Using slide presentations to describe Pipi

Mike's Notes

Thoughts on how to give useful slide presentation talks about Pipi, record them, and make them available on YouTube as a way to explain how Pipi works.

Resources

References

  • Content Management Bible 2nd Ed., by Bob Boiko. Wiley. 2005.

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Last Updated

09/02/2026

Using slide presentations to describe Pipi

By: Mike Peters
On a Sandy Beach: 09/02/2026

Mike is the inventor and architect of Pipi and the founder of Ajabbi.

I gave a slide talk last night at the regular Open Research Group online meeting about future blog posts being created by a human using a Workspace, transferred to the CMS Engine (cms), processed, and then automatically published to Google Blogger. Creating the slides made me realise the opportunity available to use this format to visually explain the many parts of Pipi simply.

I will give a slide presentation on the Workspace Engine (wsp) at the next meeting. I will also give one on the Workspaces for Screen to the local Film Industry group this month.

Backstory

When I was a young adult, I went around with a group of good people, many of whom have since become lifelong friends, who encouraged me to give some talks. The only problem was that their approach was to write the talk in advance and then read it aloud to the audience. They were all very good at it, and I was hopeless.

  • The first problem was that I found it impossible to write.
  • The second problem was reading out loud what was written. I tripped over the words.

Years later, I had this idea that just talking about something in front of me might work a lot better, a picture, a map, a physical gadget, for example. I have no problems talking about something I understand.

When I became National President of NZERN, I had to give many talks, and that was the method: show slides and just talk about the pictures or diagrams without using notes, unless there was a name or date to remember, often using a whiteboard to draw answers for people who asked questions in a meeting.

I ended up giving hundreds of talks at conferences and workshops across NZ. The longest was 2 1/2 hours, given to the South Island DOC IMU workshop about the NZERN GIS project using ESRI software, and it was highly technical. No notes, just 50 slides.

Using computers like a typewriter has been a tremendous help because of cut-and-paste, which is much easier than shuffling bits of paper. Besides, I use Arial 16pt, which is much easier to read than my handwriting.

Mrs Grammarly

Later, I learned to use assistive technology to help me write. Grammarly Pro rewrites every single sentence that has my name on it, including this post. Grammarly is set on formal British business English. I hope my personal secretary, Mrs Grammarly, is doing a good job.

Big Challenge

Pipi is largely undocumented because it was designed and built visually. There must be thousands of hand coloured drawings on A4 paper, some neatly filed in 50+ 3-hole A4 ring binders, and the rest in many cartons waiting to be filed. Pipi needs to be documented so others can use it. There is a steadily growing interest in Pipi worldwide.

Solutions

  1. Getting Pipi to self-document is well underway, using structured templates that render from hundreds of databases. A rough estimate is that 20,000 web pages of developer technical documentation will be required due to the scale and scope of this enterprise platform.
  2. Setting up a community forum where users can ask questions and provide answers will take the load off me.
  3. I also need to explain verbally the more complicated bits that I find too difficult to write about. Give a slide presentation and record it to share on YouTube.
  4. Use screen capture to record live demos of Pipi in use.
  5. Provide regular Office Hours that can be booked for video chats via Google Meet or Zoom. I'm doing that a lot, and it seems to work.
  6. Record video interviews with the people who wrote most of the articles that I have copied and republished on this engineering blog, On a Sandy Beach. They could be two-way and a chance to discuss some deep issues.
  7. Teaching someone something complex by making it simple is the best way to learn it. So, giving many talks will also help me understand more clearly.

Slide Presentations

Here is a possible list of some overview talks about just one engine as an example. Then there could be more detailed talks on the same subjects. There are hundreds of Agent Engines. Each talk could have about 10-20 slides.

CMS Engine

  • 101 Introduction
  • 102 Content Management System
  • 103 Publication
  • 104 Website
  • 105 Blog
  • 106 Wiki
  • 107 Docs
  • 108 Help
  • 109 Workspace

Next Steps

Once I get into the swing of it, it should get easy. I need to learn to speak more slowly, develop a visual style for the slides, establish a simple slide-naming convention, and address related details. Each slide set will need a webpage for downloading the PDF/PowerPoint/Google Slides, watching the YouTube Video, a printable PDF handout, and links to related information.

The recorded slides, talks, and demos could all be organised using the existing Diataxis framework and Learning Objects, which Pipi uses elsewhere.

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