Create Your Communications Experience

Use Black Slides

Power points are great – used correctly. The problem is 95% of the time we run into PowerPoint Abuse.

If you follow just ONE rule it can transform the way you can present information to influence using PowerPoints (or PPs - making them generic.)

Definition: I'm using the term PowerPoints to refer to the Microsoft program (could be Keynote in the Mac world) as SUPPORT to your in person, spoken presentation. If you are leaving behind a "deck" or presenting a written presentation that is in a PowerPoint or pdf format - that's a different animal. As Garr Reynolds states so well, that is a "slideument" and is used for a different purpose!

So Use Black Slides In Creating A Spoken Experience

There are three reasons, but first the context.

The problem with PPs are that they become the presentation itself, and that lends to delivering information, and data dumps. In most business settings it’s almost like reading a manuscript as someone puts up PP after PP and uses them as his/her notes. Too many bullets and too much text. (Rule of Thumb with PPs – less is more!)

Use black slides and transform your presentations. A black slide is literally a slide with no master and a black background. (It is not the “B” key which will blank out a slide, but you always have to unblank, and go back and show the old slide before you can continue on.)

A black slide will do three things

1. Clear the screen.

Once you’re done with the picture, graph or supporting information, you want to remove distraction, and go to a black slide so you can amplify, tell a story, or make an additional point, etc.

2. Black out the screen.

Simply put, so you can walk in front of the projector. Almost all meeting, board and conference rooms are poorly designed so that they have the projector screen right in the middle of the room or stage. It should be at the right or left, so YOU can be in the middle. After all, YOU should be the center of your presentation, not your slides.

3. Totally change your mindset.

Change the creation and emphasis of the presentation. This is by far the most important of all, and needs it’s own paragraph.

Philosophy of the Black Slide

I’d estimate that 95% of business presentations are poorly conceived in that they are created in PowerPoints. It may be easier, but it is not more effective. If you realize that your information and your PPs are NOT your presentation, but YOU and your KEY POINTS are, then you will create your presentation first, and use PPs to amplify your Point Of View. Decide what you want to say, then add the support - and your PPs will be used effectively, with graphs, pictures, video clips and other SHARPs to bring memorability and power to your Point Of View.

When you THINK Black Slides, you will put together your PPs after you create and organize your thoughts (and using the Decker Grid is the ideal way to do that.) Then your PowerPoints will be additive (and not essential.) Only when you think in terms of Black Slides will you be freed up from PowerPoint Abuse.

PowerPoint,Presentation Skills,Black Slides

Word of Mouth

There is no substitute for word of mouth communications - not just when you are selling a product, but when you are selling yourself. What do people say about you? Do you leave an afterglow after you are gone - whether from a speech or a meeting or a social interaction? That's what we mean when we say you create your own communication experience.

This week there was a front page article in the San Francisco Business Times on a new startup, Ammo Marketing, that further extends the buzz around WOM. There's also WOMMA (Word Of Mouth Marketing Association) which may be an association of which you do not yet know - but if you are a communicator you might want to - Chip Heath author of the great Made To Stick will be speaking at their conference April 17th. So is Sam Decker for that matter...

And then of course there's son Sam's company Bazaarvoice which has been around awhile (a year) and to great success. By the way, there is interesting background on the name, in case it struck you as a bit odd, (as it did me at first.) It's well thought out actually, which is all a  part of creating that unique and impactful communication experience.

Which is what the communication experience is all about - word of mouth. After you speak, you want people to want a piece of you - and talk about you. After they sample your product, you want them to recommend you, and buy your product. After you lead, you want people to follow, and buy into your ideas. The best in business revolves around WOM.

The Power Of Instant Video

The "Hillary 1984" video has taken over. It's not who made it, or whether Obama wanted it, or whether Hillary is really "1984." It's the power of video to impact instantly - in just a weekend it has had over a million active hits on YouTube. And this is not even a brilliant creative job - compare it to the original here, and see it only changed a few shots. But what power in the message. In 73 seconds.

Anyone can post a video, as ParkRidge47 did on Saturday. A couple of days later, it is a viral explosion, major news on all the local TV News, radio and the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle. And of course all over the internet where it started.

Video compression and the capability of an unknown to make a one minute "film" and have such impact is revolutionary (which I did predict here a couple of months ago.) The revolution has started.

You too can use video to tell a story, embed in PowerPoints, make it your resume, compress and send in emails, elect a President - there is no limit. Use this tool - influence in new ways. More to come...

World's Best Presentation Contest

Slideshare has just announced the new World's Best Presentation Contest - this should be fun.

I'm looking forward to it as I happen to be a judge, along with Guy Kawasaki, Garr Reynolds and Jerry Weisman. Actually, it's a pretty experienced panel - wonder whether we'll agree?

It could be called a PowerPoint contest, since that's the emphasis here - no video or personal presentations. And I'll explore the difference between PowerPoints as decks and PowerPoints as support to live messages in this blog as we go along.

