lifting to your point Mark. They will then be responsible for as a brand manager the logos right, the right colors of the logo, right usage.
Mark: What the ground actually might cross the right number right here.
Andy Bundock: There's a usage document as a skill to say when you're using this logo, it always has to be paired
Mark: I don't know.
Andy Bundock: with this or use the lockup with the right year on it or something. There's skills in there that will help people stay in their lane or stay in within
Emma | Birdbox Designs: So has anybody?
Mark: It's not an like stain.
Andy Bundock: the guardrails that I think will be really cool.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Has anybody actually used custom skills?
Mark: Customer skills. Imagine these customer skills in code by that in power point because I don't
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Have you actually used custom skills in Copilot in PowerPoint? Because I don't have it. It doesn't let me do it. No.
Mark: have that normal people.
Andy Bundock: No, but the MD files, you could write the MD file in Claude, export it and upload it to Copilot. It's a simple text document. They're universal.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah.
Mark: Like that's the paradigm.
PK Steffen: Yeah, I've I've I've built custom skills in Claude and the beauty of of of that is you can actually get Claude to build the skill for you.
Andy Bundock: So what do we think in conclusion? The interactive slides, the new tools, glimmers of hope or are we naysaying the whole damn lot? I feel like some of it is making me go, okay, but it needs some honing down and some of it is making me go, okay, there's some stuff on
Mark: Microscope. Okay. Okay.
Andy Bundock: here that is cool, but come on Microsoft, give me more.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I've got a big point to make. So for me, this isn't really new ground. So even though I was quite excited to hear that Copilot
Mark: So I think it's
Emma | Birdbox Designs: have launched this and it's getting traction. You know, I love Canva and Canva has had brand kit for years. So it's addressing the same problem as we've been talking about all episode. And it's pretty much the same solution. So you add
Mark: We have a little bit of how broke it. It's like a second half of a smooth region.
Andy Bundock: Yeah, it has, yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: your colors, you add your logos, you add images, can, you know, lots of different things, your tone, all of this sort of stuff. And what it does for me personally, for my personal brand, is everything that I ask it to do, whether it be a LinkedIn post or something else, it always looks like me. It's got my font. I have to tweak it, obviously, but Canva AI really has this has been around for years
Mark: But after they are around.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: and I've been using it for years as well. And I did test it. So I did the same prompt as I did when I was messing about with brand kits in Copilot in PowerPoint. I did the same for Canva in AI. Same amount of time.
Mark: Second after the army. Second
Emma | Birdbox Designs: but what it spat out was so much better.
Mark: afternoon. So
Emma | Birdbox Designs: It had my logo in the correct place, it was the correct size, it even generated some really cool images based on all the stuff that it had learned about me before and the sort of images that I like. So maybe there's a bit of sort of learning and history going on there. It also did like a mock-up, because I've also done a few mock-ups in there before. It did
Mark: They just get the generating really cool images and they still have stuff there and then small images on the line because they're going to start there, and it would say that you can someone's not really.
Andy Bundock: That's cool.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: a really great one of those as part of my deck. And so...
Mark: Sorry.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I can't wait for Copilot to get to where that is because then I can just be in one place in PowerPoint
Mark: because they're like just big clock place.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: and just do it all in there. But it's not a new ground for
Mark: Okay.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: me. So there you go, my grumpy hat.
Mark: Emma, with with that
Andy Bundock: I think you're right.
Mark: though, are you as well as all your brand elements, w one of the things I find challenging with Canva is that there's just so many templates. What sort of a template is it using? Is it pulling from something you've pointed it towards? Or is it has it got a little template in there? okay.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes. Yeah. So I've got my own template. mean, I don't use it very much for decks, but
Mark: Right.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: other documents, LinkedIn posts, Instagram, things like that. I have my own branded template and it'll pull that as a good starting place. It's very basic. it
Mark: Good though.
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: does, it's still not a hundred percent like as a designer, it doesn't do everything that I want it to do, but it gets me probably 85 % there.
Mark: No.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Whereas I think Copilot was, there was a lot more I needed to do on the design side of what it spat out.
Andy Bundock: Yeah, sounds like
Mark: Is that out?
Andy Bundock: Microsoft playing catch-up again. What do think, PK?
PK Steffen: I think Emma hit the nail on the head, other apps
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
Mark: But and I had other
PK Steffen: like Canva, Gamma, you've been able to to place the the logo in the corner and you set the colours and do all that sort of stuff for for a long time. I think the news here is that Microsoft is caught up. Yay. You know, and i I I think
Andy Bundock: Finally!
PK Steffen: c I think Claude, you know Claude was able to do nice layouts, but then it wouldn't bring in, you know, images for you unless you gave it the images or pointed to the images and
Mark: But then it wouldn't bring in you know images from you unless you painted the images or point into the images.
