Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.
Check out this awesome video presentation created for Daniel Pink’s new book, Drive. It’s a fantastic example of how a video presentation can tell a short, powerful story to sell an idea. Production credit goes to the very talented Lindsey Testolin.
About the presentation
Duke Children’s Hospital needed a new way to tell their story. They wanted to strike an emotional chord with their audience, conveying the importance of the hospital and the countless lives they affect. The presentation was to be shown at The Teddy Bear Ball, the hospital’s large annual fundraiser gala, so it also had to honor the hospital’s many departments and staff.
Our job was to synthesize a huge collection of facts and anecdotes into a single, powerful presentation that was relatable to a non-medical audience. I’d like to share with you some of the thoughts that went into the presentation design process, with several tips you can use for your future presentations.
Tips from behind the scenes
Choosing visuals to depict the work done by a hospital was a challenge. Early on in the process we made the choice to not show any photos of sick children or children undergoing surgery — it’s just too depressing. We wanted to focus on the transformative nature of hospitals, not the reasons for visiting them. So we went abstract and used brighter, happier images while avoiding the stock photo cliches. Rule #1 was always be respectful to the seriousness of the content.
The story has a clear transition from the past to the present. We underscored this transition with the way we used photos in the slides. For the sections about the past, the photos have white borders and shadows and are dropped onto the slide, with the text lying outside the borders of the photos. It creates a look and feel of an old scrapbook. For the sections about the present and future, the photos switch to full-bleed (they are extended to the edge of the slide) with the text incorporated into the images. This more modern, professional feel pulls the audience into the content in a vivid and visceral manner.
The theme of the presentation was “our story,” so we used a repeating visual of children reading storybooks. At the start of each new section, there was a pause in the rhythm and an image of a child holding a brightly colored storybook. This motif culminates at the presentation’s emotional climax with a bold slide depicting a row of huge, brightly colored storybooks. “Our story is just one part of millions of much bigger stories.”
Similarly, we heightened the emotional impact of the story’s climax and ending with an old filmmaking technique. Throughout the presentation, the photos of the children gradually go from wide-shot, to medium close-up, to close-up. By drawing the perspective in closer to the subject’s face, the audience is drawn closer into the storytelling and will make a stronger emotional connection with the content.
I hope you enjoy our presentation and this glimpse into the presentation design process on a project like this. Duke Children’s Hospital is a wonderful organization that does some truly amazing work. It was a pleasure working with them.
(The video version above is set to music from Disney-Pixar’s Up!)
Check out our latest presentation on SlideShare. “The Future of Work” is an educational presentation that explores how incredible technology is changing the way people collaborate on projects and work together on teams. Enjoy!
There comes a time when every company must grow up. Welcome to the new look of Apollo Ideas.
The new website is much more comprehensive — thoroughly explaining our services and the value we bring to organizations.
Be sure to check out our new portfolio. We’ve added example slides from more than twenty presentations we’ve worked on, as well as a dramatic before and after section.
We’ve also officially launched our Facebook and Twitter pages. You can follow us on either one for regular useful tips about presentation design and delivery.
We’re committed to growing as a company. The new apolloideas.com is just one of many changes we’ve been making to enable us to take on larger projects and deliver even higher quality results to you, our clients.
Pictures make presentations better. Here’s why.
A nautical metaphor.
Imagine a big wooden ship sailing into a stormy harbor. The waves crash as the sailors work to secure the ship against the dock. The more ropes the sailors can cast, the more securely the ship will weather the storm.
Think of the ideas in your presentation as ships docking in the stormy harbors of your audience’s minds. The more associations you can make with your ideas — the more ropes you can cast — the better they will be remembered.
The metaphor isn’t too far off from the actual biology of memory making. The more relationships you can associate with an idea, the more neural connections are formed and the more rooted it becomes in your memory. Most mnemonic devices play on this, getting you to associate additional objects or sounds with the thing you’re trying to remember.
Slides give you the opportunity to tap into parts of the brain words alone can’t reach — the picture parts.
Think of the visuals in your presentation as additional ropes to cast. It’s one thing to talk about your idea, it’s a better thing to show it.
Make a memory.
You can see this idea in action in the example slides below.
The slide on the left is a typical text-heavy presentation slide. It’s the speaker’s talking points in bulleted form. It contains everything the speaker is going to say, but doesn’t do much to make it more memorable. You could easily take this slide out and the presentation would be no worse without it — in fact, it may even be marginally better.
The slide on the right is the exact same content, but it uses a picture instead of words to relate the message. The speakers talking points have not changed, they’re just now being spoken instead of read. The audience has an extra trigger at their disposal, a visual cue, to make the content easier to remember.
Which slide resonates more with you?
It can feel risky to not include all of your content on a slide, to go with a visual instead, but your presentation is made stronger because of it. At the end of the day isn’t that the point?
Check out this great TED talk from Dan Ariely about human decision making. I personally love this kind of research. Though it can be a little disconcerting, it’s fascinating to learn about the brain and how we’re not always in as much control of our perception as we think.
Dan Ariely is a behavioral economist and the author of Predictably Irrational. From a presentation design standpoint, his talk is a perfect example of how a data-driven speech can be made captivating when combined with the magic ingredients — 1) good storytelling, and 2) visual slides.
Dan is one of these rare academics who bridges the gap between academia and the general public. His research is cutting edge in the scientific community, and he is able to share it (both writing and speaking) in a way that engages just about everyone.
I’ve had a chance to hear Dan speak in person several times and can say his presentations are always crowd pleasers. Enjoy!
Sprint’s new ad campaign, What’s Happening, is making some serious waves. The ads are brilliant examples of effective marketing and great presentation design.
Sprint spent a lot of money building a new 4G network and had to figure out how to show it off. They could have taken the traditional approach and created a campaign that explains the network’s new features (e.g. “you can transfer so many megabytes per second on our new network!”), but in reality people don’t care much about features — they care about benefits.
My favorite example of selling benefits instead of features was when Steve Jobs first introduced the iPod in 2001. He didn’t describe the iPod as a “4GB music player”; it was “a thousand songs in your pocket”. Big difference.
Sprint clearly understands the power of selling benefits because instead of focusing on what their network can do, their campaign demonstrates what people can do on their network, and on an incredible scale.
The ads are slick examples of how proper pacing, dynamic visuals, and the right amount of humor can make a fact and data driven presentation extremely compelling to watch. You’ll definitely find inspiration in these videos for new, creative ways to present your data in future presentations.
Check out one of the ads below.
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