Conference organisers should think beyond the curtain, blank wall, or list of sponsor logos.
Presenter backgrounds
The Obama press conference yesterday in front of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch is an example of how a nice presenter background can make a big visual impact. The dark painting background looks great in close up photos, although less interesting from a distance.
Conference organisers should think beyond the curtain, blank wall, or list of sponsor logos.
Conference organisers should think beyond the curtain, blank wall, or list of sponsor logos.
Two screens
There are two adjustments in my IT setup that hugely increased my productivity: 1) move to a huge monitor, 2) add another monitor making a total of 3 screens: 2 big ones, 1 small one.
In this article, it is argued that 2 screens actually reduce productivity. I agree if you use the second one to check on your email, facebook, and Twitter streams. If you use the second screen for a different version of your presentation with comments, or the directory with the images you are using, a multi screen set up is a life saver.
Employees in large companies find it difficult to be productive, and when you look at people sitting in large open plan offices staring at tiny lap top screens, you understand why.
In this article, it is argued that 2 screens actually reduce productivity. I agree if you use the second one to check on your email, facebook, and Twitter streams. If you use the second screen for a different version of your presentation with comments, or the directory with the images you are using, a multi screen set up is a life saver.
Employees in large companies find it difficult to be productive, and when you look at people sitting in large open plan offices staring at tiny lap top screens, you understand why.
Demos need a story
A series of screenshots is a better way to give a product demo than a live demonstration of your product. You can control the flow better, skip the boring bits (logging in, etc.), and eliminate technology risk.
Many demos are a list of features: the user can do this, the user can do this, the user can do this. That is pretty boring. A better way to give a demo is to invent a story, or use a real life case example.
Set up the context, with some images. Put up the questions/issues the user has, and show how your product can solve them. Throughout the demo, stick to the same use case, use the same consistent data set.
Demos can be stories to.
Many demos are a list of features: the user can do this, the user can do this, the user can do this. That is pretty boring. A better way to give a demo is to invent a story, or use a real life case example.
Set up the context, with some images. Put up the questions/issues the user has, and show how your product can solve them. Throughout the demo, stick to the same use case, use the same consistent data set.
Demos can be stories to.
Speed up
OK, you learned how to make visual presentations and now you have a beautiful deck with lots of slides full of powerful images.
The next thing is to adjust your presentation style. In the old days: people used to present a slide: take time to read the bullets, elaborate on the graphs, go off on a tangent, improvise a story. Each slide would be up for 5 minutes or more.
With a 50 slide visual deck, you need to speed things up and be prepared. Make the point of the slide (and no other point) and - click - on you go. You are no longer presenting slides, slides are supporting your story in the background.
The next thing is to adjust your presentation style. In the old days: people used to present a slide: take time to read the bullets, elaborate on the graphs, go off on a tangent, improvise a story. Each slide would be up for 5 minutes or more.
With a 50 slide visual deck, you need to speed things up and be prepared. Make the point of the slide (and no other point) and - click - on you go. You are no longer presenting slides, slides are supporting your story in the background.
You can be a pro
I did a quick reformat of slides that a client had edited overnight this morning. Here are some of the things I fixed:
- Recolored red boxes to the correct red
- Re-applied the correct slide master template to all slides, zapping left overs from other PowerPoint files
- Re-applied the correct fonts, replacing the standard Arial/Calibri where appropriate
- Make sure all objects fit within the slide margins
- Re-sized images so that series have the same height/width
- Replaced title case with sentence case
These are all simple things, no need for a pro here, you can do it as well!
European borders time lapse
This video shows how the political map of Europe has changed in 1,000 years. There is a lot of information packed in here, but the only one that gets across is: “lots of things have changed”. To bring more information to the surface, you need to slow down the pace, and add labels/stickers to highlight the key changes and go into the detail. Both visualisations work, the third option - stuck in the middle - will not.
Video without the audio
Short videos can fit really well into a presentation. The audio track can be a problem.
- Bombastic loud music can feel out of tone, especially if the sound was not set up correctly (too loud, too soft)
- A spoken voice over might feel out of tone with your overall presentation
- It is hard to edit/change video audio, maybe your message has changed over the past month, the voice over of your video has not
A good option can be to run a silent video, where you the presenter, gives live commentary in a voice the audience already has gotten used to, perfectly blended into your overall story.
