Design-a-Template Contest: We have a winner!

July 7, 2011 By 2 Comments

If you are a supporter of ours, you would say that we enrich the community with our annual contest in which we invite the public to design the template for the Presentation Summit. If you are a critic, you might accuse us of being lazy and having you do our work for us.

We’re good with either hypothesis — just as long as we get to discover new talent. This year’s find comes to us from the state of Michigan: Meet Tany Nagy, our 2011 winner. Her clean and crisp work blends modern slide design with Texas authenticity.

Our contest is not an easy assignment. To win, your design needs to be professional, attractive, speak well of both your and our sensibilities, yet above all, must wear well and remain understated. It will be the backdrop across four days and over 50 sessions — it can’t be too loud. Furthermore, in many cases, its purpose is to tee up the work of our own designers and stay in the background as their work is showcased. Lots of potential cross purposes there!

Tany Nagy, Design Contest winner

“I approached my entry from a research standpoint,” explains Tany. “Never having been to Texas or to the conference, I invested a good part in gathering information, typography, images that I felt lent themselves to being strong foundational design elements. Textures, rich deep earthly colors, branding, seals/crests, weathered materials, rough edges, patterns — I felt ‘sensory’ elements would capture the spirit of the conference and of Austin.

“For the conference identity, I incorporated the triangle [in the Summit logo], a silhouette of the state of Texas, and a star as a symbolic reference to Texas. Designing with the elements I choose was wonderful, as working with them during the design process opened my eyes to different techniques and styles. I love learning new things and challenging myself as a designer, and this opportunity combined those things together for me perfectly!”

Tany was born and raised in Detroit, MI and now resides in Waterford Township, MI. She graduated from Lawrence Technological University and earned degrees in Architecture and Digital Imaging. For over 10 years, Tany developed her core skills as a designer and visual communicator before, in 2009, launching Pulse Design Studio (http://www.pulsearchdesign.com).

For her creativity and effort, Tany receives VIP access to the conference, Sep 18-21, with the $1,095 fee waived in its entirety.

Filed Under: News & Events Tagged With: ,

On the Road with PowerPoint Users

April 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I am halfway through my eight-city tour of the United States on my [intlink id="2379" type="page" target="_blank"]PresentationNext series of workshops[/intlink], and when I tell each gathering that I learn almost as much as they do, I am only indulging in a bit of hyperbole. In truth, the tour has been incredibly eye-opening for me, as it usually is when I get a chance to see how people from so many different organizations approach their presentation projects and use the software. I have met people who create slides for online tutorials, high-fidelity music videos, webinars attended by over 5,000 people, and your basic in-the-boardroom sales call. Vive la différence!

For this post, however, I am more interested in their shared experiences than their disparate ones. Across all four cities, I have found some common threads among the few hundred people that I have encountered. Here are a few of those common threads…

1. What’s a designer?

Very few people come to the presentation industry from a background in the arts, and yet they are asked to design presentations practically on a daily basis. What does that mean for them? Really, this gets down to the core question of what the word “design” actually means. Most people use that word in an aesthetic sense — they might say “that is a well-designed slide,” when they mean “that slide is pretty.”

But that’s not what design means. The word design is meant to refer to how something is built; how it functions; what its structure is. Decoration is a different thing altogether. I’m as guilty as others in using lazy language around this word, so I try to differentiate between presentation design and slide design — the former implying the more accurate meaning of the word and the latter referring to how a slide looks.

2. You’re better than you think!

Irrespective of what the word means, most people attending our workshops believe they have no design skills. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that they have never been given a chance to find out. Most slides today afford no opportunity to think like a designer — with six or seven fully-formed sentences on a slide consuming every last pixel of open space, who could possibly think like a slide designer? Once the message is refined and the verbiage honed and distilled, then (perhaps for the first time), content creators get a chance to see if they have any instincts for creating attractive slides. I speak to this point in my Three-Word Challenge video.

3. Version 2003 is still with us

Most users I have encountered are using version 2007 and a few are at version 2010. But those who spent time first with version 2003 are still using it…even if they’re not. One of the biggest changes between those two versions is the handling of slide masters and layouts — there is a sea change of new capability and function that began with version 2007. In the last two months, I have seen hundreds of sample decks in which people are using version 2007 but stuck in version 2003 mentality. They create far more slide masters than they need to (instead of creating layouts under one master) and confine themselves to the two traditional title and content placeholders (instead of creating as many as they might need). They spent so much time with version 2003, they think as if they are still there.

When version 2007 users have their eyes opened to the true power of layouts and placeholders, it is a head-exploding experience for them.

4. Animation is an abandoned concept

So many people have had ridiculous animation foisted upon them when in the audience, they have developed an aversion to it. In fact, I have heard from many that their corporate standard is literally to forbid its use. What a shame! When used properly, animation can spell the difference between a presenter just delivering information and being able to fully convey the weight of a message; it can mean the difference between audience members merely hearing a message and truly appreciate its impact. This from the tool that also brings us boomerangs, spirals, and other childish effects that are at the core of Death by PowerPoint. How ironic.

