Slideshows: also in investigative journalism

The biggest worry of a presenter is to bore her audience. The biggest worry of the journalist is for readers to skip her article. Interesting visuals can be a solution for both challenges.

Investigative journalists are a special breed of news writers, they rely on their own original research (time consuming) and the end result is often a story with nuances that requires more words than the average newspaper article. There is pressure to summarize the article into something that does not do justice to the effort that was put in: news media budgets are under pressure, and the attention span of readers gets shorter and shorter.

Journalist Bill Dedman tried a slideshow on msnbc.com (here), read an interview about the project here on PoynterOnline. The text in his slideshow is 2,788 words, a typical article like this would get 600,000 readers for page one and 10% for the following pages. This report got almost 80m online views.

The use of slideware is no longer limited to supporting live presentations. It is a powerful and under-utilized alternative for web content/blog posts as well.

Thanks to communication consultant Surekha Pillai for pointing me to this.

You are better at line wrapping than PowerPoint

When you starting using fewer and fewer words on a slide (keep up the good work!), line wrapping becomes more important. Make sure that words that should be connected, stay connected, and enter a manual SHIFT+ENTER if you need to deviate with the automatic option.

Image sequences to set your audience's mood

Presentation designers can learn from film directors. Inserting a sequence of good (and real) images can take your audience from the conference hall to a different place. Beautiful and sad at the same time, click through some of these urban decay images to get the feeling: here, here, here, and here.

(Image by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre)

Google Docs as an alternative to YouSendIt

File sizes are getting out of control. YouSendIt is a tool to overcome size limitations on email attachments, but it has one big drawbacks though: confidentiality. If you do not sign up for the premium version, anyone who gets her hands on the file link can download it.

One solution is Google Docs. Recently, Google updated the service and it is now possible to upload and download files that are not in Google's propriety format. Plugins such as OffiSync create a seamless integration between Microsoft Office and Google Docs. The advantages:

• Tighter security
• The ability to maintain one master document that you iterate, rather than emailing multiple versions of the same presentation around.

Presentations versus spreadsheets in the cloud

I am making radical shifts to the way I work with my IT infrastructure. Over the past week, I have moved many of the software tools I use "in the cloud".

1. I stopped using Outlook and are now managing email through gmail with a custom domain (tagging, search, excellent spam management and the Outlook PST files simply became to big to manage locally)
2. My client invoicing is now run via Freshbooks (affiliate link), enabling clients to log in directly into my system
3. I am experimenting with Google Docs and Microsoft Office Live to set up shared workspaces with clients
4. And last but not least, I started to experiment with spreadsheet and presentation software in the cloud.

I am learning a lot here, and get lots of inspiration for new blog posts, but let's talk about one thing at a time: how likely is it that presentation software such as PowerPoint will move into the cloud. Unlike spreadsheets and databases, I am not that optimistic.

At first sight, it seems like the benefits of going into the cloud should apply to presentation software as well: access from anywhere, group collaboration, easy sharing, no more file size issues with storage and email.

There are two aspects to cloud processing: online storage and collaborating with shared files using online tools. Online storage is incredibly useful for presentations, files get increasingly big/harder to email. It is the online collaboration that is the problem.

• Unlike a spreadsheet, the design and look and feel of a presentation are paramount. If the fonts are a bit off, if you cannot position the object exactly as you want it, if you cannot use all the colors you would like to use, you are in trouble. Moving back and forth between PowerPoint and online editing tools will drop a few formats here and there.
• Collaboration on presentations is different than collaboration on a spreadsheet. Presentations are very personal. Having someone else edit my slide, add a bullet here and there, change the title disrupts the design process. I welcome input, but like to keep control of the pen. (To contradict myself: the one exception might be the slideument, where slideware is used as a vehicle to write a document rather than prepare graphics for a presentation.
• The number of toolbars, shortcuts, functions you use in a presentation program is far greater than you use in a spreadsheet tool. At least, that's the case for me. I have created incredibly large and complex Excel files basically using "+" "-" "*" "/""sum" and some basic formating. A presentation design interface is more complex, and people will find it more difficult to migrate. This is why Prezi is having trouble taking off.
• After a presentation, the slide document often starts to live its second life, becoming a source for "Frankensteined" follow-on presentations. 99.9% of people who Frankenstein use PowerPoint.
• The sharing element is different for presentations and spreadsheets. Some presentations are aimed at getting the widest possible audience, just uploading them to a tool like SlideShare (without group editing capabilities) is enough, while this is almost never the case with a spreadsheet, that needs to be edited in a small group that can access the confidential data.

