Posts Tagged ‘Blended Presenting’

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Your Audience – Give A Little Respect…

Thursday, March 21st, 2013

The more you think about it, the more obvious it is…yet too often, we see presenters forget this most basic of rules.  The audience is king/queen.

I was reminded of this recently when speaking at an event.  The agenda was a Who’s Who list of speakers who had a huge amount of knowledge and experience in their field (I know what you’re thinking – what was I was doing there?).  The audience was made up of senior people, all of whom had got up early or invested in a hotel to attend the event.  It was as friendly and enthusiastic crowd as you could have hoped for.

And then things started going awry…

The first speaker didn’t inspire confidence.  He seemed to bumble through his slides, reading most of the bullet points out and looking genuinely surprised at some of the animations that befell him.

The audience started to look uneasy.

The next presenter was great – got everyone back on track by sharing her enthusiasm for the topic and demonstrating it through stories, strong visuals and building a real connection with the audience.  The energy returned to the room.

Unfortunately the entire morning was like a rollercoaster – for every engaging and prepared presenter, there was the cliched “bumbler”.  Outside of issues around message, structure, content and visuals (I could go on), the latter group displayed one consistent trait – a lack of respect for their audience and the event.

As a presenter, every presentation represents an investment in you by the audience.  It’s the obvious stuff like time and attention but also something a more intimate – their willingness to connect with you and your story.

It’s a huge privilege…

Despite this investment on their behalf, we all too often see presenters pay scant regard for their audiences and simply “roll up” and deliver the same pre-canned, half-baked presentation that not only fails to interest the audience but also, from their tone and approach, bores them too.

When preparing your next presentation, please ensure the very first thing you consider is the audience – treat them with the utmost respect.

They are opening themselves and their minds up to your message.  They probably don’t need to and, chances are, they have a whole bunch of other interesting stuff to be getting on with…yet they chose to invest their time, energy and attention to you.

Forget this at your peril.

I’ve seen it happen…and it wasn’t pretty.

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Whiteboard Presenting…Minus The Stickmen

Wednesday, March 6th, 2013

Over the last few years, we’ve been actively encouraging our customers across the World to think beyond PowerPoint.

By using our Blended Presenting approach, we now have customers mixing up the visual element of their presentations, incorporating different technologies to best suit their audience.  For one audience it might be using an iPad to share their story whilst occasionally referring the audience to a hard copy document or video whist for another it might be the more conventional use of PowerPoint but with the use of a whiteboard at key points of the story.

This use of whiteboard as part of a Blended approach is incredibly powerful.  It allows the presenter to really personalize their message to the audience, perhaps detailing or demonstrating technical content that simply doesn’t lend itself to a PowerPoint slide. Despite the immense power of mixing a presentation up in this way, many customers initially shy away from it.

Why?

A lack of confidence in their drawing skills… The good news is that Microsoft look to have been hard at work addressing this very issue.  They’ve released a video which shows an early prototype electronic whiteboard, SketchInsight, that interprets the users “doodles” and replaces them with decipherable images.

It’s all very clever and could spell an end to the debilitating fear of drawing a rather shoddy stickman in front of a group. More importantly, by pulling on “big data”, it will also allow presenters to call upon real-time data as part of their story, taking the bespoke and personalized presentation to the next level.

Exciting times…but in the meantime, as long as it allows people to happily embrace the electronic whiteboard as part of their Blended Presenting strategy, we’ll be happy…as will their audiences!

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Note to Self – The Audience Owes Me Nothing…& I Owe Them Everything

Wednesday, February 27th, 2013

Franklin D Roosevelt knew a thing or two about engaging an audience.  To him, it was all about sharing the message and absolutely nothing to do with ego.  That made him rather good at this whole communication lark…

This is what he had to say about confidence, something very closely allied to getting up on stage and giving it your all.

Confidence… thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.

Each and every step of the presentation creation process (we call it Presentation Optimisation) should ooze with the same levels of concern for the audience:

Creating the message

  • Who are they?
  • Why are they here?
  • What can I provide them?

Choosing the content

  • What information do they need to know?
  • How much do they already know?

Developing the visuals

  • What will be the most comfortable medium for them to engage with?
  • How best to manage questions?

Far too often we’re faced with presenters that focus their time and energy on sharing inane details about themselves (hint: a picture of a HQ building is a dead giveaway) and then wonder why the audience isn’t invested in the meeting.