5. PowerPoint is terrible at defaults

When I am in front of a room of several dozen people and I have hand to mouse actively working the software, it becomes more apparent than at any other time how inflexible certain parts of the software are. When I am working in private, I am more able to overlook some of these deficiencies; in a large room with 50 people looking over my virtual shoulder, PowerPoint’s issues become more evident.

Let’s return to Animation for just one of many examples. My most-often used animation is a one-second fade set to occur after the previous element is finished. That is simple to accomplish, but there is a world of difference between a function being easy and being accessible. Look what I have to do to perform that command:

1. Use the Add Animation command to choose Fade. If that command is not visible, I must first change ribbons so that it is.

2. Change On Click (the permanent default) to After Previous.

3. Change the speed from .5 (the permanent default) to 1.

This wouldn’t be so painful if I could at least Tab through those controls, but I cannot. In fact, if the Animation ribbon or task pane is not present, I have to spend one more click just to get there. And don’t tell me that I can use the Animation Painter to clone from one object to another; while fine for copying a complex animation, it is not the answer for quickly applying preferred settings. Practically every other software program that I use offers changeable defaults and custom styles; why not PowerPoint? It is almost scary to think how much less tedious my activity would be if I could simply tell the software that I want my starting point for an animation to be a one-second fade. To say nothing for how much richer the experience would be if I could create a set of styles to anticipate my common requests.

Even Word does this. Sigh.

6. People believe they should never look at the screen

I am amazed at the degree to which presenters have taken the advice about how to regard the screen that is behind them. I know that Toastmasters cautions against turning your back to the audience; I wonder if that advice has become twisted and distorted over the years. In any event, I find that many people would rather ignore the screen altogether than refer to it. And yet, when an accomplished presenter can use the screen in a natural fashion and treat it like the simple visual aid that it is, audiences respond very well to that. They do not respond as well to the screen becoming the primary component of a presentation and they do not respond well to a presenter pretending like it’s not even there. This takes practice to integrate the screen into an organic and natural-feeling conversation, and it is effort well spent.

I have four more cities to visit: Chicago (Apr 26), Newark (May 9), Baltimore (May 10), and San Jose (May 17). I am sure I will have more observations to share after that, because the one thing I can always count on when I give these workshops is that I learn something new about the software and how it is used and regarded by the community.

Filed Under: Editorial Tagged With:

The Unbearable Heaviness of Celebrity

February 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Last weekend, my daughter Jamie and I got a taste of another world. It is a world in which normal values and priorities do not apply, and in which social standing has nothing to do with age, intelligence, or culture.

We attended spring training.

To get an opportunity to meet members of her beloved SF Giants, Jamie was beyond thrilled, and I was thrilled for her. I was also fascinated to observe this parallel universe to our own, where the schedules, demands, and whims of overtalented young men take precedence over just about everything else.

First, some background. As winners of the 2010 World Series, the Giants were the talk of the town and the objects of extraordinary attention. We just never could have imagined how extraordinary. The photo below was taken before 7:00a, over four hours before the team was to take the field for workouts and drills, the week before exhibition games were to begin. The doors to the right lead into the clubhouse and these throngs of people are waiting and hoping that players arriving at the facility will stop and sign autographs.

So they’re all fans, right? Wrong. A healthy majority of this group is made up of grown men (and some women) actively seeking to create marketable memorabilia. A $10 baseball will sell for $25 if Aubrey Huff signs it; a $15 photo will fetch $35 after Cody Ross adds his name to it; and a $50 Tim Lincecum jersey will be worth over $100 if the man himself takes felt pen to polyester. Jamie is in the middle of that pack somewhere, but she is dwarfed and overwhelmed by a sea of businessmen who care only that the Giants are world champions. Next year, in the likely event that the team does not repeat as champions, most of these peddlers will be elsewhere.

This is not a story of cynicism, although admittedly it is easy to succumb to the feeling. Didn’t these players know that most of these autograph seekers cared only about the profit in it? The answer would be yes, if they had the luxury of being able to discern. But most of them just needed to try to get through the process and could focus only on signing, signing, and signing some more. They put their heads down and signed anything placed before them. It was largely a depersonalizing experience for them, made that way by the crowd of hawkers who depersonalized the ballplayers by caring only about the value of their signatures.

There were exceptions. Andres Torres, described by all who know him as one of baseball’s nicest guys, saw Jamie as the obvious fan she was, decked out in black and orange, and made sure to sign her shirt. And when he got to her, he was happy to stop and pose for a photo. Note that in said photo (below), all of the people around Jamie are men with balls, bats, jerseys, and binders full of carefully-cross-referenced baseball cards.

However, cynicism did not rule the weekend — exuberance and exhilaration did. I never would have believed that ballplayers could bring such joy to fans with the smallest things. Once inside the stadium, we went right to the rail, in the hopes that Jamie could get a close encounter with her beloved, the 2010 rookie-of-the-year catcher Buster Posey. As he was heading out to the outfield for warm-up, she was barely able to muster a “Hi Buster” through her runaway nerves. In response, he turned in her general direction and waved his catcher’s mitt.

