Category Archives: Presenting Live

Enhanced SOTU 2015

Many of you know that I’m a big fan of a little-noticed addition our President has made to the age-old tradition of the State of the Union address. The White House has recognized the visual, media-hungry, short attention span society we have become and has responded by adding slides to the President’s annual address of Congress and the nation.

No, there are no screens behind the President, and if you watch on TV, you won’t see the slides. But if you watch online in real-time or afterward, you can view the Enhanced State of the Union that includes composite video of the President and a sidebar of vertical visuals (slides) that hit key points of the President’s speech.

As usual, not every slide is perfect (really, they have got to lose the red text over blue backgrounds…), but I have noticed the visuals getting better each year. And what I noticed most of all this time was an increased use of imagery. The slides continue to become simpler and more effective for communicating their message in fractions of a second.

And if you just want to view the slides, they are on SlideShare.

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Categories: Presenting Live, Showing Data, Simplicity, Storytelling, Visual Thinking.

“Simplicity” and The Presentation Summit 2014

The always amazing Presentation Summit was held a couple of weeks ago in San Diego, and this year I had the honor of giving the opening keynote.

The topic was one of my favorites: Simplicity.

Looking at everything from songs by the Beatles to the Vietnam Memorial to the menu at Chipotle, I like to think I made an argument for simplicity standing out, being memorable and actually making money where complexity does not. 

Bad presentations have many root causes, but over complicated messages and design are high on the list, and so I felt that a discussion of simplicity was an appropriate kickoff to 3 days dedicated to all things presentation. And indeed, it seemed to set the theme for the conference. (That and Star Wars references.)

Geetesh Bajaj from indezine.com has a nice play by play review of the talk, and here are a few slides…

 

 

I had a blast from beginning to end at the Summit, reconnecting with so many friends from around the world (even met a new one from Iceland this year!) who just happen to be the top people in the business. I also managed to get a number of new faces to attend this year—always trying to get more design blood at the Summit—including the kick ass women from SlideRabbit who put together a nice set of learnings from the conference. Also check out Presentitude’s ABC Guide to the Presentation for a nice recap.

Thanks and kudos to Rick Altman who has run the conference since day one, puts on an incredible show each year, and is a great friend.

For those still on the fence over attending, next year will be in New Orleans. Now you really have no excuse…

Lastly, here are some visual notes taken by the awesome Stephy Lewis on my keynote and my breakout session, “Confessions of a Presentation Designer.”

  

* * *

If anyone is looking for a keynote speaker for their conference and would like to know how simplicity can help their business and endeavors, drop me a line!

 

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Categories: Presenting Live, Simplicity.

Presentation Summit 2014

October always brings baseball playoffs and the annual Presentation Summit—the only conference in the world dedicated to creating and delivering presentations. 

This will be my fourth year as both an attendee and speaker, and this time I will be kicking off the conference by delivering an opening keynote presentation on my favorite topic: simplicity. 

Rick Altman is the man behind the conference, and he never fails to put together an intensive, but tremendously fun 3 days of seminars, talks, and resource sessions that will leave any attendee a far, far better presenter and creator of presentations than they were before.

From practical hands-on design seminars to unlimited 1-on-1 technical sessions in the “Help Center” to roundtables with the Microsoft PowerPoint development team, there is always a wealth of information to be learned on a variety of topics.

Compared to other business conferences and considering the offerings, the cost for attending is without question a bargain. Rick intentionally limits registrations to ensure a sense of intimacy and to make sure everyone gets fully immersed. And did I mention the breakfast spreads, partner-sponsored dinners and seemingly endless product giveaways?

If you’re reading this now, you can get $75 off registration by using the code “NH75”

Early registration ends Monday, May 12, so if you sign up this week, you can save $175 off the normal price. Sign up now!

 

* * *

And a reminder that I’ll be speaking on best practices for designing new business pitches in New York City next week at the Mirren Live New Business Conference.

This conference is sold out, but you can still register to attend via live streaming.

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Categories: Presenting Live.

Hear Me Speak at the Mirren New Business Conference

I’m super excited to be speaking this May at the Mirren Live New Business Conference. 

I’ll be giving a Lunch Power Session on Day 1 on turning tired old pitch decks into dynamic visual stories that lift you up above your competition and win business.

After overseeing the creation of 400+ new business pitches for Edelman, hopefully I’ll have something of value to offer.

The Mirren Conference always sells out and is always well-attended by the top agencies in the industry. If you have even a passing association with business development, I highly recommend it.

And if you do plan on attending, drop me a line and let me know!

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Categories: Presenting Live.

Book Review: How to Design Ted Worthy Presentation Slides

Time was that I used to read every presentation book that came out. While I still have quite a full bookshelf on volumes dedicated to slides, I don’t always immediately rush to pick up every new book published on the subject.

But when I saw a new book called How to Design TED Worthy Presentation Slides, I was intrigued. Partly this was because this seemed to be the latest in a line of books from a rather prolific author I hadn’t heard of: Akash Karia. Akash is a professional speaker and coach, and his books have titles such as Public Speaking Mastery and How to Deliver a Great TED Talk.

Akash has mined dozens of TED talks for best practices and examples of what works best in the world of TED. (I was happy to see him make many references to one of my favorite well-designed TED Talks, Bill Gates’s Innovating to Zero.) There is nothing truly revolutionary here, and all of it has been noted and said many times before. Still, TED is the one place today where we can see a wide spectrum of presentations in similar formats, so the topic makes for very good material.