Send in your best - the prizes are pretty good.

PowerPoint Case History

Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen has a great lengthy description of what NOT to do with PowerPoints and why. Very much worth looking at, and even if you don't read it all or look at the video, you can get a lot of pointers for your own public speaking. And it is an illustration how PowerPoints get abused by the "Curse of Knowledge."

Made To Stick

Last night's long flight from Florida's Sanibel Harbor seemed to go fast as I finished "Made To Stick" - that great new book by Chip and Dan Heath on how to make your messages sticky. I liked it so much I turned to my wife Dru Scott, (who had started reading it on the flight out until I snatched it back,) and said I was going to stick a bunch of copies up on the walls of our training room - that will use their 'Unexpected' principle' and stimulate our participants to be 'sticky' in creating their messages. Knowing my sense of exaggeration she said, "How about sticking just one copy - that will use their 'Simple' principle."

Problem solved, but then I mused how do I make a post that is not too long on the book, and she came up with the answer "Tell a quick story and use your 10 Key Points format."

Made To Stick uses the acronym SUCCES which happens to be very similar in the results to our SHARP process in making ideas memorable. Chip and Dan's ideas are great, and every communicator who wants to be interesting and influential should read this book. Here are what I think are the top three of the SUCCES principles, with three of the best keepers for each. (And a bonus to make the 10.)

SIMPLE

Perhaps too simple a concept, but so important - focus on the core idea.

• Forced prioritization is really painful, but essential as the first step to a sticky idea.
• Proverbs are simple yet profound. It's difficult to come up with a simple proverb-like phrase or concept ("A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,) but when you do, people get your message quickly, sometimes profoundly. "It's the economy, stupid," was one of three ideas James Carville presented in the Clinton campaign, and it stuck. Try to describe a Pomelo and it will be difficult, unless you say it's like a large grapefruit.
• "Commander's Intent" means what is the primary objective, in simplest terms. What do we want to do. It's a military term that cuts through the myriad detail of logistical planning and process so people can get the simple picture to make decisions. Great concept. Sticky.

On Storytelling

It's a week for the value of becoming a storyteller.

Thanks to Garr Reynolds and a great post from Presentation Zen on Ira Glass and Tips On Storytelling.

A taste....

"Everything is more compelling when you talk like a human being, when you talk like yourself."
                                                                 — Ira Glass

For a video...

Tell Stories

Spoke last week in Miami, and the presenter before me started out with a story, followed by another, and another. All linked to points. Brilliant, and so rare in business presentations today. He warmed up the audience, and I was grateful.

"Story" is the S of our SHARP principles, the sure fire way to connect with an audience (including an audience of one.) Story is critical to making your ideas sticky, in the vernacular of Malcolm Gladwell ("Blink") and the great new book just out that takes up where Malcolm left off, "Made To Stick." (Rush out and get it now, don't wait for our rave review coming next week.)

The Top Ten Reasons stories are useful and powerful:

• They are real
• They are short
• They are interesting
• They are human
• They give third party credibility
• They are easy to tell
• They are memorable
• They are emotionally connecting
• They move people
• They are the principle communication tool since Man began talking

What Others Say

To be a person is to have a story to tell.
  -Isak Dinesen

The story is more important to me than the part.
   -Catherine Deneuve

Of course it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.
   -Margaret Thatcher

A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth.
  - Frank Luntz (Communication Specialist in language – also a political consultant)

Eighty percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect. I am much more interested in how you feel than how you think. I can change how you think, but how you feel is something deeper and stronger, and it's something that's inside you.
   - Frank Luntz

THE USE OF STORIES IS A POWERFUL TOOL that aids in material retention, but methodologies of inclusion are rarely discussed. The desire to share emotions and effect the emotional states of others drives us to tell and retell stories. A story is a vector that spreads the information and emotion that is contained within it. No classroom or teacher is needed past the initial storytelling. We have been doing this for years in the form of childrens stories.  It has been widely speculated that the story of Hantzel and Gretel is a cautionary tale used by elders to prevent children from wandering off into the dangers of the European forests alone.

http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/storyemotions/index.htm

Jesus told stories and parables. He didn’t talk in concepts – he only needed stories, and he riveted peoples attention. Sowing seeds along the path, the rich young ruler, a house built on sand, faith growing like a mustard seed, and dozens more.

Remember, people buy on emotion and justify with fact.

A great resource for getting great at telling stories is Doug Stevenson's Story Theatre - and it pays as a communicator to get serious about storytelling. Create your communication experience.

Internet Radio Today

Today March 2 I'll be LIVE on Grapevine at 12:15 to 1:15 PST talking about communications. If you're interested and available check it out:

• The Behavioral Big Five
• Avoid sabotaging your Message
• Avoid PowerPoint Abuse
• Three biggest mistakes in Communicating
• Having a Focused Message
• And how DO you Create Your Communications Experience

And more on "Back Porch" on Internet Radio Grapevine with Bob and Dave...