You would have thought he came up and kissed her. This 23-year-old put Jamie over cloud nine with a vague wave of a blunt hunk of leather. About an hour later, she summoned the courage to ask him for an autograph as he walked by, and he demurred in his deep-south accent, saying “Sorry, I’ve got something to do.”

Well, that became her catch phrase for the entire weekend — I’ve got something to do. Buster Posey actually spoke to her. Never mind that he blew her off — as far as she was concerned, he opened a window into his soul with that little rejection. He made her day, no, her entire weekend. Later on, when she actually did get his autograph, and their fingers touched during the pen exchange, her reaction reminded me of the crazed Beatles fans who refused to wash their hands because they came in contact with a pillow case that, three weeks earlier, Ringo Starr was reported to have used in Room 715 of the Hilton Hotel.

The phenomenon of stardom plays out in many ways and I can’t help but feel a bit of sympathy for these athletes, however overpaid and overindulged they are. I think of all of the activities that we take for granted that are implausible for them. It rained Saturday afternoon so Jamie and I walked to the Denny’s a block away. Buster Posey couldn’t have done that. The following evening, we walked to the famous Sugar Bowl dessert shop in Scottsdale and browsed Old Town. Could the enigmatic relief pitcher Brian Wilson have done that? Only if he were willing to sign hundreds of autographs along the way. I imagine I would like the idea of earning $12 million dollars per year and I bet I could get used to receiving free stuff on a daily basis. But would I be able to give up my freedom? I bet most of us couldn’t really imagine what it would be like, but watching the way autograph hawkers pounced on these ballplayers last weekend, I got a glimpse of life in their bubble.

I give up my freedom for four days out of the year. At the Presentation Summit, I am public property and 200 people have unfettered access to me 18 hours out of the day. I’m sure that this is nothing like what the celebrities experience because I welcome it, I indulge it, I enjoy it, and I know that it is very temporary. The more relevant point of comparison is some of our keynote speakers who are like the rock stars of our industry. People like Nancy Duarte, Garr Reynolds, Nigel Holmes, and Julie Terberg. Patrons regularly tell us ahead of the event about how excited they are  to get a chance to meet their idols and heroes. They seek autographs, they hang on their every word, and they watch how they conduct themselves in public.

Here is the important distinction, and forgive the implied sales pitch, but it is one of the qualities of the conference of which I am most proud: our rock stars do not act like rock stars. Very few of our presenters blow in, give a keynote, and depart. They hang out with the patrons, they eat lunch with them, socialize with them, talk shop with them, sometimes get drunk with them. And I get to see how much the patrons value and appreciate that. (Garr Reynolds appears via Skype from his home in Osaka, but even from a virtual stage, our patrons enjoy the privilege of feeling as if they really get to know him.)

Professional presenters understand the value of showing genuine qualities and not indulging in pretense. They know that they cannot depersonalize encounters with people the way that athletes are forced to. One of these days, perhaps the Summit might attract a true A-list celebrity to deliver a keynote and then it would be fascinating to see how these two worlds collide. How would someone accustomed to being mobbed deal with our environment which urges high-fliers to come down to sea level? Perhaps it would be refreshing for her. Maybe she’d become a regular.

Well, I can always dream…

Filed Under: Editorial Tagged With:

The iPad Predicament

February 3, 2011 By 6 Comments

Like the rest of the technologically-inclined population, I have been watching the emergence of the iPad with fascination. I remember when Microsoft introduced a tablet-based PC, over 10 years ago, and either we weren’t ready for it or Bill Gates wasn’t cool enough to sell it. Steve Jobs is cool enough to sell a new computing experience and I have no doubt that his coolness quotient is responsible for some of the product’s success. Jobs’ involvement with the iPad is what makes my experience with it all the more curious.

One of the more interesting aspects of this product is that its application in modern-day society is based largely on our imagination. I have seen servers use it to take orders at restaurants and insurance adjusters collect data in the field. Just last week, while touring hotels for possible venues for the Presentation Summit, the sales manager whipped out her iPad to show me photos of sleeping rooms. Naturally curious about how well it might serve as a presentation device, I purchased one.

It is certainly sexy, like all of the products that come from Apple. And it enjoys the panache of a product that just seems to work organically and naturally. But the real test would be how well it could project my slides and how well it would allow me to function in front of a room full of people.

Microsoft does not yet offer a PowerPoint version for the iPad, but Keynote does and it costs only $10. Keynote claims to be able to open PowerPoint files, and indeed, my version 2010 files opened with little backtalk. Except for getting them there — without a USB port, file transfer to an iPad involves a mysterious journey through iTunes. Of course, Apple is happy to sell you on a MobileMe account, but I wasn’t going there. I was okay with the $10 for Keynote, but I wasn’t about to invest in a service to compensate for Apple’s refusal to embrace standard USB connectivity.