If you have read Garr Reynolds, Nancy Duarte and similar authors, it won’t surprise you to learn that…

  • The best backgrounds are the simplest ones
  • The rule of thirds works
  • One should stick to one or two fonts only
  • The less text, the better
  • One message per slide is key

For me though, there was one lesson that while obvious serves as a nice guiding rule for all presentations. Akash urges readers to consider a single question when creating slides:

Am I including this slide to help my audience or to help myself?

It’s a nice way of phrasing the old “WIIFMA” guideline (“What’s in it for my audience?”). I like it.

While the book is well-sourced throughout (i.e. “According to the Harvard Business Review blog…”), it is not terribly well-designed. It looks like it was written in Microsoft Word and then just outputted as a PDF, pulling screengrabs of videos from the TED website. That’s a shame, because the book might have had a wider audience given a bit more attention to its own presentation. 

Buy it here.

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Categories: Books, Presenting Live.

Book Review: How to Design Ted Worthy Presentation Slides

Time was that I used to read every presentation book that came out. While I still have quite a full bookshelf on volumes dedicated to slides, I don’t always immediately rush to pick up every new book published on the subject.

But when I saw a new book called How to Design TED Worthy Presentation Slides, I was intrigued. Partly this was because this seemed to be the latest in a line of books from a rather prolific author I hadn’t heard of: Akash Karia. Akash is a professional speaker and coach, and his books have titles such as Public Speaking Mastery and How to Deliver a Great TED Talk.

Akash has mined dozens of TED talks for best practices and examples of what works best in the world of TED. (I was happy to see him make many references to one of my favorite well-designed TED Talks, Bill Gates’s Innovating to Zero.) There is nothing truly revolutionary here, and all of it has been noted and said many times before. Still, TED is the one place today where we can see a wide spectrum of presentations in similar formats, so the topic makes for very good material.

If you have read Garr Reynolds, Nancy Duarte and similar authors, it won’t surprise you to learn that…

  • The best backgrounds are the simplest ones
  • The rule of thirds works
  • One should stick to one or two fonts only
  • The less text, the better
  • One message per slide is key

For me though, there was one lesson that while obvious serves as a nice guiding rule for all presentations. Akash urges readers to consider a single question when creating slides:

Am I including this slide to help my audience or to help myself?

It’s a nice way of phrasing the old “WIIFMA” guideline (“What’s in it for my audience?”). I like it.

While the book is well-sourced throughout (i.e. “According to the Harvard Business Review blog…”), it is not terribly well-designed. It looks like it was written in Microsoft Word and then just outputted as a PDF, pulling screengrabs of videos from the TED website. That’s a shame, because the book might have had a wider audience given a bit more attention to its own presentation. 

Buy it here.

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Categories: Books, Presenting Live.

I’m Giving a Rare Free Webinar for Presentationxpert.com

It’s not often that I am able to offer presentation training that is open to the public, but I’m thrilled to be able to do so on Wednesday, November 13th when I will teach a webinar for Presentationxpert.com. 

In the Trenches: Real World Solutions to Corporate Presentation Challenges
Wednesday, November 13
11am PST / 2pm EST
Register here

The one hour session will focus on real world solutions for the types of presentation challenges we face in corporate environments. You won’t hear lots of theory and idealistic advice for how to give a TEDTalk. But you will walk away with tips, tricks and strategies you can put to immediate use in the workplace to create and give better presentations.

And the best part is that the webinar is completely free!

Here are just a few of the things we’ll cover…

  • Multiple tactics for encouraging less text and fewer bullet points, including the disappearing content trick and the ridiculously simple “chunking” technique 
  • Leveraging PowerPoint’s Notes view in unique ways to effortlessly create well-designed and distinctly different handouts 
  • Creating “re-skinnable” templates that can be turned into custom presentations in minutes 
  • Keeping presentations highly editable through vector graphics and PowerPoint image-editing techniques 
  • Breaking out of PowerPoint-think with “walking” and portrait print decks

And did I mention that the webinar is free?

It’s going to be good! Sign up to guarantee your spot.

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Categories: PowerPoint, Presenting Live.

A Prezi Business Case Study Competition at Berkeley


This past weekend I had the honor of judging a business case study competition for undergraduates at The University of California, Berkeley. Co-sponsored by Edelman and Prezi, the assignment was for teams to present a business proposal for an untapped market/opportunity for an existing Bay Area company under five years old. 

And naturally, the teams had to present using Prezi.  

After nearly 20 initial subsmissions, 8 teams were chosen to present their proposals live this past weekend. My fellow judges were Zane Groshelle and Alex Vasin from Prezi. 

The students took the competition very seriously and many presented very detailed and well-researched proposals. The clear winners though were a team of freshman from Singapore (above) who proposed a shift of direction for an e-gifting app to make everyday gifting much more thoughtful and personal. I’m being intentionally vague here, because the proposal was so impressive that we actually recommended the team pursue the concept themselves as an entirely new venture (they had not yet been in contact with the existing company.)

But there were a lot of creative ideas and a lot of excellent uses of Prezi. The students seemed to have little problem presenting using the software, and that’s indeed one of the reasons that Prezi is focusing efforts on winning over these younger generations. Give them a few years and they’ll be choosing Prezi over PowerPoint in boardrooms all over…

Take a look at some pics below.

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Categories: Presenting Live.
visual training presentation