I just came across this wonderful little video celebrating National Geographic’s photographer Bruce Dale’s 30 years as a photographer.

The video illustrates just how effective a story and an image can really be and how it can make your presentation stand out and become remarkable. Some of the stories that Bruce Dale tells are so memorable, I am sure you will remember them for a very long time to come.

So, if you have a few minutes space and enjoy looking at incredible images with amazing stories then spend those few minutes watching this incredible video.

30 Years of BAD Pictures from Bruce Dale on Vimeo.

The twenty-first century has seen many developments in the world of business. We now have cloud computing, making creating and sharing files between colleagues and partners easier. We also have the spectacular growth of wireless internet and smartphones, making communication between us and the office instantaneous, and we have had the development of video and images grow to a point where we can view videos of our family thousands of miles away live through the internet.

Sadly, despite all this technological development, many business presentations delivered today are stuck in the 1990s. There are few or no images to help make a point easier to understand, and the use of video in presentations is woefully poor. Either the videos used have no relevant point to the presentation, or there simply are no videos at all.

Many people blame PowerPoint, but that is not true at all. PowerPoint has developed throughout the first ten years of the new century making the use of images and video much easier.

What seems to have happened is that while technology has moved forward, business managers, who trained in the 1990s have not.

I have heard all sorts of excuses for the typical, boring, text dominated presentations. The best one so far is:

“Our customers don’t like modern presentations”

What complete rubbish! Your customers time and time again, when asked, say they hate boring old presentations. So why are you still delivering ‘boring old presentations’?

Part of the problem, I think, is that managers trained in the 1990s have not kept up with modern business thinking. What I mean by that is that managers still believe that facts, figures and details are what sell products.

Yet, in a world of instant messaging, cable and satellite TV, teleconferencing and smartphones your customers’ attention span has dropped dramatically. While in the past it was thought that an average person could focus on one thing for about fifteen minutes, today that figure has dropped to less than five.

What your customers what to know now is “how will your product or service benefit me?” And you have about ten minutes maximum to get that message across to them. If it takes you longer than that, I am sorry, but you will have lost your customer.

What your customer wants in the twenty-first century is a presentation that is informative and gives me the answer to the question “how will it benefit me?”

The details should be supplied to your customer on a fact-sheet. This will contain all the data, and boring technical details for your customer to go through at a later time if that is what they want to do.

So please, wake up and join us in the twenty-first century. Stop creating presentations that are boring and full of text, facts and figures and use a little imagination. Have your design team create your slides and tell them that you want to have a presentation that is visually appealing and containing as few words as possible.

People often ask me “how can I present like Steve Jobs?” the answer to that is simple:

First create visually, but relevant slides with little or no text

Second, rehearse, rehearse and rehearse.

It really is as simple as that.

To always be seeking to make better and better presentations I spend a lot of time surfing the internet looking at photography blogs. Not only do they give me ideas for slide design but they also give me inspiration to keep improving my own photography habit – which I confess is strictly as a amateur.

One of the best blogs out there is Scott Kelby’s “Photoshop Insider” blog. I have been a big fan of Scott’s blog for many years now and it is full of amazing tips, tricks and ideas that any presenter can learn from.

So check it out and see if you too can be inspired.

One of the biggest problems in the world of presenting today is that too many people put far too much information and detail into their slides. When you do this, you loose the focus of your presentation, and this ultimately leads to your audience becoming bored and finally to fall asleep.

Take a look at the video below from Holiday Inn Hotels. The wonderful simplicity of the advert would make brilliant presentation slides. There is an image (a relevant image) and just two simple words.

The picture captures the emotion and the words create the message. There is nothing complex, there are not bullet points, lists, charts or graphs. Just a simple image with a simple message. And that is all you need to do to create amazing presentations today. Sadly, too many presenters do not do this and that is why presentations today have such a bad name.

Over the last few days, there has been much comment of the slide that was featured in the New York Times newspaper regarding the slide that Gen. Stanley A McChrystal, leader of the American and NATO forces in Afghanistan was shown when took over the leadership in Afghanistan.

Gen. McChrystal was heard to comment “when we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war”.

There are far too many problems with this slide to go in to here, but here is my take on the whole debate:

PowerPoint and Keynote are tools that can be used to enhance our presentations, and can both be useful in conveying our message in a stronger and more friendly manner than by words alone. However, over the years our presentation software has become the main focus of our presentation, and that is where we are going wrong. PowerPoint and Keynote were never developed to be the main focus of the presentation. They were developed to help the presenter.