Keynote does not translate motion paths or simultaneous animations well, and my embedded objects that require the Windows OLE engine were rendered inert. But these were relatively easy fixes, and in short order, I was displaying slides that were indistinguishable from the originals.

Next task: connect it to the projector. How? Where? A device that offers no USB connection is surely to be devoid of VGA connectors. The main power and docking port is the sole conduit to the outside world (except for WiFi) and Apple was happy to sell me a VGA adapter for $29. I didn’t mind paying the $500 for the unit itself, but this $29 purchase continues to rankle me.

Still, the connector did its job and before long, Keynote was happily sharing slides with my projector. Interestingly, the unit only pumps video out to the projector when actually running a slide show. If you drop out of show mode, the external display goes blank. This means that I cannot conduct software demos and tutorials and at first that disappointed me. But I have come to terms with the fact that the iPad is not intended to replace a computer. The question is whether it can handle the basic tasks within a profession. For instance, I will not try to create a presentation on the iPad; it is enough that I be able to show one. That seems like the appropriate litmus test.

And so far so good. I had moved my slides over to it and successfully connected it to the projector. Now how about the actual delivery? I whipped out my trusty wireless remote…you know, the simple $45 gadget whose receiver connects to the USB port…crap. How about my Bluetooth remote…crap, no BT support on the iPad.

I began to search the App Store and quickly uncovered many apps with the word Remote in it, including this:

“Control iTunes, Apple TV, and other apps using your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad over your WiFi network.” I verified that it supports Keynote and I do own a Touch, so I cobbled together the $0.99 to purchase this program known simply as Remote. I would need to make sure that I have a WiFi connection and that both devices are connected to it, but that should be no problem.

Here’s where the happy ending to this story should go, but not today. Remote will allow you to advance slides on Keynote running on a Mac and you can do it from either your Touch or from an iPad. However, it will not allow you to use your Touch to advance slides from Keynote running on an iPad. This is complicated, I know, and at first I was certain that I was just being outsmarted by these little apps and small devices. So I turned to the network of Apple support forums and confirmed that there is no way to drive Keynote for the iPad remotely. An amusing battle took place on these forums:

“I want to advance slides on my iPad.”

“Just touch the screen once.”

“I need to be able to do it remotely.”

“You’re asking for too much. It’s not a computer.”

“That is not asking for too much.”

“Apple had to draw the line somewhere.”

“How do I work the slides if I can’t advance them.”

“Just place the iPad on the podium.”

I got so close — I transferred all of my slides, converted them successfully, and got all the way to the actual projection of my slides through the projector, which you would have thought to be the biggest obstacle of all. And now when it comes time to actually deliver the presentation, I am required to stand behind a podium? I have spent the last five years advocating against the use of podiums (podia?). This little gadget was about to turn me into a hypocrite.

Here is where the irony becomes almost too much to bear. Can you imagine if Steve Jobs were tasked with presenting from his iPad? The master of modern-day presentation, having to stand behind a podium??

Apple’s decision to not include a USB port with the first generation iPad has effectively prevented me from using it in my profession. That saddens me, because I had high hopes for it. And of all people, you would have thought that one of the most celebrated public speakers of our era would have made sure that his latest product would have supported his craft.

Until the iPad provides more connectivity, I will have no choice but to view it as a curiosity first and a legitimate business tool second.

Filed Under: Editorial Tagged With:

Why I will not hire another
“social media expert”

January 10, 2011 By 23 Comments

From the title of this post, you might think this will be a rant; it will not. You might also think I have something against those who offer services in social media; also not true. Finally, you might be led to believe that I had a recent unsuccessful experience when hiring a social media expert…and that would be true.

First, some context. Social media has become one of the most important marketing tools in the world. Over half of the readers of this column will have come to it via Facebook and the discussions over at LinkedIn are a wonderful way to showcase expertise and talent. Twitter’s value to the business world has barely been imagined yet, and the explosion of the iPad and other Internet-enabled tablets could play into all of this in a profound way. No self-respecting marketing professional would imagine not including social media support into a suite of services. We are going to return to that last statement later so it warrants elaboration: social media support is a critical component of a modern marketing plan.

I have reached two conclusions about my self now that I’m north of 50. The first is that I create pretty good content. The second is that I lack the resources, personal bandwidth, and/or patience to properly leverage that content through social media channels. So yes, last summer, I found a firm to help me with that, with the express goal of attracting potential patrons to the Presentation Summit, our annual conference. “We know social media,” claims the company’s website. “Businesses struggle to keep pace with this rapidly changing social media  landscape and many are challenged with finding the most effective way to integrate social media into their marketing strategy.”

That described my business, all right, so I hired this company, which I will fictitiously refer to as Social Media Inc., or SMI, to a six-month contract to help me market the Summit and brand myself as its leader.