Free quick logo design tool
I am a big fan of the web design tool Squarespace and am currently turning a restaurant web site template into the marketing site for my presentation app. Hidden inside Squarespace is a cute free quick logo design tool that uses icons from the noun project. If you are a startup on a tight budget, it could be a good source for your first graphical identity before you are ready to pay serious designers.
SketchDeck - overnight slides
Most investment banks and management consultancies have the luxury of an overnight, low-cost slide production factory in countries such as India. Raw slides (even hand-drawns on the fax machine in the evening, the result in your inbox when you are back in the office the next morning.
SketchDeck is now opening this production capacity to everyone. Prices are very attractive, and they can ramp up capacity quickly to work under very tight timelines.
Not every presentation is an all-or-nothing investment pitch or TED talk, and most PowerPoint presentations are visual documents that are put together quickly to support decision making inside big corporates (Nancy Duarte calls them SlideDocs in her new book). It is for these types of presentations that SketchDeck is a good solution.
As it competition for me? Yes and no. For long-standing clients, I have done slide make-over work helping them in emergency situations, going at such a speed that I could probably be price competitive with an India operation on a s $-per-slide basis (I have the advantage tough of having the confidence/ability to edit/cut/change wording put in by very senior executives in a company, something they might not appreciate from everyone). But ultimately, my 1-man operation will not be able to keep up with the race to the bottom (as Seth Godin calls it). I will continue to focus on bespoke work that is in a different price category, and - in my spare time - am busy developing a web app that can hopefully automate a large part of the work that a mass volume slide production facility typically does.
Over time, SketchDeck could grow into a competitor for larger presentation design firms (such as Duarte) if they manage to train up and retain (=pay more for) talented designers, and develop long-term relationships with big volume clients. But at that stage they would have manage the big company challenge of maintaining a large sales pipeline to fund the cost of an increasingly larger fixed cost base.
Time will tell!
SketchDeck is now opening this production capacity to everyone. Prices are very attractive, and they can ramp up capacity quickly to work under very tight timelines.
Not every presentation is an all-or-nothing investment pitch or TED talk, and most PowerPoint presentations are visual documents that are put together quickly to support decision making inside big corporates (Nancy Duarte calls them SlideDocs in her new book). It is for these types of presentations that SketchDeck is a good solution.
As it competition for me? Yes and no. For long-standing clients, I have done slide make-over work helping them in emergency situations, going at such a speed that I could probably be price competitive with an India operation on a s $-per-slide basis (I have the advantage tough of having the confidence/ability to edit/cut/change wording put in by very senior executives in a company, something they might not appreciate from everyone). But ultimately, my 1-man operation will not be able to keep up with the race to the bottom (as Seth Godin calls it). I will continue to focus on bespoke work that is in a different price category, and - in my spare time - am busy developing a web app that can hopefully automate a large part of the work that a mass volume slide production facility typically does.
Over time, SketchDeck could grow into a competitor for larger presentation design firms (such as Duarte) if they manage to train up and retain (=pay more for) talented designers, and develop long-term relationships with big volume clients. But at that stage they would have manage the big company challenge of maintaining a large sales pipeline to fund the cost of an increasingly larger fixed cost base.
Time will tell!
Slide design TV
Fellow presentation designer Nick Smith is starting a weekly series of short videos with presentation design lessons. Worth checking out and encouraging him to keep on going! Watch Advance Your Slides TV here.
Executive Summary RIP
An executive summary that sits on top of a management consulting document is usually a page that summarises the recommendations, next steps, and decisions. It is meant for an insider, the executive reading it is likely to have a 90% understanding of what is inside the document. There is no need for graphics here, a few dry bullets with decisions will do the trick to remind everyone of what will happen next, and who will do it.
So, this is totally the opposite of the other use of an executive summary that I come across often: a short teaser to someone who has no understanding at all of what you want to achieve. Here, a dense text, or a dry list of bullets will do the opposite of attracting attention.