To make a long story short: I see databases and spreadsheets going into the cloud, but presentation design software staying on our PCs, with some tools to help them reach a wide audience (SlideShare) for viewing only.

Here is a list of more online slide design tools.

Optical illusions - the brain just sees what it expects to see

Another example of how the brain just fills in the missing blanks . Unless you are one of the 0.7% of people who suffer from schizophrenia, you are unable to instruct your brain to see the hollow side of the rotating mask.

Remember the lazy visual brain when designing slides. The brain tends to follow lines in the reading direction, and sometimes finds it hard to spot the word "not" in a sentence, just to name a few examples.

I can recommend the book "Brain Rules" if you are interested in learning more about how the brain absorbs (and does not absorb) information.

Thank you Orli Naschitz and Dep for pointing me to this.

Retro formats

Here is an unusual presentation format. Hand-draw your slides, photograph them, and paste them back on slides. I like it.

Let Out the Creative Beast

Frankensteining a slide deck

"Frankensteining", what a brilliant verb! Most people have been tempted to stitch together a slide deck quickly by yanking slides from old and/or other people's PowerPoint presentations.

1. Open all presentations, go to slide sorter mode
2. Copy and paste any slide that looks vaguely relevant into a new file. It is even cooler when you know this little trick on how to preserve formats when copying slides across.
3. Re-shuffle the order of the slides and add agenda tracker pages
4. Skip the bit about practicing
5. Done in 1 hour and 34 minutes

It will not be surprising that the end result is not a good presentation. It is not your story, you do not completely understand it, and if you do not understand it, the audience won't either.

The better way to Frankenstein:

1. Sketch your story on a piece of paper
2. Add simple slides to support the key elements of the story
3. Go back to the graveyard of old slides to add backup slides where you need them ("here is the full architecture of our global CRM system, as you can see it is really complex" [* click next slide *])

Boring conference panels

The panel session with the CEO of Twitter bored the audience in a recent on-stage conference interview. And Mark Suster recently wrote another excellent post about conference panels.

I have sat through so many boring panels in business conferences here in Israel. The boring panel recipe:

1. Try to find as many prominent individuals as possible to feature as speaker on the conference invitation flyer
2. These people are busy, so you do not require a lot of preparation from the panelists
3. Get a verbose moderator: long panelist introductions, long questions, [short answer], long recaps of the answer

An easy way to fill 45 minutes, but not a very good way for the audience to spend its time. You cannot wing a presentation, you cannot wing a discussion panel. I wonder why it is that most people go to conferences to meet people in the coffee breaks.

Why school text books are so boring

School text books and many business documents are written with the content creator in mind. Organized in sections, a clear structure nicely summarized in a detailed content page (or a PowerPoint agenda tracker). We make a point, provide supporting arguments, repeat the point, go back to the tracker page, open the next section, repeat. Perfectly organized, perfect logic. Studying equals forcing your brain to memorize a sequence of bullet points against its will. ("Hey, the first letters of each point make the word A-P-P-L-E when I swap the last 2 bullets!")

Stories are sequential, they are not designed to reference back to later by jumping to section 3. Stories have no tracker pages. Stories arrange their points in such a way that they are most interesting and memorable, maybe the most important message does not come first. Stories use analogies.

I am not advocating to abandon all structure in presentations. But still, have that school text book in mind when designing your next series of slides. Maybe your 30 minute presentation should be a story, maybe your 200 page final document should be a text book.

Putting data labels where they work best

In consulting firms such as McKinsey, there are very strict rules about formating slides. Data labels for example are always placed outside the horizontal bar. The chart below (ripped out of its context from this NYT article) uses a different approach:

The data labels are placed next to the horizontal bars where you would expect the axis labels to be. I am fine with this approach. The relative size of the bars gives a global view of the order of magnitude of the values, and for whomever is interested the data labels provide the exact values.

Teflon headlines

This ad is a good example of how your brain adjusts reality to what it thinks it should look like. I read this sentence the first time as "Don't drink if you drive", a familiar slogan.

I find myself doing the same thing when reading headlines full of buzz words and jargon in PowerPoint slides. Skim over it, and see whether there is something more interesting to be seen on the rest of the slide. A teflon headline, it definitely did not stick.

Try this book "Brain Rules" if you are interested in finding out more about how the brain processes information. Ad via Ads of the World.

If you can't explain it, you don't understand it

The best way to prepare a presentation is to practice on a complete (but intelligent) outsider. Even (maybe especially) if your audience consists of industry experts.