SMI was as ambitious and energetic as you would expect from a company whose founder was half my age. Their reps wasted no time engaging me in interviews and discussing the multi-tiered approaches that they recommended we take. I was open to their ideas and provided them with access to my Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts. This was necessary, they said, in order to boost my presence and leverage my content. I agreed with this—if I didn’t have the wherewithal to leverage my own content, I needed someone else to do it for me.

What happened over the next three months was nothing short of a cacophony. Sophisticated software, buzzing 24×7, did the following things:

  • Scoured Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter for people who showed even a passing interest in presentation or PowerPoint and sent requests to friend or connect with me.
  • Scooped up my own editorials and pulled out snippets that were of the right size to make tweets and posts.
  • Weaved those in with generic “I sure am getting excited about the Presentation Summit” entries.
  • Powered these out the door at carefully-randomized time intervals so as not to evoke the spam controls of the various services.

This all took place in front of two groups: 1) family members and friends who knew me well; and 2) about 550 new Facebook friends and LinkedIn contacts who had never heard of me but who accepted the automated invitations sent out on my behalf. For all intent and purpose, I spammed these people with a loud brew of buzz, juice, and noise. Some of it was merely useless, like random quotes from Mark Twain about public speaking, but others were more troubling, like the one that spelled the software as “Power Point” or the one that used “me” instead of “I” in a sentence. Even my wife said to me “You’re sure sending out a lot of posts and they don’t really sound like you.”

SMI was very good at its core services, which it referred to as “social media growth tactics”—a phrase that showed up on every one of my bi-weekly status updates. But did all of this help me? Did this help my brand? It made me more visible, but I have no confidence that people thought better of me because I was in their face seven to 10 times per day. Did it result in an increase in attendance at the Presentation Summit? I ran a cross-check between new patrons, joining us for the first time in 2010 and all of my new social media contacts—there was one person in that intersection.

Did it make my life easier? Well, I certainly have a lot more virtual friends and connections now, but even that was not handled with much deftness. Among my new Facebook friends were a handful of 12-year-olds, a retired monk who lives in Uganda, and various other individuals far, far removed from the presentation landscape. Worse, SMI did not think to create a new Facebook account for me, so now my one personal FB account, containing all of my tried-and-true friends and family members, also plays host to several hundred people whom I have never met. I don’t want to risk insulting any of them — many of them will be reading this as a result of our new liaison and I value that highly. I just would have liked the opportunity to compartmentalize my relationships a bit.

Looking back, I hired a group with software skills, computer savvy, and high energy, but no practical experience or expertise in marketing. I made the mistake of thinking that a social media expert would be a marketing expert and I now see how naive that was of me. As social media has become such a hot commodity, it is now painfully obvious how many people have hung out shingles with only the technical aptitude, not the experience or vision about winning over hearts and minds.

I am not suggesting that all social media companies would be found similarly lacking; I’m sure there are many that blend a fuller complement of skills. And to those companies, I would offer the following advice: don’t call yourselves social media experts; call yourselves marketing and/or branding experts. Make it clear that you will weave an understanding of social media into an overall mastery of the craft. I have every right to expect that a competent, modern marketing firm will exhibit keen awareness of social media strategies. I have learned, however, not to expect that a social media firm will exhibit competence in the larger arena of marketing and branding.

That was a valuable lesson learned.

Filed Under: Editorial Tagged With: ,

Design Contest Invites Your Creativity

November 17, 2010 By 1 Comment

Some businesses place such a priority on branding, they are meticulous in the establishment of their visual identity, never missing an opportunity to showcase their logos or their mantras.

And then there is the Presentation Summit, the ultimate mutt in visual branding. Not only does the conference change its look every year, it rewards its patrons for contributing to the chaos. And its organizers spin the whole thing by calling it a contest…now there’s chutzpah for you!

Returning for a fifth year, the Summit’s Design-a-Template Contest opens its season with a call to all creative presentation junkies:

Design our template for us in 2011 and attend the conference for free.

The conference has received over 300 entries across the last five years, spanning all software versions and many design motifs. The contest’s legacy includes brilliant work by exceptionally talented people, as well as a bit of comic relief by those who just wanted to be part of the experience…not unlike those who audition for American Idol.

“We have had our share of pranksters” notes conference host Rick Altman, “and that has prompted us to assign the roles of Randy, Paula, and Simon to our own judges. Mostly, though, we have seen truly incredible work submitted and even feel as if we have been responsible for watching a few stars be born.”

The conference also participated in a moment of melancholy, awarding 2009 honors posthumously to three-time conference patron Jamie Gross, who succumbed to cancer just two weeks after submitting her entry. It is believed that the template she created was the last set of slides she ever worked on.

The judging panel is comprised of a select group of conference regulars, including Ric Bretschneider, former program manager for PowerPoint at Microsoft, slide:ology author Nancy Duarte, Presentation Zen author and blogger Garr Reynolds, indezine editor Geetesh Bajaj, prominent slide designer Julie Terberg, noted photographer Rikk Flohr, and several other members of Microsoft’s Most Valued Professional team of support specialsts.