Feel free to step away from the habit of sending dense text pages to get people excited about your project. Instead, think of the time you want the recipient to spend on your document. Now, fill that time with the most visually pleasing and exciting way to present your case. Lower your expectations, you do not want to close a deal at this stage, you want a phone call, or a next meeting. Sending a short, visual presentation that can stand on its own without verbal explanation is a perfect reply to the request for an executive summary.
So, this is totally the opposite of the other use of an executive summary that I come across often: a short teaser to someone who has no understanding at all of what you want to achieve. Here, a dense text, or a dry list of bullets will do the opposite of attracting attention.
Feel free to step away from the habit of sending dense text pages to get people excited about your project. Instead, think of the time you want the recipient to spend on your document. Now, fill that time with the most visually pleasing and exciting way to present your case. Lower your expectations, you do not want to close a deal at this stage, you want a phone call, or a next meeting. Sending a short, visual presentation that can stand on its own without verbal explanation is a perfect reply to the request for an executive summary.
Advice for investors
I see (and work on) a lot of presentations that investors use to raise their own money from high net worth individuals or institutional money managers.
Pitching an venture capital (VC) fund is harder than pitching a regular company. Companies are different by nature, different market, different product, different type of people. Investment funds on the other hand, or more or less the same when you listen to pitches “from a distance”, i.e., with the same level of attention that VCs would use themselves when opening the email inbox in the morning and page-downing some decks that hopeful startups have sent overnight.
Most VC/PE (private equity) pitches would talk about that there are lots of great companies out there that cannot get financing, that the team has a stellar track record, and that - unlike all other VCs - this fund will work hands on with their portfolio companies to create value (strategic help, contact network, access to more financing).
So when to the untrained ear all of these pitches sound the same, it is really important to bring out the distinctions. Bring hard data that show that your target companies cannot get financing. Discuss example deals and show why other investors would not be interested in them, and why you can turn them around. Beef up your track record with quantified exits (unlike most presentations, here the more detail, the better). And - sometimes - reconsider your investment strategy and make it very focused and specific, because believe me, you are not the only one out there pitching for money.
Pitching an venture capital (VC) fund is harder than pitching a regular company. Companies are different by nature, different market, different product, different type of people. Investment funds on the other hand, or more or less the same when you listen to pitches “from a distance”, i.e., with the same level of attention that VCs would use themselves when opening the email inbox in the morning and page-downing some decks that hopeful startups have sent overnight.
Most VC/PE (private equity) pitches would talk about that there are lots of great companies out there that cannot get financing, that the team has a stellar track record, and that - unlike all other VCs - this fund will work hands on with their portfolio companies to create value (strategic help, contact network, access to more financing).
So when to the untrained ear all of these pitches sound the same, it is really important to bring out the distinctions. Bring hard data that show that your target companies cannot get financing. Discuss example deals and show why other investors would not be interested in them, and why you can turn them around. Beef up your track record with quantified exits (unlike most presentations, here the more detail, the better). And - sometimes - reconsider your investment strategy and make it very focused and specific, because believe me, you are not the only one out there pitching for money.
Bit by bit
Listing pages and pages of market size numbers that are related to your industry are hard to digest for the novice (for example, a potential investor in your company). This number includes devices, that number is 2011 only, this number excludes Eastern Europe, that one is number of users, that one is in Euro, and this is the percentage growth, but the growth of the average basket size.
An investor who is seriously considering putting money in your company will try to piece this data together to come to some consistent picture. You might as well do the work for her with reasonable assumptions. Size up the 2011 market to 2013, add your estimate for Eastern Europe, convert everything to dollars, etc. etc.
Start with some sort of overall market estimate, compare it to something the investor can relate to, then start adding complexity, break things into pieces.
Obviously your estimate will biased and very optimistic, but your analysis has at least provided the investor with a framework of how to think about your market. Put all the raw data that you used in the appendix so that the investor can do her own homework when she returns back to her office.
An investor who is seriously considering putting money in your company will try to piece this data together to come to some consistent picture. You might as well do the work for her with reasonable assumptions. Size up the 2011 market to 2013, add your estimate for Eastern Europe, convert everything to dollars, etc. etc.
Start with some sort of overall market estimate, compare it to something the investor can relate to, then start adding complexity, break things into pieces.
