Use images to tap into collective memory

You do not need to use data all the time to get a point across in your presentation. Sometimes a good image is enough to tap into our collective memory.

The outrageous SlideShare title page

In a big conference hall your title page should contain some useful information for the audience that is walking in ("Is this the right session?"). When designing for online presentations platforms (such as SlideShare), they need to grab the attention of the site visitor without patience. Pretty much like the posters you used to put up for your events near the coffee machine in university.

Here is my coffee machine poster for a lecture I will be giving at the Technion in Haifa, Israel next week. In case you are in the neighbourhood...

The emperor's new presentation is boring!

Two useful approaches to evaluate your presentation:

1. Go in slide-sorter view to get a sense for how someone sitting in the back row will see your slides. If you can't follow them, they won't be able to either.
2. Ask your 4-year old daughter. Although she cannot grasp the content, her intuitive reaction to the images is honest feedback about how boring your presentation really is (or not).

The global "ban comic sans" movement

Weekend reading. Comic sans is a font that resembles hand writing. Released by Microsoft in 1994, it was made popular through its standard inclusion in its Windows and Internet Explorer software. Graphics designers (with the sympathy of the Vincent Connare, creator of the font) started a movement "ban comic sans" as early as 1999 to stop the font from taking over more and more print and screen space around us. An entertaining summary of the history of the font and the efforts to put the genie back in the bottle can be found in this WSJ article.

What do I think? I agree that a comic-style font is not suitable for every occasion. When I have to use one, I prefer picking a more extreme comic font, like boopee. The problem with comic sans is that it is now so common that it has become boring. The same with Times New Roman...

Comic Sans from Sam and Anita on Vimeo.

McKinsey on the McKinsey cost curve

A decade of strategy consulting work at McKinsey has not made me a big believer in standard frameworks. Most business problem require a tailor-made approach without the buzz words and generic statements you find in most airport business best sellers.

There is another problem with frameworks: a framework to solve a business problem is usually not the framework to communicate a business solution. Problem solving and presentation are two different things.

McKinsey's "enduring ideas" series periodically discusses one of the classic frameworks from the world of management consulting. This month it discussed the cost curve.

• On the vertical axis you show the cost per unit
• On the horizontal axis you line up the competitors in order of their production cost
• (Unusual) you change the width of the column to reflect the production capacity of a player
• Drawing a vertical line where capacity = demand shows you what the market price of the (commodity) product will be, and who is making money/who is not.

This framework is maybe an exception. A slightly modified column chart can serve both as a problem solving tool and a communication instrument. If there is incomplete information, 3 people can spend 2 months to develop it (running all the analysis), but once it is there, it shows what's going on in a (commodity) industry on one very insightful piece of paper (piece of PowerPoint slide). 

How to do a McKinsey-style source of change chart

Some numbers today. The source of change is a tool to explain the delta between two numbers in terms of its components. Assume you need to get the story below across in a crisp presentation.

The first thing is to understand what's going on. Get some more information until you have the full picture in a clear table.

Now let's do the analysis. This is the tricky part, the text below does not do a good job in explaining this, you can click the spreadsheet for a bigger and more visual explanation.

1. Calculate the profit in the "before" scenario using a formula that just uses inputs
2. Now stretch each of the variables that change to their "after" value, jot down the value, and return the value back to its original number
3. Repeat for all the variables and see what delta in profit you managed to explain.
4. Calculate what is left to explain, and allocate that to the individual values.

Finally put the values in a nice waterfall chart.

PowerPoint make-over artist tricks for newbies

Sometimes it is not possible to create that perfect presentation. For example, your boss landed a pile of slides (written by someone else) on your desk, to be sent out in the next 3 hours after some "fixes".

The presentation below provides some tools for dammage control. Especially useful for PowerPoint files that are intended for offline reading, rather than TED-style ballroom presentations.

PowerPoint make-over artist tricks for dummies

View more presentations from Jan Schultink.

• Use consistent colors. Even is the color scheme is not pretty, even is the color scheme is the standard PowerPoint one, recolor all objects with the same 2-3 colors, throughout the file
• Align and distribute, wherever you can. Make boxes the same size
• Wrap bullet points correctly (there are for sure too many bullet points in these type of last minute documents but not time to fix that now), cut words if you can 
• Un-stretch photos, select format/reset to regain the original image and re-size them by dragging the corners to keep the proportions intact
• Put all the titles in the same place using guides to prevent jumping titles. In the good old days, I used to hold a prinout of a document against the light to see whether everything is lined up
• Stay inside your guides so that all charts look aligned.

Good luck. By the way, you can find the "For Dummies" book cover generator here. The "For Dummies" series contains a lot of books related to presentation design and communications. Here is the full liston Amazon, here is one:

Visualizing 6 million Holocaust victims

It is Holocaust memorial day today in Israel. Sometimes it has hard to graps/visualize big numbers. I tried below. Let's not forget.

Remembering 6 million Holocaust victims

View more presentations from Jan Schultink.