“The challenge to this contest,” says Altman, “is the requirement that our slides serve as the backdrop for all of the great ideas and visuals put forth by our presenters. In order to be a contender, a design needs to wear well for eight hours a day across four days. Contest participants want to be noticed, we get that, but their designs need to succeed in staying subtle and playing a supporting role. That’s not so easy.”

Deadline for entries is Monday, May 17 and the contest is open to anyone. Visit the conference website for complete details.

Filed Under: News & Events

Looking Back on the Summit

November 16, 2010 By 1 Comment

Amid all of those monumental rituals I wrote about last week, the Presentation Summit did actually take place. And we were expecting it to be sparsely attended, after 2009 recession-ravaged travel budgets created the weakest numbers in conference history. Instead, we attracted the largest crowd ever — over 225 patrons and exhibitors.

And they came from all over — more international participation than ever before. We would like to think that a part of this dramatic influx was due to our rebranding: investing in presentation skills development is a more impressive pursuit than going in for PowerPoint training, and is more likely to garner approval from the boss. Beyond that, though, we don’t really know how it happened, and disregarding good business sense, we kind of don’t want to know. It’s almost like good karma: the less we know about it, the better…

Meanwhile, this expansive 2010 crowd experienced a lot of repetition. That usually is taken as criticism, and in the case of the weather, yes, it was a dreary procession of clouds and rain. Inside the ballrooms, the continued espousing of common themes turned into a rally cry of sorts. To wit:

  • Julie Terberg performed makeovers in which she consistently stripped out unnecessary text and advocated a “less is more” strategy.
  • I issued the Three-Word Challenge: Can you distill each of your bullet points to three words or fewer? Imagine how much better the world would be if you could.
  • Carmen Taran spoke of the “psychology of absence,” and the phenomenon that overtakes us when we work toward open space, not crowded spaces.
  • Wayne Michael extolled the virtues of “the lightness of simplicity.”
  • Mike Parkinson challenged patrons to sketch out ideas without the use of any words.
  • And Garr Reynolds, coming to us via Skype from his home in Osaka Japan, extolled the virtues of “being naked,” both literally and figuratively. (You kind of had to be there for that one.)

A couple of our patrons noted this ongoing theme with a bit of scrutiny, as if we ran out of things to say. But I find lots of virtue in this: when six prominent commentators on the presentation landscape all advocate the same basic philosophy, everyone in the building should take notice. That represents an attitude that must count for something. That’s good repetition.

And I’ll be quick to point out that while the conference is better for scenarios that play out this way, we can take no credit for it. We neither orchestrated nor anticipated it. It just happened, in a moment of group serendipity. More good karma.

Other moments and observations…

APPLE CURIOSITY: More than a few iPads were being toted from room to room, and when we asked patrons to request topics for on-the-fly seminars, PC-Mac compatibility topped the list. The hour that Indezine’s Geetesh Bajaj whipped up played to rave reviews.

TOONTOWN: What do you get when you blend a PowerPoint maniac, a creative storyteller, and a neurosurgeon? You get Justin Massengale, who creates cartoons with PowerPoint. Not just stick figures that get crudely animated; he uses PowerPoint the way graphic artists use Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw: he creates and shapes curves within the program and then painstakingly animates them into lifelikeness. You’ve never seen so many jaws drop to the floor than in his session.

VIDEO HEAVEN: Glen Millar showed once again that he thinks of things that nobody else does. In this case, the object of his unique vision was the new video support given to version 2010 of PowerPoint. Now that videos can be played simultaneously, colorized, and stuffed into shapes, the door for unique thinking is wide open. And there’s no better person to cross that threshold than Glen.

INSTANT CLASSIC: The most quoted phrase of the entire conference came from Nancy Duarte Wednesday morning: “Never give a presentation that you wouldn’t be willing to sit through yourself.” Within 10 minutes of her uttering it, that quote had been retweeted around the world and back again.

FOGTOBER: Since 1989 when we first began in the conference business, we have chosen San Diego as the host city 12 times. This is the first time that we have not had spectacular fall weather. Mother Nature made up for it all at once, with thick fog and then rain. Our visions of bayside lunches were dashed, but the spirit of the group never waned. Even…

SOGGY PHOTOGGY: The annual Digital Photography Field Trip on Tuesday attracted 15 intrepid camera-toting patrons, led by resident photographer Rikk Flohr. They all got more than they bargained for as a light mist became a tropical downpour…when they were about a mile from the hotel. You’ve never seen a wetter bunch of conference attendees, most of them nonetheless with smiles on their faces.

HEADING EAST: Our announcement for 2011 brought a near standing ovation — apparently I am not the only one who has been wanting to visit Austin TX for some time now. We will descent upon this dynamic and vibrant state capital city September 18-21.

Filed Under: Editorial

The Secret to my Success

November 10, 2010 By 4 Comments

To say that this is an extraordinary time of year for me might come off as some sort of trite expression of the obvious. And make no mistake, being the one largely responsible for bringing 226 people together from six continents is a heady experience.

