We spent a fair amount of time reviewing, crunching and analysing the numbers from the 2010 Business Presentation Survey…and then pulling together a webinar to explain to the hundreds of interested parties on quite what the results meant.
If you were one of the unlucky ones who didn’t quite get on the webinar invite list (we were over-subscribed – sorry!), then fret no more. Using the wonders of PowerPoint Repurposing, we’re able to bring you the edited highlights of both webinars here on YouTube.
So grab a coffee, sit back and enjoy the show (we’d also respectfully recommend having a pen and paper handy as you’re likely to want to scribble down a lot of the findings and suggestions).
If you’re a regular reader of the Eyeful Blog, you’ll be aware that we get very animated (excuse the pun) when it comes to getting the most out of your PowerPoint.
Panic not!
This is not some clumsy, heavy-handed way of selling our wares. If you’re a regular here, you’ll know all about the wonders of Presentation Optimisation, the glowing testimonials of our ever-growing customer base and the magic we can weave with the most basic of presentations. Let’s not get into that now…
Nope – we’re talking about Repurposing PowerPoint. Taking the hard work you’ve put into creating your masterpiece in PowerPoint and repackaging it for other mediums.
From PowerPoint to Podcast…to video…to interactive PDF…and finally to web presentation. The choice is yours.
To help explain how this works and the options available to you, we thought we’d repurpose one of our own presentations originally developed for a RIBA conference.
We think the Beeb’s film critic Mark Kermode is rather marvellous. We like his pithy, insightful and downright passionate reviews. He seems like our sort of bloke.
We also think Pixar are nothing short of brilliant. Wonderful films with compelling storylines, engaging characters and eye-popping animation techniques.
Mark has got himself hot under the collar about the growing trend of 3D cinema for a while now. He’s sick of having aliens, cars and body parts “flying” out of the screen just because the technology allows.
We tend to agree with him.
It’s a bit like using every PowerPoint animation and transition available to you (even more in PowerPoint 2010!) on your slides. Yes – it’s clever technology but frankly it’s distracting and not helping you tell your story.
Now onto Pixar’s Toy Story 3. Mark loves this film for many reasons but the key one for us is that he didn’t notice the 3D.
It was there but did all the right things – helped the story along, engaged the audience and supported the characters. But at no point did it detract by being used inappropriately simply because they had the technology to hand.
It seems like only yesterday that we celebrated our 5th Birthday…in reality it was back in October.
It doesn’t seem like 5 minutes ago since we moved to our fancy new offices, Eyeful Towers…in reality, it was back in April.
And it feels like we’ve just started working with the good people at Peak Software…in reality, it’s been over 3 years.
During that time, we’ve worked on any number of fun and engaging projects with Clive and his team, from audio packed product launch PowerPoints through to HTML Flash conversions.
As with any relationship, we’ve worked hard to keep it fresh by offering new ideas and maintaining an enthusiasm for each new project.
We’ve enjoyed every minute of it and it would seem Clive is of the same opinion… To learn more, listen on.
We’re extremely grateful to the hundreds of you who took the time to complete it - your feedback and experiences have provided an amazing insight into how businesses approach presentations in 2010.
The task now ahead of us is to process the hundreds of responses and draw insight from them. And then, as promised, we’d like to share the results and analysis with you.
So is Death by PowerPoint really killing businesses?
Are new cloud-based applications like Slide Rocket and Prezi having an impact?
Does Apple’s Keynote software hold the key to a better presentation experience?
And are companies changing their approach to business presentations in line with their social media and online strategies?
All these questions and more will be answered in our webinars on the 3rd August (UK & Europe here and US & Canada here).
We have limited spaces so please click here to register for one of the following events to ensure you have a front row seat as we share the results, provide the latest insight and offer analysis of how businesses really view presentations:
In a slight change from the advertised schedule, I’d like to focus this blog on an extraordinary conference I had the pleasure of attending last week.
Now I have to hold my hand up and admit to “swerving” most conference invitations. In my experience, they tend to be thinly veiled sales pitches by speakers who should know better to audiences with only a passing interest in the content.
This conference, however, was a little different…
Firstly it featured some notable and worthy speakers – Simon Woodroffe of YO! Sushi and YOTEL fame along with Richard Reed, one of the founders of Innocent Drinks. Whilst these brands may not mean a huge amount outside of the UK, they are big news and much admired over here in Blighty. As expected, both Simon and Richard performed brilliantly and delivered interesting and engaging presentations. Good job all round.
However the speaker that took the conference from “good” to “great” was a chap called Jeremy Gilley. He is the founder of the Peace One Day movement, a not-for-profit organisation focussed on stopping all warfare across the world for one day every year (the 21st September seeing that you asked).