The above slide is creating news now, but I have sat through hundreds of presentation with slides similar to this one. Presentations where the text was too small and there was far too much detail in the slides. This never enhances our message, this always confuses our message and our audience will just turn off.

During the Battle of Britain in World War II, there was no PowerPoint or Keynote software, and so the British airforce used a table, with models for aircraft and a map to follow the war. This not only simplified a very complex battle, it also enabled the leaders of the war to fully understand what was happening in a clear and accurate way.

While today we may not have access to tables with maps and models, we do have access to white boards and flip charts. When we are faced with describing a very complex situation, the use of flip charts and white boards can make the explanation much easier for our audience. We must always remember, that when it comes to presenting, PowerPoint and Keynote are just one kind of tool from many different kinds. The key to a good presentation is simplicity, not detail.

There is a lot of comment on this article. For more insights and opinions please see:

Nancy Duarte of the Slide:ology blog

Guy Kawasaki on the Holy Kaw blog

I am a big fan of an advertising style that is called “concept ads” These ads are just simple pictures with a very powerful message.

In todays world when most people are in too much of a rush to even notice advertisements on billboards and in magazines, these ads have such a powerful image, that they make the viewer stop and think. The example above is from the World Wildlife Fund, and the message is simple and clear. There really is no need for a lot of text to explain these pictures.

We can learn so much from these kinds of ads when it comes to designing our slides. These ads show that we really do not need to write a lot of text to get our message across. All we need is an image that is relevant, simple and clear.

For more images on these kinds of ads you can view some examples by going to the following websites:

Flickr’s concept ad group

The graphic design blog

슬라이드 이미지 만들기

지난 주 금요일 오후, 아름답게 핀 벚꽃들을 촬영하러 올림픽 공원에 다녀왔습니다. 벚꽃을 찍으면서 마음속으로는, 나중에 있을 프레젠테이션에 이 사진들을 어떻게 이용할 수 있을까 생각했습니다. 이런 생각은 제 사진찍는 방식을 바꾸어 놓았습니다. 이미지에 텍스트 삽입할 공간을 남겨 사진을 찍는 것처럼 말이죠.

이런 생각은 정말 중요합니다. 만약 정기적으로 프레젠테이션을 하신다면, 사진 파일을 모아보시기 바랍니다. 이런 파일들이 현실적인 느낌을 갖는 멋진 슬라이드를 만들어 내는데 큰 도움이 될 것입니다. 위의 사진에서 볼 수 있듯이, 벚꽃은 오른쪽에 있으면서 왼쪽에 텍스트를 위한 충분한 공간을 남겨 주고 있습니다. 이 사진은 현재 제 컴퓨터의 “Stock Photos” 폴더에 저장되어 있습니다. 그러니 나중에 이 사진을 프레젠테이션에 사용할 수도 있고, 또 저작권이나 사용허가에 관해서 걱정할 필요가 전혀 없는 훌륭한 사진이 되는 셈입니다. ㅎㅎ

이전 포스트에서, “Stock Photos” 폴더를 만드는 것에 관하여 언급한 적이 있습니다. 이렇게 폴더를 만드는 것은 창의적인 무언가가 특별히 떠오르지 않거 나 아예 생각나지 않을 때 정말 많은 도움을 줄 수 있습니다. 이런 사진들은 여러분들에게 영감을 주고 슬라이드에 훌륭한 이미지가 되어 주기도 합니다.

또 다른 유익한 정보 하나! 전문 사진작가인 Tomas Hawke는 Flickr.com에서 훌륭한 포토 스트림을 가지고 있습니다. Thomas는 기존의 작가들과는 다르게, 그의 Flickr 스트림에 있는 대부분의 이미지들을 “Creative Commons” 라이센스안에서 사용할 수 있도록 설정해 놓았습니다. 프레젠테이션을 위한 이미지가 필요하시다면, 이곳에서 무료로 사용하실 수 있습니다. (단, 저작자표시, 비영리 사용등의 제한이 따릅니다.)

컴퓨터 안에 프레젠테이션을 위한 사진 앨범 폴더 (“Stock photos”)를 만들어 프레젠테이션을 미리 미리 계획 하신다면, 준비 시간을 줄일 수 있을 뿐만 아니라 놀라운 영감도 얻게 될 것입니다. 그러니, 오늘 당장 사진첩 폴더를 하나 만들어 보시기 바랍니다.