Both sides lose.

The twist in the tale?

The unselfish presenter tends to win the hearts and minds of their audience, making them putty in their hands (ref. Winston Churchill, Steve Jobs, Tom Peters).  In one of my favourite videos, Tom demonstrates his determination to squeeze every ounce of energy out of his presentation for his audience.  Inspiring stuff:

Either way, with an unselfish presenter BOTH sides win.

Happy days…

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All hail the weather presenters (pun intended)

Thursday, February 14th, 2013

There’s no doubt us Brits are a little obsessed with the weather.  From slavishly watching reports on impending snow-based gridlock to the fervent prayers for a summer with at least some sun, we’re hooked.

This puts the lowly weather presenter under a lot of pressure.  They need to clearly and succinctly share a lot of potentially technical information with their audience.  Their audience will all have slightly different agendas/interests depending on where they live or their travel plans.  Oh, and they need to do this day in, day out (on the hour in the mornings!) so keeping it fresh and engaging is also important.

A tough gig for any presenter…so how do they do it?

Spookily they rely on the 3 key facets of effective presenting that form the basis of our Presentation Optimisation methodology:

  • A clear message
  • The right content
  • Powerful and valuable visuals

Each and every weather forecast starts and finishes with the big message – it’s either going to be rainy, sunny, changeable…  Whatever the forecast, the message is delivered in such a way that the audience knows how exactly the weather is going to impact them (and whether packing an umbrella will prove to be a good idea).

That message is then supported by a level of content that demonstrates how and why the weather is behaving in a particular way.  As an audience, we nod sagely at talk of high pressures coming in from the east but the truth is that this content is shared to merely back up the important message (in the case of the UK, it’s going to rain).  Adding extraneous content merely gets in the way and runs the risk of confusing the message.

To push it over the line, TV presenters use visuals to demonstrate the key message.

The presentation genius of the weather guys and gals is here for all to see – rather than overly complex graphics of isobars and other meteorological clutter, they use simple icons* to help deliver the overarching message – it’s going to rain, don’t forget your umbrella. Visually, less is more when delivering a simple message.

Now apply this thinking to your business presentation…

Do you have a clear message?  Are you running the risk of confusing or reducing the impact of the message by cluttering up the presentation with content you simply don’t need?  Are your visuals helping you clearly deliver on your message or there to justify your content (hint – it should be the former).

Get this right and you’re on the road to what we call Presentation Optimisation…and a more engaged informed audience.

* It’s interesting to note that the BBC received a lot of grumpy letters and e-mails a few years ago when they moved away from their super simple weather icons to a more animated version.  If the animation is getting in the way of delivering a clear message (a la over engineered PowerPoint, Keynote and Prezi presentations), you run the risk of terminally confusing your audience.

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Posted in Consultancy, PowerPoint, Presentation Design, Presentation Skills, Presentation Technology, Presentation Tools, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Panic Over – Eyeful Arrives in Europe

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013

The EU has had a tough time of it over the last few years.  Economies wobbling, internal squabbles among member states and the perennial debate over how bendy a banana should be (no, really – see here).

No fun for anyone…

However 2013 looks like all of this cross continent tension could be a thing of the past.  The reason?  EyefulPresentations.EU has landed.

You see, we have a sneaking suspicion that much of the recent turmoil is down to poor communication and a dearth of engaging visuals.  Granted, this might be over simplifying the internal workings of one of the World’s most complex and powerful economic entities…but we feel it’s worth a punt.

Either way, we believe the launch of our new EU website is good news for all European businesses.  With us supporting your business through our Presentation Optimisation methodology, you can at least tick of “clearly communicate with prospects and customers” off your to-do list.*

* We know it works because it’s going down a treat with the Dutch, Irish and Eastern European customers.

To learn more about our ability to support companies across Europe, simply visit the website or give us a call.

Merci/Vielen Dank etc etc

 

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Modern presenting – why designing for interaction matters

Monday, January 21st, 2013

It is an indisputable truth that technology is always changing.

Take the gaming industry as an example. From the beautiful simplicity of Pong, the first computer game to grab our attention, through to beautifully detailed role-play adventures available online and through incredibly powerful games consoles, the march towards immersive technologies goes on.