Think of it like peace fuelled version of “Mothers Day” – the idea is that everyone across the globe acknowledges it every year but rather than rushing out to buy overpriced cards and flowers, its represented by people laying down their weapons for a day.
A laudable idea but how to present this to a business audience..?
From a presentation structure and delivery perspective, Jeremy shone. His presentation managed to be simultaneously humble, moving and motivational. His message was heard and understood loud and clear by everyone in the audience…and I have no doubt, will stay with many of them for a long time to come.
He used his content wisely – never blinding the audience with too much detail (it would have been easy to turn the presentation into a “this is how complex international diplomacy is” rant) and using video to illustrate points quickly and effectively.
It has to be said that the few PowerPoint slides he did use weren’t great but we’ll be working on those for him over the next few weeks!
Ultimately the reason he was able to deliver his presentation so effectively was because he truly believes in his message. He’s presented the same story hundreds if not thousands of times to a range of audiences – business conferences like this one…but also Heads of State, C-Level Execs in organisations like Coca-Cola and, um, the Taliban.
All tough audiences in one way or another…all bought into Jeremy’s vision because his message was so crystal clear and simple to understand. Something all presenters should bear in mind…
All of this said, the most important message I and my fellow delegates took from the day was that Peace One Day is working. It’s a frustratingly slow process…but it’s working. I take my hat off to Jeremy and the rest of the Peace One Day team on their amazing achievements so far.
To learn more about Peace One Day, please view the short video below. I assure you it’ll be worth it.
We’ve been banging on about the wonders of PowerPoint 2010 for some time now (one of the benefits of being involved in the Beta testing, I suppose).
Good news is that everyone can now benefit from the plethora of new features crammed into PowerPoint 2010.
Worry not – we’re not about to bore you with the long list of new toys to play with again (although check out an earlier blogs here and here for the lowdown).
However we couldn’t stop ourselves sharing our latest fun PowerPoint to video conversion - an animated “Eyeful E” made up of a selection of our rather marvellous clients:
Among many things, this relationship has given us an insight into that most understated of beasts, the CPD Presentation.
Now officially CPD stands for Continuing Professional Development although over the past few years we fear that it’s also become shorthand for dull, uninspired and downright depressing PowerPoint presentations!
Thankfully we’ve been called in to work with a number of CPD Providers to improve the impact and accessibility of their presentations.
These are always interesting and quite technical projects – as a result, we now know a huge amount about rolled steel, flooring legislation and sanitary ware to name just a few. As you can imagine, we make for very interesting dinner party guests…
The latest in a long line of successful CPD presentation projects is for Rockfon, the people behind stone wool insulation.
To learn quite how we were able to turn the technical into the terrific, listen on…
Welcome to the second blog taking a closer look at the team here at Eyeful. Having cast our eye over our Project Manager and their highly organised and efficient ways, this time it’s the turn of the Presentation Consultant.
As an integral part of our Presentation Optimisation methodology, the role of Presentation Consultant is biggie here at Eyeful.
As the name suggests, our Consultants are actually here to help our customers by understanding what they need and helping to shape the way we deliver it. Here’s Jo to tell us about an exciting 24 hours:
I’m rolling out the clichés early here, I know, but no two days are ever really the same both because of the role I do as Consultant but also because of the way we work here at Eyeful. I’ll try, however, to take you through a “typical” day!
Most of my days are spent out and about on site with clients – but in an effort to remain as sheep-like as the rest of them, I start my day with a check through my Blackberry.
As I tend to deal with a number of customers at any one time the early part of the morning will normally involve talking to a good few before I get onsite.
Picking up on any work that needs to be fed back to the studio or speaking to a client who has something urgent can quite often take up the time before beginning a client engagement for the day – and I’ll normally have spoken to one or all of our Project Managers back in the office before 9am!
Once onsite, I really get into making a difference. It’s the time spent talking to customers and helping take their ideas and shape them into something that will become really impressive that’s gets me up in the morning.
A lot of my time is spent storyboarding with people – something I know we bang on about at Eyeful but I can’t emphasise how important it is. No story can be properly told unless you understand it first.
A lot of my days are spent solely on site with our customers – but some afternoons I get the opportunity to be in the office (joy for me, although the office might not agree).
This always gives me a chance to get some time with our Project Managers and designers and to see the real work getting done for our clients!
Whilst every day might be different – most days end with any number of calls from clients and colleagues alike and more often than not one from Simon himself who got himself thoroughly overexcited about a new client or an extra innovative design the studio has produced.
One thing is for sure – Eyeful and it’s customers don’t allow for dull days!