They don't need to read it anyway

For some points you want to make in a presentation, it doesn't really matter whether the audience can read the content or not. Example: "here is my long list of scientific publications".

• The text was simply "3-D rotated" in PowerPoint (make sure to set the perspective to the maximum 120 degrees). 
• I left the text (that nobody will read) "bleeding" off the page to leave room for white space around the title line (that should be read)
• In my case I filled the text box with nice lorem ipsum, but these charts are most powerful when you use actual text (that nobody will read): my actual list of publications with ISBN numbers and publication dates for example

Everyone can draw - iconic graphics

Look around you and see how powerful simple graphical shapes can be. The ad below is an example (text below Chaplin: "It's the hat.").

A larger image can be found here on Ads of the World.

Designers and developers sitting in a tree...

This presentation was uploaded to SlideShare yesterday. Simple colors. Beautiful fonts. No stock images. OK, some bullet points, but nicely formated. A great example of a presentation that can stand on its own, without the presenter being present.

Designers & Developers Sitting in a Tree (Web09)

View more presentations from Dan Rubin.

More on picking the right presentation style for the right presentation occasion in a previous post.

Basic equations to visualize complex dependencies

A question like "What happened to sales last year?" sometimes requires a complex answer. "Well, it is a bit complicated: volume went down, but then prices went up, but as a result sales were up". A simplified mathematical equation can help you visualize this.

Sometime in the near future I will post here how to do a proper "sources of change" analysis.

Lovely charts with Lovely Charts

Computer network diagrams are hard to make in PowerPoint. Finding the icons, positioning boxes, connecting them. The web application Lovely Charts might be a good solution. Also for flow diagrams, organization charts etc.

If you are in to designing network diagrams in PowerPoint, be sure to visit the Cisco icon library.

Via Armano

Meet Mr. Chicken and think about your PowerPoint template

Amazing, there is one person who designed the "logos" and store fronts of almost 90% of all independent fried chicken outlets in the U.K. "Mr. Chicken" is interviewed here, there is even a book available on the phenomenon.

Amusing reading. However, it is not completely justified to pooh pooh these logo designs. Because they all look the same, they are actually pretty effective. If you find yourself in a U.K. high street looking for some fried chicken, you find one of these outlets in 2 seconds.

But, you do not want to be "Mr. Chicken" when it comes to your PowerPoint presentation. Get rid of the generic logo. Free up the screen real estate that is consumed by heavy banners with empty slogans. Instead, let people see the "what you have in store" with great content in your slides, all in a nice and consistent color scheme. 

Via Noisy Decent Graphics.

Godin on VC pitches: "imminent success" around the corner

Seth Godin writes in his latest post about the importance of showing your imminent breakthrough:

If it's a foregone conclusion that you're going to break out, that all systems are go, then only an idiot wouldn't jump on board.

It didn't happen yet, but it is about to happen. Useful advice for people writing VC pitches.

Summary chart with 3 completely different data ranges

Sometimes you want to show 3 data sets in one chart with very different data ranges, for example:

• 1,000s of customers
• $ sticker price per unit
• Number of products bought per customer

One solution:

• Set the column of the first data point of each series to 100
• Calculate the 2nd value relative to the 100
• Manually paste data labels with the correct factors

The chart below gives an example:

1. The first chart contains the unadjusted data
2. The second chart shows the adjusted version
3. The third charts shows the values I have entered in the PPT columns

Click on the example image below for a larger image.

The joys of ALT ENTER

Pressing ALT ENTER in an Excel cell creates a soft page break, pushing the text down a line without "closing" the cell edit. You can use it to control line breaks in axis lables.

The other solution is to omit automated axis labels all together and put in your own standard PowerPoint text boxes under the bars in the chart.

Do good stuff

I am continuing to post some "lighter" material during this holiday week here in Israel. Gary Vaynerchuk shares my passion for (great) wine. Here is an entertaining 2 minute video encouraging you to go off and do great things. Watch how he builds his point up and pauses before he gives his recommendation how to stand out in the noise of social media. [Spoiler alert]. Writing "do great stuff" on a PowerPoint slide would not have created the same impact as this video.

Is time the new paper?

I am just reading this accurate blog post on Apollo Ideas: break up bullet point slides into multiple pages that focus on one idea each. Many of my clients object to this technique. "That's too many slides! I only have 25 minutes!" They are choosing the wrong metric; number of slides, kilos of printout, presentation file size, it does not matter. Time is the only relevant factor. When you have 25 minutes to present, you bring slide material that will not exceed 25 minutes. That could mean: 50 slides, 750 gram of handouts, 5 paper flip charts, or a 70MB file.

Book review - The Power Presenter

I just finished reading the book "The Power Presenter" by Jerry Weissman, a public speaking coach.