Underpinning all this fast paced evolution is the programmers’ drive to provide true interactivity between the technology and it’s users.  What was once seen as the madcap dream of a few is now commonplace as children, their parents, and their grandparents interact with smartphones, tablets and other interactive technologies with ease.

Being able to interact with a technology is no longer a nice to have – it is the way that we engage with technology at home and at work.

So if interactivity plays such an important part in our everyday life, why is this so remarkably absent in most business presentations? And what is the impact of presenters refusing to embrace this new interactive thinking?

We believe that the cause of the issue lies with a lack of forethought and planning at the initial development stage of the presentation (let’s face it – a lack of investment, consideration and planning at this early stage of development is to blame for all manner of presentation ills, most notably the scourge of death by PowerPoint).

Developing an interactive presentation that allows you to fully engage and inspire your audience, demands a different way of thinking.  It’s on this premise that the Presentation Optimisation methodology, employed by Eyeful consultants across the world, was developed to ensure that a full understanding of the audience and the best method by which to engage them underpins the process.

We’ve always maintained that taking the time to understand these requirements in detail is time well spent – without it, your presentation is built on a very fragile and shortsighted foundation. So it was with glee that we stumbled across the following short film that examines the importance of understanding and planning in interaction design.

Hats off to the team at Bassett & Partners for a job well done…

Understanding the importance and the method by which presenters interact with their audiences also underpins our Blended Presenting approach – the flexibility and increased level of engagement provided by this approach are only possible as a result of careful planning and the creation of a strong message and story early on in the process.

So in summary,

Poor planning = lack of understanding

Lack of understanding = low levels of interactivity

Low levels of interactivity = poor customer audience engagement

One final question – doesn’t your audience and your presentation deserve better?

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Posted in Consultancy, Customer Stories, General information, Presentation Design, Presentation Skills, Presentation Technology, Video | No Comments »

From The Studio – A Designer’s View of Prezi

Thursday, September 27th, 2012

We’ve been pretty forthright in our views on Prezi over the past few months.

We’ve recorded Podcasts on the subject as well as discussing it’s pros and cons at length with customers all over the World. Much of our discussion has been around how effective (and, more often than not, ineffective) Prezi is as a visual storytelling tool.

But what of the designer’s role? What is it like to work with as a design tool? How does it compare to the ubiquitous PowerPoint and Keynote?

In an effort to redress the balance, we asked Dan, our most senior designer, to give it the once over and give us his feedback. As we hoped, he was candid. Very candid…

Many people jumped on Prezi because it could do something PowerPoint couldn’t do. However what people forget in their hurry to jump the PowerPoint ship is that PowerPoint does many many things Prezi can’t do.

Even Prezi are beginning to recognise this as they have now introduced fade animations – an important admission that PowerPoint isn’t all evil and that man cannot live by zoom and pan alone.

In my opinion, the biggest thing Prezi has going against it is the first pan or zoom kicks in as soon as you fire it up.  As a result, the entire audience immediately labels it “oh, a Prezi” which could turn off elements of your audience if they have something against it.

I really think Microsoft missed a trick in not incorporating a similar zoom ability into PowerPoint 2013 – Prezi has been around long enough now to show there is a need for this style of moving around information. The ‘Grow/shrink’ emphasis animation in PowerPoint kills everything with its pixellation, no matter whether it’s a vector or rasterized graphic.

What’s it like to work with?

Prezi is limited by not being able to generate elements of the presentation WITHIN the software. Basically everything needs to be imported.

Vector graphics can be imported by saving them as a pdf, but once inside Prezi we have no ability to change fill colour, stroke etc. The very limited amount of shapes one can generate inside Prezi is further limited by the restrictive colour palette and lack of access to gradient fills etc.

Content generation is something that has come on a very long way within PowerPoint. Sure, many people STILL greatly overuse drop shadows and bevel edges, but the results when used effectively, along with 3D controls and Combine Shapes feature make PowerPoint very powerful.

In conclusion…

Prezi is great for displaying certain types of information or telling a certain type of story BUT they should be conceptually built from the ground up to work in this format. Ultimately they need to have a reason to be a Prezi and not a PowerPoint. Shoehorning every type of presentation into this format is as wrong as say using the Bounce animation with shotgun sound on every slide of your PowerPoint presentation!

If Prezi did more, it would be harder to pigeonhole it as ‘that one trick pony’.