Obviously your estimate will biased and very optimistic, but your analysis has at least provided the investor with a framework of how to think about your market. Put all the raw data that you used in the appendix so that the investor can do her own homework when she returns back to her office.
Getty Images - free embed
Getty Images (a huge database of both stock and news photos) is open sourcing non-commercial use of its collection if you publish an image via their embed widget. Web sites only for the moment, presentation design software will have to wait...
White <> plain
No one likes the plain, white, standard PowerPoint slide. And sometimes when I design a slide with an image on a white background and a lot of white space I get the comment that it looks very similar to a boring, plain PowerPoint slide. I beg to differ.
"I need a conference presentation"
You have a sales presentation that - despite the fact that it is loaded with bullet points - has been very successful in 1-on-1 meetings with customers. Now you have an invitation to speak at a conference for an audience of more than 100 people for a maximum of 20 minutes. What next? Here is a recipe.
- Trim down the content. In the conference audience are competitors, analysts, journalists, all kind of people that might not be suitable to receive the ins and outs you would discuss with a prospective customer. Remember, the object of a conference presentation is not to close a deal, it is to tease people into calling/emailing you to set up a first meeting.
- Flatten the story. Take out overview/summary slides, and spread them out: one slide covers one bullet. We want a story, not a structured table of contents of a business school text book.
- Beef up the “problem” section of your presentation to let the audience connect with the issue you are trying to solve. The problem might be totally obvious to you, and 60% of the audience, the other 39% is not there yet.
- Avoid repetition. If you talk early on in the presentation how highly accurate your product is, group that together with the a slide in the back that shows test data confirming accuracy.
- Find big bold visuals that support your points (one point per slide). Stretch images to a full page size, and cut text.
- Take out any live demos or demonstrations
- Use your videos (if you have them), BUT only if you can integrate them seamlessly in your presentation flow. Embed it and test it 300 times to make sure there are no technical glitches. Think where you want to insert the videos. Videos are excellent wake up calls, anticipate where in your story the audience runs the risk of getting bored.
- Practice, practice, practice, until you can deliver the whole talk in 15-17 out of the allocated 20 minutes.
Good luck!
Historical images - CC
Another source of images that are in the public domain: the publicdomainreview.org You could pick one set of images and use them throughout a presentation to get a consistent look and feel of all your slides. Below a preview of a car polo game in the early 1900s.
Thank you Joann Sondy
Thank you Joann Sondy
Unsplash: CC image library
Unsplash is a frequently updated blog of creative commons images. Mostly background and nature shots. Via Orli. Image by Dyaa Eldin Moustafa.
Should we do a video?
I get this question often from startups who are in the process of fund raising. If you are on a tight budget, you might be able to hold off the big expense of producing a video.
- There are videos and videos. Many of the animated videos you see today on the web (“So, you want to [FILL IN UNMET NEED]”) are presentations in disguise: an animated sequence of static slides. For some products, showing moving footage of the product is really useful. Examples are gadgets and other hardware that you often see on sites such as Kickstarter. If your product does not depend on a live demonstration, a sequence of presentation slides can be as effective.
- Unlike consumers, investors are usually perfectly happy to click through a sequence of slides instead of playing a video
- Videos are permanent and very hard to edit. Startup stories always evolve and change.
So, the best approach might be to start with an animated series of static slides. You perfect the flow over time and if you really feel you nailed the story flow (and you have the budget), you can make the expensive of creating a pitch video.
Who are you?
I am in the process of beefing up my software skills (Logic Pro X, nothing to do with presentations), and am spending a lot of time watching screen shot movies. I am just wondering why in these training sessions, the face of the presenter is not shown? OK, the screen real estate needs to be as big as possible, and a constant “talking head” on your screen distracts, but maybe a small introduction, at the beginning of a lesson?
This could be an idea for presentations that are used in cold email approaches: put a very short, very short, intro video of yourself on page 1 (to keep file size emailable and not take away the attention from the slides that follow).
This could be an idea for presentations that are used in cold email approaches: put a very short, very short, intro video of yourself on page 1 (to keep file size emailable and not take away the attention from the slides that follow).
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