PK Steffen: all the rest of it. bottom line, I can build a deck quicker by hand than watching a bunch of videos and setting up the brand kit and doing the template and do I mean I I c I can build a deck in 30 minutes. If if you front load the work, if you figure out what it is you want to say, just like we're talking in a storytelling episode and you figure out what you want to say, it's so easy on the back end to then build that deck.
Mark: I can build a deck in 30 minutes. If if you go what it is you gotta say. Just returning a storytelling episode and figure
Andy Bundock: Yeah, yeah, yep. Exactly.
PK Steffen: Front loading is the way to go and I can still build a deck quicker than AI can and a better deck.
Mark: out the same. It's so easy on the back end to that tech.
PK Steffen: more
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
PK Steffen: s more structured, clearer message. I mean if if you wanna play with this, great. it's still it's it's you know, it's it's promising. It's definitely something to to keep your eyes on. yeah.
Andy Bundock: It is promising for the non-designer because we're always going to be quicker. There was a fantastic post by someone in my network on LinkedIn the other day, and you know how there's a lot of these that where you have, he does it really well. He'll put a white t-shirt on and he'll be like the senior designer and then he'll have a black t-shirt on and a ball cap on backwards and he calls himself the junior designer and he's having a conversation with himself about playing two parts.
Mark: part and design is part of buttons complicated.
Andy Bundock: And the junior designer's worried about that he's not gonna get any work anymore because they're gonna lose work to AI. And the senior guy says, do you think that the client using AI will do a better job than a designer using AI? And they just stopped me in my tracks and went, that kind of sums it up really. think so,
PK Steffen: But you
Andy Bundock: a designer will always be quicker and better and higher quality, but we're making stuff for non-designers to follow. That's it.
PK Steffen: Wait, ca c can can I say though, you said we will always be quicker. I will I will push back on that and say anybody
Mark: Right.
PK Steffen: can always be quicker. This is something that you can learn how to do. If you figure
Andy Bundock: That point. Yeah.
Mark: How many two?
PK Steffen: out what you wanna say, you know you wanna put that number on that slide, you wanna put the picture on this slide, you can build it quicker.
Mark: You can go.
PK Steffen: okay, I can do it in thirty minutes. Maybe it takes you a day. I I don't know. There there's there's there's a skill gap there, you're right. But anybody can be quicker
Mark: Maybe it takes you a day. I I don't know. There's there's there's a skill cap there, right?
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
PK Steffen: and build a better deck than AI right now if they learn how to do it. It's that's I'm gonna leave it there. Sorry, Mark, go ahead.
Mark: No, you're right that's true about anything right, more or less. I think yeah, it's it's interesting. I think it's really fascinating that they're going this way. And it's great to see Microsoft I think has got this sort of confidence that they're you know, they're the platform of choice and so sometimes they don't always adopt all this other stuff so quickly. But you can see that they're sort of feeling threatened by all these AI deck creators and so they're
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
Mark: bringing all this stuff in. So that's that's only good, right? Because they're they're bringing themselves
Andy Bundock: Good point, Mark. Yeah, good point.
Mark: up to the level of everybody else. But I it's not there yet. I don't think any of us are saying that. I think if you don't have a brand template, if you're a one man band, AI the heck out of your decks. It's gonna be brilliant because it's just
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Mark: gonna, you know, it does a not bad job. Sure it looks a little bit like AI, but if you just do an a quick deck. Maybe that doesn't matter, but then that's not really what we talk about on this podcast, right? We're talking about the higher end stuff that we sweat and pour over every day. and I just think AI isn't there. Having said that, it's really interesting stuff. I think skills are gonna be brilliant, I think brand kit's gonna be brilliant. I just think it needs to come on a little bit before it becomes something that everybody
Andy Bundock: It's really nice.
Mark: uses.
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
Mark: And both these videos, which were brilliant, were by AI sort of fan people rather than designer people, right? And so if you're
Andy Bundock: Agreed.
Mark: big into AI,
Emma | Birdbox Designs: That's true.
Mark: this is great for those people because it's like, hey, and now you can bring your brand kit in if you're an AI forward person already. And I think that's where it sits right now. It's not mass adoption. so yeah, it's it's interesting. But it you know, it's it's it's all good stuff. But I think we've all got jobs still just about.
PK Steffen: I I I
Andy Bundock: Good point, Mark. We will put links to these videos that we've been referring to in the show notes, because they are worth looking at to give you a sort of glimpse into the very, very near future. I think this has been a fantastic discussion. This has been a great podcast that we've put together here, because we've seesawed our way through this entire thing, haven't we? Like the good and the bad. I think there's plenty to be optimistic about. There's plenty to get right. And I'm looking forward to seeing how it all pans out. One thing is for certain though, without a template for any
Mark: But the check plate.
