I’m working on revamping my work samples and online video lectures in preparation for the copyright hammer that is soon to fall on me and my for-profit educational institution peeps. I noticed a video from the Teaching & Learning Network pop up on the related videos sidebar. Anything that says picture superiority effect grabs my attention right away:
This video led me to the TLC’s video page. Treasure trove people! Treasure trove!
Introduction to Use PowerPoint for Good & Not Evil
This Friday, I attended PechaKucha Night Orlando Volume 5. If you are not already aware (and you are if you’ve heard me speak for more than five minutes or taken my class), I love PechaKucha! I look forward to the PechaKucha day in my class each month. My students work diligently over two weeks to put together a presentation many run from. They work to find a topic outside of their standard realm of experience, let go of their dependency on bullet-riddled outlines disguised as slideshows, actually devote sufficient time to preparation and rehearsal, and then…most of the time…magic happens! So, I was stoked for PK Night. These presenters shared amazing ideas–from the hilarious Mark Baratelli of The Daily City and Patrick Greene of Urban ReThink to the inspirational and adorably geeky father and son team Ian and Adam Cole and superteacher Amy Selikoff, who uses energy, empowerment, and engagement to get 7th graders fired up about civics. I couldn’t help but be slightly disappointed though, not by a lack of interesting ideas, but by the appearance of a few old school presentation design practices. Presenters used pixelated images, pre-made templates, bullets, and a bit more noise than signal at times. I believe the habits stem from slide anxiety. A PK is a beast of a presentation, primarily because it is difficult for us to let go, to get over our lizard brains. Some of it is really just lack of experience with this medium, with its true possibilities.
The PK was the brainchild of two designers, Astrid Kline and Mark Dytham. The envisioned a presentation that featured 20 images–20 images that reinforce and enhance the presenter’s message, 20 images that cement the speaker’s message in the minds of the audience. Sometimes we see what others do and get what Duarte calls slide envy. But, in my experience, the best PKs are the ones that blend highly impacting images with a bit of relevant typography in the service of advancing the speaker’s main point and engaging the audience to understanding and internalization. Above all, the best PK slides are simple and call little attention to themselves.
Lessons to apply:
So, what’s my beef with pixelated images? Well, they frankly suck. A pixelated image is a really great thumbnail, but it will make for an instant credibility killer when stretched to the size of a slide.
Not sure what size to look for? The size of a slide is 1024 x 768, so look for images that are this size.
Compfight.com, a great resource for Flickr lovers lets users know just how big an image is. We’ll cover what to do when you have several smaller pictures you’d like to display.
If you’ve used the same template before, chances are millions of other PowerPoint and Keynote users have chosen the same template.
Would you choose or purchase a prepackaged outfit you’d seen a thousand people were before simply because it was classified as “professional” or “trendy” or “whimsical” or “classic”? No, probably not. Then, why use a template? Get out of sheep street. Ditch the template.
Create one of your own by selecting core colors, layouts, image types, and or big ideas, as this excellent example by Empowered Presentation does.
The collage look only looks good, well, in an actual collage. Designers know that people need grids and some sense of alignment to process information quickly and effortlessly. Think of your images as fitting into the jigsaw puzzle that is a rectangular 1024 x 768 slide. Fit them together by combining vertical and horizontal images, using cropping or masking tools, and aligning images along a clear grid. I am currently revising my visual resume, and this is a slide I am thinking of incorporating. It allows me to display many sides of my home island of Puerto Rico in a seamless and beautiful way.
Seriously. Bullets kills. It has been proven that people remember information when it is presented in both textual and visual ways.
From my first deck on developing a persuasive speech.
Using bullets alone only hits one of these, which means your audience is likely to retain less information. Couple this with the fact that we have been killed for years by bullet-riddled slides; when we see them, we expect something boring, dry, forgettable, and frankly we assume the presenter is pretty much useless.
Much better!
I advise my students to stay away from too much animation and completely forget about wacky animations like anvil, fire, sparkle, orbital, and typewriter and useless transitions like cube, page flip, doorway, blinds, and random. If you don’t need it to convey your message. Don’t use it. If transitions and animations aren’t absolutely necessary to your delivery, and if you can’t use them without wanting to constantly turn around and check on your slides, don’t use them. Keep your slides simple. No one will be as impressed by 72 frenetic and distracting animations as they will by a confident, carefully crafted, and polished message that is supported by impacting images.
This deck was created by superstudent, Ben Greger. Ben paired this masterful deck with a simple and moving story about how photography can change one's perspective.
This deck by Mattan Griffel led me to another great find. In my pursuit of owning the Adobe CS5 suite, I have been seeking out the best possible method for me to learn how to use this program more effectively. Griffel suggests that one can learn using his “brute force” learning method, which includes lots of time with online tutorials and podcasts. He shares Lynda.com with his audience. I’ve heard of Lynda.com, but had really to spend any time perusing the site. I did this afternoon. It made me want to do a happy dance. I found exactly what I was looking for, a tutorial on Photoshop, but beyond this, I found an affordable repository of knowledge on all the subjects that I am obsessed with at this point in my career–design, photography, infographics, and information design. Joy!