Last Friday afternoon I went out to take some pictures of the wonderful cherry blossom in my local park (Olympic Park, SE Seoul). While I was taking these pictures, I had in my mind how I could use these images as slides in future presentations. This thinking changed the way I took the photographs as I had to think about leaving space in the images for text.

And that is a very important point. If you do presentations regularly, collecting a file of photos can really help you to create some amazing slides, that have a real feel to them. As you can see from the above slide, the cherry blossom is placed on the right side of the image leaving plenty of space on the left for text. This image is now placed in my “Stock Photos” file on my computer, so in future, I have a great image, with no worries about copyright or usage.

In a previous post I mentioned about creating a “Stock Photo” folder, and the creation of this folder can really help you when your creative juices are not flowing particularly fast. These images can give you inspiration, as well as some amazing images for your files.

As a postscript to this. Professional photographer Thomas Hawke, has an amazing photo stream over at Flickr.com. Thomas is an unusual photographer as most of the images he has made available on his Flickr stream are on the “Creative Commons” licence, so you are free to use these images for your presentations (subject to certain limitations)

Planning ahead by creating a stock photo album on your computer can not only save you some time, it can also give you some amazing inspiration. So start creating today.

There seems to be some kind of unwritten rule that makes most presenters type their text in a straight line. I do not know where it comes from, but if you only think in straight lines, then you are going to find it hard to design some exciting and interesting slides.

There is nothing in any rules that says you must keep all your text in straight lines. You can let yourself go and have some fun by slanting or tilting you text in your slide.

When using images, tilting your text can really make your slide come alive. But, you need to make sure that the tilt fits in with the image. I would suggest that you play around and see what looks best when you place the text in to your slide.

By using the horizon in the middle of the picture, I was able to place the main text in this slide on a natural slant that fits perfectly with the image.

Always remember that you have the power to place you text anywhere you like in the slide, the only rule I would suggest you follow is that the text and image balance each other, and you can use your own eye to see this balance.

So remember, you do not have to keep your text in straight lines, you can tilt it, you can even make your text vertical. The most important thing is that you have some fun and keep the balance.

대부분의 프레젠테이션을 살펴보면, 슬라이드 텍스트를 수평으로 정형하는것이 발표자들 사이에서 일종의 불문율처럼 보여집니다. 저도 언제 어디서부터 이런 규칙이 생겼는지는 잘 모르지만, 만약 여러분이 텍스트 디자인을 항상 수평으로만 생각하신다면, 무언가 재미있고 흥미로운 슬라이드를 디자인하기가 어렵다고 느끼시게 될 겁니다.

모든 슬라이드 텍스트를 반드시 수평으로 정렬해야 한다는 규칙은 세상 어디에도 없습니다. 여러분 모두, 세상에 있지도 않은 그런 규칙에서 벗어나, 텍스트를 기울여도 보고 비스듬하게도 만들어 보면서 슬라이드 디자인을 즐겨보시기 바랍니다.

슬라이드에 이미지를 삽입하실 때, 텍스트를 비스듬하게 놓으시면 여러분의 슬라이드를 더욱 더 생동감 넘치게 만들 수 있습니다. 하지만 기울인 텍스트와 이미지가 서로 조화를 이루는지 확인 해 보셔야 합니다. 이미지와 함께 텍스트를 이곳 저곳 놓아보시면서 슬라이드에 가장 잘 어울리는 부분을 찾아보시기 바랍니다.

위의 그림 중간에 보이는 수평선을 응용해, 그 수평선을 따라 메인 텍스트를 자연스럽게 기울여 이미지와 퍼펙트하게 어울리는 슬라이드를 만들어 보았습니다.

슬라이드의 주인은 바로 여러분 자신입니다. 슬라이드 안의 텍스트는 여러분이 원하시는 곳 어디에든 넣을 수 있다는 것을 항상 기억하시기 바랍니다. 한가지 여러분이 따라 주셔야 할 점은, 여러분 자신의 시각으로 텍스트와 이미지 사이의 조화를 찾아보시고, 이 둘이 서로 발란스를 이루도록 해야 한다는 것입니다.

그러므로 기억하세요! 텍스트를 꼭 수평으로 유지해야할 필요가 없습니다. 텍스트를 기울일 수도 있고, 수직으로 만들수도 있는 것입니다. 가장 중요한 것은 텍스트와 이미지의 발란스를 유지하고, 텍스트를 이곳 저곳 놓아보면서 디자인을 마음껏 즐기는 것입니다.