Porting Keynote for ultra-portable shows on the road

Question

I am starting this thread to discuss questions of how to leverage Keynote and iCloud to deliver presentations while on-the-road with limited access to hardware. To wit:
As you can see from the listings below, I have access to useful hardware and software. I am writing this to seek advice on how to leverage these tools to give business (and personal) presentations while I'm on-the-road and may (or may not) be carrying hardware with me. If I'm forced to travel light, I was wondering if simply taking a thumb drive and/or using my iCloud account may be enough.
I work for a small construction business that does projects in eight surrounding counties. I work as a "Producer", which means I'm both an office manager (writing up contracts and job estimates, arranging business with customers, contractors and suppliers over-the-phone) and a project manager (working with those same business contacts in-person on remote project sites). I am also applying for work outside of our business, and want to be able to use visual aids if/when necessary to illustrate what I do during an interview.
I recently started taking a Lynda.com course on "Setting Up Your Mobile Office to Work from Anywhere", and it got me to thinking about how I could use iCloud and Apple's iWork apps to create business presentations that could be played in a variety of portable scenarios. My goal is to be able to travel light and still be able to make presentations to individuals or groups.
MY CURRENT PERSONAL/BUSINESS HARDWARE & SOFTWARE
iMac 13,1 : late-2012 slimline model, 2.9 GHz Core i5 processor, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB hard disk, USB SuperDrive
MacOS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
iLife 2011 (including iPhoto 9.2.3)
iWork 2009 (including Keynote 5.3, Pages 4.3, and Numbers 2.3)
Microsoft Office 2011: Mac
Final Cut Studio 3, including Final Cut Pro 7
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8
iCloud account, free-tier service
DSL high-speed connection to internet
Have been shooting digital photos since November, 2001; manages iPhoto library of over 52,000 images
OTHER HARDWARE AVAILABLE
white MacBook 2006 vintage, 1.83 GHz Intel processor, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB hard disk, SuperDrive, MacOS 10.6.8, iLife 2011, iWork 2009, Microsoft Office 2011 (MacBook is not my machine; used by someone else in my office. This computer has battery issues; it must be plugged into AC power.)
Epson EX7200 projector, with USB thumb-drive port (for JPEG presentations), VGA port, and HDMI port.
Scenario #1: If I prepared a Keynote presentation on my iMac and transferred it via WiFi or thumb drive to the old MacBook, do I need to copy just a single Keynote file over and that's it? No attached files or folders with files in them?
Scenario #2: I have successfully, in the past, used the Epson projector and a thumb drive loaded with photos and also a USB camera card reader with an SD card attached to show simple JPEG photo slideshows. If I wanted to just use the Epson's USB port to show Keynote slideshows, they would have to be stored in folders as JPEG files. How easy is this to prepare with Keynote? Are there any pointers available on designing a useful workflow for preparing such slideshows without a lot of fuss?
Scenario #3: Forget the projector; too much bulk. If I had just a small iOS device like an iPod touch, and I wanted to plug into someone else's projector (or if I wanted to just show a slideshow of images to one person with no projector) what do I need to be prepared for, hardware-wise? What do I need to do with Keynote, both on the iMac for production and on the iOS device to make it look right?
Scenario #4: Let's say I'm going to carry everything on a USB thumb drive as a backup. What is the best way to set it up to play on someone else's hardware? (I assume three tiers of compatibility: I do network with Mac/iOS users, so Tier #1 would be Apple compatibility with Keynote. Tier #2 would be general compatibility with Microsoft Office 2003/4 for pre-XML file formats. I guess that Tier #3 would be general-purpose PDF files, or maybe the JPEG file approach with thumb drive ports on projectors.) If I'm doing Tier #1 and I'm plugging my thumb drive into someone else's MacBook, are there any pointers to avoid font conflicts or other issues? If I'm doing Tier #1 and I'm borrowing someone else's iPad to show a slideshow, how do I get the files off of a thumb drive to show on the iPad?
Scenario #5: ** iCloud ** Let's say I'm traveling VERY light, and I want to give a presentation that's stored on my Apple iCloud account. How can I organize files and folders so that Tier #1, #2 and #3 files are available (assuming I have an internet connection) so I can play a presentation off someone else's hardware, be it a tablet or laptop. Is there anything I should know about how to prepare this and how to reliably be able to log-in and access my iCloud files? Are my iWork 2009 apps going to function in preparing and saving presentation files with my iCloud account?
Scenario #6: Scenario #6 is Scenario #5, but substituting another service instead of iCloud, like maybe Google Drive. Is there any way to set up an account with files so I can reliably be able to access said files for a presentation?

Answer 1

This is a great reminder. I too labor over my slides, sometimes way too much labor and not enough on the presentation. This is also a reminder to check out your venue BEFORE you arrive. Talk to the tech in charge if at all possible and tell him/her the system your bringing and ask if they can accommodate your requirements. I am giving 4 classes for adult continuing education at a local high school. I've had to bring my own flat screen TV because their projector was sub-par and did nothing for my slides.
Best practice if it is feasible and reasonable to go to the venue and check it out days before your presentation.
For the amount of work we put into our slides, we deserve for them to be shown at the best possible resolution.
Thanks again for the reminder.