Andy Bundock: of those AI tools to follow, Mark's point about sweating over the details about getting that right. Pay a designer to get you
Mark: Five.
Andy Bundock: a good template, then roll that out to your team. I think that's the key
Mark: Say exactly.
Andy Bundock: message here.
PK Steffen: I I I love Mark's Grumpy, by the way.
Mark: Okay.
PK Steffen: I think it's spot I I
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Ha ha
PK Steffen: think Mark's Grumpy is spot on, so keep wearing that keep wearing that grumpy hat, Mark. Mark but but but but but yeah w we
Andy Bundock: Yeah. I'm going to get my mum to knit Mark a grumpy hat.
Mark: Measure grumpy.
PK Steffen: need a little grumpy badge for him. I I will I will say, you know, Mark just raised a point there. If this is for you know interesting news for people who don't know how to build decks, that's true. I do worry about the the high end design though that Mark brought up that we do. I just worked on on a keynote in Figma. And if you've used design tools in Figma, if you've done blurs in in Figma, if you've done glass effect in Figma, if you've affected, you know, the the radius on on the corner of a of a rectangle in Figma, then you say to yourself, Why is Microsoft spending all all this money on Copilot in this little box on the side when when the controls, the design controls, the high end controls are are
Andy Bundock: Not updating their bloody basic tools!
Mark: Okay.
PK Steffen: are I'm gonna use an a word that Andy might use, but they are right? I mean it it's it
Andy Bundock: Hahaha
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Ha ha
PK Steffen: it's like if you're spending all this money on Copilot, can you please spend some money on y building
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
PK Steffen: us proper design tools, pro proper
Mark: Fixing shafts. Mm-hmm.
PK Steffen: controls in PowerPoint. It's like they're from the nineteen nineties. Can you please give us a and
Andy Bundock: Yeah, I agree. I agree.
PK Steffen: and and I I do worry that we're gonna lose all manual control and everything's gonna go to the chat window at some point. I know that's that's that's me being grumpy and and scared at at the moment, but for
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
PK Steffen: for goodness sakes, look at some of the other I mean, Emma, you could you could tell us about Canva. I you know, I c I I could tell you about Figma all day long, what you can do in there. There's things I don't like about Figma, but when it comes to design level control. my goodness.
Mark: I mean level control.
PK Steffen: Could you could you just give us a little bit of that? I mean when I when I make it when I make a
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
Mark: Yeah.
PK Steffen: text box in in Figma, the name of the text box in the selection pane is based on whatever the text is in there, so I can tell what it is. It's not object one. Or it's like
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Mark: my god.
PK Steffen: I mean, I I could build you a long list and if you just gave us those change changes, Microsoft, we would be happy campers. You do whatever you want with AI. Just give us those, you know
Andy Bundock: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mark: Then the problem is with Figma your Figma deck is then flat,
PK Steffen: Fliming Fliming.
Mark: right? And it's a one and done and they can't edit it. Unless they've got Figma designer.
PK Steffen: The the the Well you you know what we did for this? I mean we we were doing LEDs, super wide LEDs. At the end of it when everyone all the designs were approved, one of my jobs was converting stuff over to to to PowerPoint and building in the building in the animations and and all the rest of it. so yeah,
Andy Bundock: Meh.
PK Steffen: we we did switch back to PowerPoint, but th yeah. There there's so much the other apps other apps can do that PowerPoint can't. We we need Spent spend some money on that. If you're s if you're spending all this money on Copilot, spend a little bit of money on the design controls for people who
Mark: But but that's not but that's not shiny shiny. Everyone's shiny shiny at the moment and that's gotta have an AI badge.
Andy Bundock: No, exactly.
PK Steffen: No, no, but he even a gr the the gradients
Andy Bundock: Guys?
PK Steffen: that you can build in Figma you can't they don't translate. They do not translate when we export them over to PowerPoint. And and we we would have to figure out a way of d you know, bringing in a PNG or doing something else really complicated. It's like there's so many things, it does not look the same when we bring it in into PowerPoint.
Andy Bundock: So that's it for this episode of Next slide please. Thank you so much for listening. We are on LinkedIn, YouTube, Spotify and Apple podcasts. You can find me at andybundock.com and on LinkedIn and at Instagram.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: You can find me at birdboxdesigns.com on LinkedIn and Instagram as well.
Mark: at zenboxyes.com or LinkedIn and Instagram as well. You can find me grumbling away at sixmileshigh.com or on LinkedIn or as Instagram as sixmileshigh
PK Steffen: And you can find me on LinkedIn and at pkdigital.net.
Andy Bundock: We'd love to hear from you. We're a friendly bunch. Anything you don't like, please tell us. Anything you do like, please tell everyone else. See you on the next episode of Next Slide, Please.
Mark: Bye.