You see this often in pitches of technology startups to venture capitalists for fund raising. The entrepreneur is an expert. The VC audience knows a thing or two about technology. Buzz words, generic truths, and jargon fly through the room. The message did not come across...

Any intelligent person should be able to understand your story in 15 minutes, even if she does not have any background in your specific field of expertise. If she does not get the point, it is your fault, not hers.

Calming down your typography

Powerful graphics software is enabling a wave of font art. While each of these images might be digital artistic master pieces, I am not convinced of how effective they are in communicating the message. They catch attention, but do they stick? What do you think?

See a list of 150+ of these type of ads here on Unstage. Found via Noa Adamsky.

One of my investor presentations in the public domain

Almost all presentations I design are highly confidential. Presentations of publicly traded companies to stock analysts are an exception. Recently I supported Psion in designing their 2009 preliminary results presentation.

Most of you will remember Psion as one of the pioneers of PDAs and the Symbian operating system. After some M&A transactions, Psion today is a leader in the field of rugged portable devices used in ports, in warehouses and by police forces, just to name a few customer segments.

Back to the presentation:

Psion Preliminary Results Presentation

View more presentations from Jan Schultink.

Some comments:

• The presentation contains a few animations that did not come through in the PDF file
• As with most analyst presentations, the number pages in the presentation are very dense, almost similar to a printed page from an annual report. Most of the people in the audience will have followed Psion's financial statements for many years and are looking for a complete picture of this year's results versus the previous period which they probably know by heart.
• The dark corporate template of Psion provided an interesting challenge and created a very distinctive look and feel.
• Interestingly, this presentation was not just about presenting a stack of numbers, but the announcement of a major new strategic direction for the company: a modular product platform. It was a challenge to fit this into a 30 minute presentation, and many tough decisions had to be made on what slides to cut out of the deck.

VC pitch: don't spend time/slides on the obvious

Time is precious when pitching to a venture capitalist (VC) for funding your startup. Don't waste it on things the VC is already convinced of. Examples:

• Common beliefs, i.e., in 5 years from now people will be downloading dramatically more data to their mobile devices than they do today. This can be conveyed in 1 slide, or you can spend 15 minutes on it, showing all possible research that point to the same answer.
• Specific VC beliefs. If a VC has told you in previous meeting that she is a true believer of - let's say - the software industry moving into the cloud, you can save yourself the effort of trying to convince your audience of that point. Someone else did it for you.

One important note about common beliefs though: they could be wrong! If your perspective deviates from what everyone else is copying form each other, you (obviously :-) ) should spend time/slides on it.

Beyond images that just show things

Most stock images are descriptive: search for "ice cream truck" and you get what you asked for. The position the image puts the audience in, is at least as important (maybe even more important) than the object it represents. Look at this image of the inside of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris (Wikipedia link). Six images stitched together to create the sensation of small child looking up to the ceiling of this vast place. It puts the audience inside the image.

Image credit: eso-teric, visit his site for a larger picture. I linked to these images as a source of inspiration (earlier post), check copy right restrictions before using them in an actual presentation. Found via TwistedSifter.

It is still hard to do it right in Prezi

Here is a Prezi-presentation (see earlier posts) with some facts about the growth of data sent over mobile networks. Praise for Byte Mobile to experiment with different presentation formats. Here: Prezi is used in the following way:

1. Animated slide transition
2. Zoom in on the title with the message of the chart
3. Zoom in on the data in the chart
4. Zoom in on the foot note with more detailed explanations

Bytemobile Mobile Minute Metrics - Feb 2010 on Prezi

For me, this is not yet the best way to use the power of Prezi. But if you ask me what is the right way, I must admit I do not have an answer yet. 

More motion graphics about the size of the Internet

Another motion graphics video, again about the size of the Internet. This time by graphics designer JESS3. My opinion remains unchanged:

• Beautiful graphics, and a beautiful color scheme
• But (moving) text is not the best way to visualize the billions and millions

I do however like the slowly moving time line with the launches of social networking sites over the years towards the back of the video.

Found via Nancy Duarte.

Subtle light effects in fonts

Inspired by this ad, here is how to create the effect of fonts that seem sunk below the surface in PowerPoint 2007 (as shown in the last 2 images).

1. Choose a background color
2. Enter text, preferably in a fat font (I used Helvetica Neue Heavy in this example)
3. Select the text, go to format, text effects, shadows, and pick inner shadow with light from the top
4. In text effects, pick a text fill that is just slightly darker than the background

Via Ads of the World