My main interest is in graphical slide design, so it is a bit unusual for me to be reviewing a book that is solely about delivery of speeches and presentations. Initially I found it a bit hard to get into the story of the book, but as I finished more and more chapters the entire plot of the book became clearer and by the time I read the last page I found that I learnt some real valuable lessons that will affect every presentation I will give in the future. The central objective of the book is to get rid of a presenter's adrenaline rush when presenting: the instinctive debate of the body whether to fight or flight a stressful situation. Rather than prescribing a number of dogmatic "presentation rules", Jerry suggests way to create a natural way to becoming a more confident speaker.

Central in his book is a concept called "ERA":

• Eye connect: "only speak to eyes". Much more powerful than "don't turn your back to the audience", or "don't muffle your voice". It is a simple rule that everything you say, everything, should be said by looking a member of the audience straight in the eyes, waiting for eye contact, delivering the sentence, and then move on. No exception. Quite a challenge for a presenter, but it makes sense
• Reach out with your hands and your body language to simulate the appearance of a hand shake
• Animate, adding more drama and passion in the way you deliver your message

Especially the "eye connect" suggestion will change the way I deliver presentations in the future.

ERA is backed up by a lot of analysis of political speakers: Kennedy, Nixon, Gore, Reagon, Bush, and even Obama (however mostly focusing on his 2004 speech at the Democratic Convention). Sound bites are important for political speeches, and Jerry spends some time discussing cadence, rhythm, etc. to improve "slide-less" presentations.

When it comes to slides and graphics, Jerry bases his advice on a very conventional use of PowerPoint. The thing I like is how Jerry talks about "graphics synchronization", making sure that visuals are perfectly aligned with the speaker. Secondly he is an advocate of the "less is more" principle when it comes to slides.

I am less convinced on the slightly mechanical technique of "tell 'm what you're going to tell, tell 'm, tell'm what you just told" that he is suggesting for every slide. A bit mechanical. 

Jerry spends some time suggesting ways to deal with the uncertainty of "what slide's next" in a live presentation. Presenter view can solve this issue.

A great innovation is the access to online video clips of the speeches Jerry is discussing in the book (server bandwidth is a bit thin).

All in all a useful book about presentation delivery with many big (i.e, "ERA") and smaller pieces of advice of an experienced speaking coach.

"The Power Presenter" is part of a trilogy, other books are Presenting to Win and In the Line of Fire.

When is enough enough?

Less is more. Resist the temptation to overdo slides. Like putting too much bass and treble in your HiFi system. Like a rich chocolate dessert. Like an oaked Chardonnay. Nice on first "attack", but then it starts to overpower you.

It is a holiday here in Israel, people are relaxing on a beautiful spring day. A bit of humor: artists commenting on when they consider their art work finished. 

Via Wooster Collective, a street art blog that is worth following. Things (language, images) sometimes get a little bit more rough over there than you will find here, but hey, it's art and there are some interesting visuals being discussed. (See a previous street art post on this blog)

A different approach to data visualization

It is hard to get the magnitude of a huge number across on a slide. A $700bn bailout,how much is that? Photographer Chris Jordan takes a different approach. Repetitive patterns of miniaturized objects that form a bigger picture. Images have a political message, many of them try to put current "consumerism" into perspective.

The image below is inspired by Seurat's "un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte", and constructed from 106,000 softdrink cans.

Check out more of his images here. Via Village of Joy.

Stuck! - board games with simple PowerPoint shapes

The basic PowerPoint shapes and textures can be used to re-create realistic looking board games. Here is a concept I used for a client that needed to show how its potential customers are being hindered to move around their IT infrastructure freely.

Drawing 3D boxes in PowerPoint

A while ago I discussed making translucent balls. Here is a similar trick for boxes that does not use the old PowerPoint shape with a simple cavalier perspective.

People get it - no need for SCREAMING emphasis

Sometimes you need to emphasize a very IMPORTANT !!! word in your slide (how to do underline in Blogger?).

Don't use all the tools you can use. In dense text, use italic, in PowerPoint slides make it bold, or change the color of the word. People will get it.

Esthetics in everything you do

Another ad found on Ads of the World: Samsung wide-angle CCTV.

Very good Photoshop work. Still, the resulting image is not esthetically pleasing. My personal rule: never let an ugly chart or image enter my PowerPoint presentation, ever.

Design doubles newspaper circulation - presentation lessons

Newspapers are in trouble. This TED video highlights how clever design can do miracles to the circulation of a newspaper. (For details about the presenter, see the original TED post).

Insights (for me) that reach beyond the world of newspapers:

• There is no reason why you cannot totally turn traditional visual design upside down. Many PowerPoint slides still resemble 1990s hand-written overhead projector transparencies
• Technology enables small firms/individual designers without big budgets to out-design big established brand names. It is all about ideas and creativity now, technical execution is not a differentiator anymore

How to bring some order to a cluttered PowerPoint map

One of my clients is keen to show its new network of global support offices. Maps can look messy and random. Here are some simple things you can do to put things in order. We can not change the location of the planet's cities, we have control over PowerPoint shapes...