But here lies the risk of losing their differentiation or bloating the software with too many bulky, distracting options… So on reflection, maybe its best that Prezi stays roughly as it is and the responsibility is put with the presenter as to when and when not to take it out of the tool box and put it to use.

Thanks Dan!

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Posted in General information, PowerPoint, Presentation Technology | 2 Comments »

Eyeful on Film – The What, How & Why of Presentation Optimisation

Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

Life travels fast here at Eyeful Towers.

It seems like only a few weeks ago that we were embarking on a new financial year and the release of our “Little Book of Big Ideas”* but the reality is that almost 12 months have passed and so much has changed…

So, in an attempt to capture the moment as well as further demonstrate the importance of the Presentation Optimisation model, we asked our friends at ID2 Media to pull together a film crew and spend a day with us.

Hats off to the gang at ID2 – the film does a great job in capturing what makes Eyeful tick which, contrary to common belief, is more than just a steady flow of coffee and biscuits.

Enjoy!

* We had no idea how popular the Little Books were going to be when we printed them and we’re almost completely out of stock BUT, if you’re quick, you can still get hold of one.  Simply ping us an e-mail or give us a call and we’ll pop one in the post.

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The Drug Dealer, The IT Professional & The Presentation

Thursday, September 13th, 2012

That old sage (and, lest we forget, professional PowerPoint basher) Edward Tufte quipped recently

There are only two industries that refer to their customers as ‘users’… drug dealers and IT

It raises an interesting if somewhat uncomfortable question – how highly does the IT sector rate it’s customer base?

Here at Eyeful we have the privilege of being asked to develop presentations for a number of large and very successful IT companies (if you’re one of them, thank you).  In common with the many other technical industries we work with, the trickiest part of the project is getting clarity of how to engage with their audience.

The manifestation of this issue tends to be pretty straightforward and falls into one of two camps:

Typical IT Approach A – “Look How Clever We”ve Been”

This manifests itself as a series of dense slides thick with diagrams and schematics that go to demonstrate how hard they have worked on developing a cutting edge solution.

There is a complete absence of structure, overarching message, business benefits or call to action…and the audience is left bemused and, if things have gone to plan for the presenter, also feeling a little more stupid than they did at the start of the meeting.

Typical IT Approach B – “Style Over Substance”

Inspired by slavishly consuming Apple ads and marketing collateral, this presentation takes on a “less is more” approach to engaging with it’s audience.  Prepare yourself for obscure references, “zen”-like visuals and very little in the way of engaging content for the audience to grab hold of and process.

Once again, the audience is left bemused…

It’s Not Rocket Science*

For such a learned bunch, the IT sector can sometimes forget the basics – a presentation should be focused on delivering an engaging and “sticky” message to your audience (normally with the aim of prompting them to do something) in a way that appeals to them.

And, let’s face it, the only way you’re going to be able to know how exactly to pitch your message is to know your audience.  So, the big question is, if you continue to think of them as “users”, how easy is that transition really going to be..?

*Unless you are one of our aerospace customers.

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Posted in Consultancy, Customer Stories, General information, PowerPoint, Presentation Design, Presentation Skills, Presentation Technology, Sales Presentation | No Comments »

The Presentation Summit – The Countdown Begins

Tuesday, September 4th, 2012

We’ve waxed lyrical about The Presentation Summit over the years and rightly so.

It’s an event where the great and the good of the presentation world get together to share ideas, prod and poke the latest technology and, very occasionally, share a drink or two in the hotel bar.

This year’s shindig is in the none-too-shabby Scottsdale, Arizona and the plans are already afoot.  We’re looking forward to catching up with old friends from across the globe, readying ourselves for the now legendary “PowerPoint Trivia Contest”* and stepping up on stage and presenting.

Yep – this year, Eyeful has been asked to contribute to the proceedings by talking about Blended Presenting.  We’re rather excited…so much so, that we hastily recorded a short video overview of our plans.  Somewhat tongue-in-cheek but full of enthusiasm, the video can be viewed below.

Oh, and there’s still time to book yourself a place at The Presentation Summit – simply click here for details.  We’ll see you there…

* Note – we’re proud past winners of this lofty prize!

 

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Posted in General information, PowerPoint, Presentation Design, Presentation Skills, Presentation Technology | 2 Comments »

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