The older I get, however, the more I appreciate the rituals involved in playing host to the four-day user conference that is the Presentation Summit. They play out across a much longer timeframe than those four days. They begin in utter solitude and in my car. When the Summit is on the West Coast, I prefer to drive the 525 miles to our customary host city of San Diego, and I begin at 4:00a. Most of the time, I do not even turn on the radio for the first several hours. That’s about as solitary as you can get.

I arrive at the hotel days before anyone else on the conference team is scheduled to arrive and I pretty much hole up in my hotel room like a bear in his cave.

Why do I do these anti-social, borderline creepy things? That’s part of the ritual: When over 200 people are about to be paying attention to you, when you are about to become public property every waking moment, the only way to prepare for that is with solitude. I don’t subscribe to the theory of working up gradually to the excitement of the conference; I prefer to crash into it.

On the other side, it’s a different story. I have to come down very gradually from all of that attention and I learned this early on in my career (back when I was young enough to have been able to handle it better, but alas, I didn’t). I remember after our first-ever event in 1989, asking Becky to take me home as soon as the conference was over. The giant sucking sound you would have heard was me undergoing total implosion and massive withdrawal.

So now I know to ease away from the chaos of the conference and that translates into keeping a lot of people around me. Those who stick around Wednesday evening and Thursday day receive my eternal gratitude.

Two days later, I am ready to return home. And collapse. Because it is then that I have to pay it back. All of that adrenalin I borrow against for four straight days. Pay it all back. With interest.

So there it is, the secret to my success. Sit in a dark and silent car for several hours, hide out for two days like a bear in a cave, exhibit a massive explosion of false energy for four days, beg people to keep me company afterward like some pathetic loser, and then collapse in a heap for the better part of two weeks.

Don’t you just love rituals…?

Filed Under: Editorial

Three Words…For a Fourth Time

September 20, 2010 By 9 Comments

I was asked to debut the Outstanding Presentations webinar series that Ellen Finkelstein is hosting across the next eight weeks, and over 500 people couldn’t find anything better to do with their time than to listen to me. It was a very good experience for me for several reasons—chief among them the importance of learning an important lesson over and over again. I was at risk of taking for granted one of my most precious mantras…until I encountered hundreds of people who had not heard it before. My audience helped infuse a  freshness and a new vitality into the idea that I probably couldn’t have achieved on my own. That, in turn, warrants a reiteration here in print…for the fourth time.

What if a law were passed prohibiting bullets from exceeding three words in length? Could you abide by it? Perhaps not, but humor me on this one, because it stands as one of the best exercises you can do, whether you are the presenter, the content creator, or both. The value of this is so high thanks to two universal axioms for presentation professionals:

1. If a slide contains complete sentences, it is practically impossible for even the most accomplished presenters to avoid reading them word for word.
2. And when you read your slides word for word, you sound like an idiot.

Here is a classic culprit, taken straight from my client files—in this case, a major pharmaceutical company. Somebody simply did an idea dump right into his or her slides, and anyone who tries to speak to this slide is doomed to become a drone and guaranteed to turn the audience members into zombies.

The fourth bullet is quite different than the first three, suggesting that it shouldn’t be a bullet at all. But set that aside for the moment — before you read on, I want you to clean up this slide by mentally reducing each bullet point down to three words. Ditch the adjectives, jettison the pronouns, eliminate the flotsam.

Even with your sharpest knife, you might not be able to cut all the way down to three words, but the reward is in the effort. Here is my attempt at what I refer to as the Three-Word Challenge.

You can see that I failed to get within three words in most cases, but the result of my losing effort is an unqualified victory. The slide is much stronger now, and even though I have no familiarity with the subject, having gone through this process, I feel as if I could almost present on it now.

Several important things take place when you make an earnest attempt to get within three words:

  • Your slides are friendlier: With just that one task, you create slides that are much easier on the eyes of your audience. Eye fatigue is the silent killer of presentations. When you ask your audience to sit in a dimly-lit room for 30 or 60 minutes, their eyes are going to be the first to go. The more words each slide contains, the quicker the onset of fatigue. Fewer words, less fatigue. Your bullets might not be as descriptive, but that’s okay—it’s your job to do the describing.
  • Your pace improves. Something almost magical happens when you reduce the amount of words on a slide. Everything seems snappier. The slide draws more quickly, audience members absorb the information more efficiently, and you most likely project more energy.
  • You create intrigue: In three words, you are not going to be able to fully explain your points. But that’s not bad; it’s good. In fact, it’s terrific! Without having to ask them, you invite audience members to use their imaginations. Once you get good at the three-word rule, you will become a better writer of bullets. You will begin to write with color and humor; you could become coy, even mysterious. These literary techniques serve to command attention. They help to engage your audience on an emotional level. And that, dear reader, is the holy grail of presenting.
  • You learn your material better: Of the many bad things associated with dumping complete sentences onto slides, perhaps the worst is how lazy it makes the presenter, whether it is you or someone for whom you create slides. Excess verbiage sends a subtle but powerful message that you don’t need to prepare as much, because everything you want to say is already there. Parsing the words increases your burden as a presenter, but once again, this is a noble burden. Adhering to the three-word rule forces you to learn your content at a level you otherwise might not have reached.