So, I’ve decided to learn to use the Adobe CS5 suite, partly because I realize my Keynote shortcuts actually take much longer than what I can do in Photoshop, and because I know that I cannot take myself seriously as “presentation designer” if I can’t master these designer-tailored programs. Here’s what my tweaking produced. I hope to see much improvement over the next few weeks! Thanks to Rachelle Fox of the Full Sail University English department for an excellent 2 hour tutorial.
Image: Rachelle Fox
I am working on a new deck as part of my bullets kill series, and as I conducted some research on the job search in the age of personal branding and social media presence, I ran across another excellent article by one of my go to sources for all things persuasive public speaking, Dr. Nick Morgan. In this Forbes magazine article, Morgan shares with readers five things presenters need to stop doing now. As someone who has fallen victim (and has victimized others) to these strategies/habits, I concur with Morgan–spread the word, “ You’ll be doing the windowless meeting room world a huge favor (Source).
In the same vein, this video pokes accurate fun at the most common behaviors from both presenters and audience members.
What are your public speaking pet peeves?
So, in tweaking my slides for tomorrow, I sought out a strong representation of Kenneth Burke’s concept of identification that was not about Hitler or Martin Luther King. I hit upon the example of Magneto of X-Men, which of course gave me an excellent chance to search for an image of Magneto, and who better to choose than Michael Fassbender (sorry, Sir Ian McKellen..I really really like Fassbender), who most recently portrayed the complicated leader o’ rogue mutants and owner of all things metallic. Magneto uses identification, the seeking out of similarities between a speaker and audience (even when such similarities are unknown or denied), to gain the trust and allegiance of mutants like Mystique. He works to differentiate the mutant, the superior, from the human or inferior. It is this acknowledgement of common superiority that leads to the rift between Magneto and Professor X. I take this slide below as a lovely end to my night of tweaks to tomorrow’s session on rhetoric and persuasion.
I’ve begun writing a series of haikus, or more accurately, I’ve decided to write one haiku every day for the rest of the year. Here are my contributions for days 1-4.
2/4/2012
Grey-bellied giants
In a furtive sky. Spring brushes
Earth’s brow.
2/5/2012
Last night, I dreamt of
You, but not the you that is
The you that once was.
2/6/12
With spring-like hope, I
await their words. Once uttered,
All I see red.
2/7/2012
Growing mushrooms, while
My bougainvillea sheds
Buds of sunny days.
As I round out this month’s batch of TED speeches, I am reminded of what draws me to TED in the first place. Yes, the ideas are brilliant and worth sharing, but if they were delivered in the same way many meetings, lectures, and “workshops” are, their power would be diminished greatly. No one would listen.
Alex Rister wrote an awesome post introducing novice presenters to s0me basic best practices when working to create a presentation that is memorable and impacting. One suggestion Alex has is that presenters watch TED talks in addition to practicing as often and in as many ways as possible, to develop their delivery prowess:
This is what sets TEDsters apart; one can tell they appreciate the wonderful moments of resonance they experience, and they want to create similar moments of their own. TEDsters practice because other TEDsters practiced before them. Practice is essential–even when you know your message, you live it, you are it. Practice is key. This is one primary purpose of making TED such a big part of the classroom experience. Students are inspired to know there is a forum for world-changing ideas out there that is not driven by money, power, or a select few.
Instead, TEDsters follow a set of commandments; I believe these are ideas we can all live by as presenters:
I round out my TED experience this month with three talks: Lauren Zalaznick, who embodies the second TED commandment by claiming that television has a social conscience, that it serves as a sort of barometer for social morality; Paul Nicklen, whose moving and raw fascination with the arctic fully fulfills commandment number six; and Charlie Todd, whose study of absurdity as a necessary human experience is a truly remarkable example of commandment three–the commandment that holds TED and TEDx and TED Prize, and TED Fellows, and the millions of us TEDsters together–reveal thy curiosity and passion.
Think TV is just a dismissible ”boob tube”? Think again. Zalaznick gives props to Hans Rosling and using moving, living data to show our movement as a society from moral certainty to ambiguity, our shift from comfort to irreverence and social commentary.
I am a big crier, so it’s no surprise that Nicklen’s love of the arctic, but more than that his love of untouched nature, has me in tears by minute two. Nicklen combines completely immersive imagery, music, storytelling, and raw emotion in a TED talk that truly fulfills the spirit of TED–ideas worth spreading. The big idea: we are quickly losing the species we take for granted as a part of our cultural collective, and it’s the disappearing ice, the result of our actions, that is erasing these wonderlands.
The kinds of things Charlie Todd does make me nervous. I find the idea of being uncomfortable in public to be…well, uncomfortable. However, I love Todd’s sense of play, his use of absurdity to help us feel comfortable with discomfort. As Todd says, there no right or wrong way to play. Play is a forgotten element in many “formal” presentations, but play is what often keeps your audience motivated enough to listen to the end!