One of my favorite quotes about presenting comes from Mark Twain:

“If you want me to speak for an hour, I am ready today. If you want me to speak for just a few minutes, it will take me a few weeks to prepare.”

The three-word challenge is a microcosm of the wonderful dynamic that Twain articulated. In order to get down to three words, you really need to study the text. You need to truly understand what you intend to communicate and you need to pick three words that create the perfect backdrop for your ideas. Getting down to three words requires that you practically get intimate with your text.

While the second of these two slides is certainly a better place for your audience to be in than the first, the most significant point to make is the potential that the second slide creates. Now, perhaps for the first time ever, you, the content creator, have an opportunity to think like a slide designer. With all of that flotsam on the slide, what chance did you have previously to create an attractive slide? How could you be evocative? How could you stir emotion? You couldn’t!

But now you have a canvas; you have white space. And it doesn’t require an advanced degree in visual communications to find a stock photo or company image that might support your message. In this particular exercise, it took my pharma clients barely a half-hour to reach this point:

In our workshop that day, we had already discussed the value of creating semi-transparent shapes to better blend imagery with text and this was a perfect opportunity to use that technique: the text lower-left is in a rounded rectangle, filled black with 50% transparency, allowing the photo to show through but still ensuring good contrast. You only see one rounded corner because the rectangle is hanging over the edge of the slide. Margin controls on the shape ensure that the text appears centered in the visible space. There is also the question of the fourth point, the “Who owns the decision?” question. Changing it to italic and separating it with a simple white rule serves to reinforce its role as the summarizer of the ideas. Having eliminated the bullet character from these bullets helps, too.

This slide becomes a completely different experience for everyone involved in the equation—the content creator, the presenter, the audience member. The content creator gets to think creatively (perhaps for the first time); the brevity of the text allows the presenter (again, perhaps for the first time) to get out from under the slide and truly communicate directly to the audience; the audience member is more likely to feel the weight of the message. Photos help that cause, just because of the way that our brain receives and processes visual information, but the most important part of the equation is the presenter being able to tell a more impactful story, delivered from the burden of all of that text on screen.

So why doesn’t every organization create slides this way? Why doesn’t every boss see its value? At the Presentation Summit this October,  I will devote an entire keynote address to this question. Here is the digest:

  • Bad handouts: The revised slide will not function well at all as a leave-behind document. Good. Great! You should never try to create one slide for these two purposes. See my post, [intlink id="1161" type="post"]The Lunacy of the Leave Behind[/intlink] for my rant on this topic.
  • Won’t work as an emailed presentation: Same problem, same response—you shouldn’t try to have it both ways. Bite the bullet and create a second version.
  • The boss refuses: This, of course, is the far greater challenge and victory here is a marathon, not a sprint. Changing company culture is never easy, and we will devote a post to just this topic later in the year, after the Summit. In short, be patient, be persistent, seek allies, and be ready to conduct an intervention.

In the case of idea slides, less is so much more. Taking the three-word challenge is one of the best devices to get you to less. It took four passes and over 45 minutes to create the distilled version of the slide above. Mark Twain would have been proud.

Filed Under: Editorial Tagged With: , ,

Outstanding Presentation Webinar Series

September 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The Outstanding Presentations
Webinars Begin September 15

Free eight-week series showcases
a who’s who in the industry

What’s the next best thing to a live conference? A free webinar series that features the best of the best. Get your questions answered from top presentation, PowerPoint, and speaking experts by joining on to the Outstanding Presentations Workshop webinars, hosted and organized by Ellen Finkelstein, presentation specialist, author, and Microsoft MVP.

The workshop begins next Wednesday, Sep 15, with a 60-minute webinar by yours truly, and continues with seven more, each covering a different topic on the presentation landscape. Here is the complete schedule (all webinars begin at 1:00PT / 4:00ET):

Sep 15 Rick
Altman		 Host of the Presentation Summit and author of Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck
Sep 22 Nancy
Duarte		 Author of slide:ology
Sep 29 Olivia
Mitchell		 Blogger at Speaking about Presenting
Oct 6 Robert
Lane		 Author of Relational Presentation and Founder of Aspire Communications
Oct 13 Dana Bristol-Smith Founder of Speak for Success and the Speak for Success Women’s Leadership Institute
Oct 27 Jim
Endicott		 President of Distinction Communication
Nov 3 Scott
Schwertly		 Author of How to Be a Presentation God and CEO of Ethos3
Nov 10 Ellen
Finkelstein		 Author of PowerPoint for Teachers and PowerPoint MVP

The webinars are completely free, but they do require advance registration. For complete details and to sign up, visit

www.outstandingpresentationsworkshop.com

Filed Under: Editorial Tagged With: , , ,
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