Comm Comm

Revisiting Presentation Design

SlideRocket recently sent me this e-book on The Secrets of Compelling Presentation Design.  It was worth the read and a good reminder of some of my favorite tips. 

1. Keep it Simple – your background, fonts, content should all be straightforward so your audience can easily assimilate information
2. Use Images – a picture is really worth 1,000 words and can convey a concept much more succinctly than bullet points
3. Keep it Relevant – only use design elements (color, transitions) and multimedia (video, sound) that add meaning to your presentation
4. Be Repetitive – you know your material well, but the audience doesn’t and they will only remember your message if you repeat it frequently
5. Close Strong – your presentation doesn’t end after your last point, but rather after you’ve summarized all your points and given the audience clear instruction on what to do with the information they just learned

The underlying factor in every presentation tip is the audience.  Keep your audience in the forefront of your mind through the entire process and you will be more likely to satisfy them and, therefore, reach your presentation goal.    

Thankful to Those Who Share

Thanks to EF and NetApp for the invitation to the Silicon Valley Philanthropy Day awards luncheon.  It was inspirational to hear from so many organizations and people who are making significant changes in our community through their philanthropic efforts.  Leah Toeniskoetter was awarded Outstanding Volunteer Fundraiser for her work with Valley Medical Center Foundation.  An avid bike rider who has completed 5 Death Rides, Leah raised funds for Turning Wheels for Kids, providing bikes for children who cannot afford them.  In her acceptance speech, Leah highlighted three critical elements for success:

1. Fundamental belief in the mission
2. Dynamic leadership – leaders who motivate others
3. Support of others – people and also employers who create a culture of giving

Of course, all of those critical elements require excellent communication skills.  And, speaking of excellent communication, Hannah Nguyen and her cohort from Pacific Autism Center for Education’s Youth Leadership Committee, were the audience-favorite speakers.  They won the award for Outstanding Philanthropic Youth Organization and gave an acceptance speech that was articulate and elegant.  The youngest of the award recipients, they were the most well spoken.

Robert Grimm won the top award for Silicon Valley Community Foundation Outstanding Philanthropist.  Bob’s approach, described as  ‘philanteer’ combines philanthropy and volunteerism.  Where he puts his money, he also puts his time; most notably "The Garage" that morphed into The Tech Museum.  His talk of all the organizations in which he is involved was motivational.

Thanks to Association of Fundraising Professional Silicon Valley Chapter for honoring these Philanthropic Leaders.  In the month of Thanksgiving, I have gratitude to all those in our community who share with others.   

State of Start-Up Presentations

I watched the Vator Splash SF presentations through two lenses.  The first was that of a technology enthusiast, always wanting to learn what bright people are inventing.  The second was that of a communication expert, curious about how entrepreneurs are presenting. 

Through the first lens, I saw some interesting technology. The People’s Choice Winner was Building Layer, which maps the inside of buildings.  The Vator Splash Winner was Front Door Software, which protects portable computers using the smarts of traditional security systems.

As the communication expert, I gathered data on the multimedia learning principles of using visuals, signaling, and full sentence headlines.  What I found is that pictures are pervasive, but signaling and full sentences are rare.

Pictures – photos, graphs, and screenshots – were used heavily in 9 of 10 presentations.  That is the good news.  Showing visuals while telling a story is the best way for people to learn the information being presented.  My catch phrase is “Show the glory, tell the story.”  The presenters at Vator Splash did a good job showing the glory. 

This same multimedia learning principle indicates that bullet points flood the verbal channel of the brain with too much information, since the same channel processes words heard and read.  More good news on this front.  Seventy percent of presentations contained NO BULLET POINTS.   Only one presentation was heavy on bullet points and one on text in paragraphs.

The bad news is that not a single presenter gave an overview or summary.  There was essentially no signaling.  Signaling helps the human brain assimilate information by setting a map of where you are going, where you are, and where you have been.  My catch phrase is “Use a cue, they’ll follow you.” Now these presentations were short and many presenters may think that eliminates the need for a visual agenda and summary, but not so. 

Even if you are giving an ‘elevator pitch’ you still want to give a cue or preview.  Stating your three key points in the beginning and the end will help your audience remember what you had to say, which, after all, is the whole point of your presentation.

The other pointer to remember is to put your headlines in full sentences.  Research has shown that a full sentence headline and a relevant picture is the best slide combination for learning. Building Layer was the only presentation that used any full sentence headlines – hey maybe that is why they got the People’s Choice Award.

In addition to enjoying the slew of new innovations, Vator Splash was a good opportunity for me to take a pulse of the state of start-up presentations.  Net, net – the trend is going in the right direction.  More pictures, less bullets.  Now all we need are previews, summaries, and full sentence headlines.

 

It is All in A Name

Billionaire Vinod Khosla doesn't want to be called a venture capitalist.  And that is news.  Both the Wall Street Journal and Forbes ran a blurb on this fact.  Now that is good PR. 

"Call him a visionary for his role co-founding Sun Microsystems Inc. Call him a rainmaker for his prescient investments in companies like Juniper Networks while at Kleiner Perkins. Call him a pioneer for his early commitment to clean technology at his firm Khosla Ventures.You can call billionaire Vinod Khosla many things. Just don’t call him a venture capitalist," quotes the Lizette Chapman, Venture Capital Dispatch, The Wall Street Journal.

" “I call myself a venture assistant,” Khosla said. “It’s about assisting entrepreneurs.”," quotes Tomio Geron, Forbes.com.

I guess when you've had as much success as Vinod, that you can asked to be called whatever you like.  After all, it is all in a name. 

But, I beg to differ on his negative take of the definition of Venture Capitalist.  Working with the breed for over a decade, I say that those who do it well, do it by assisting entrepreneurs.  VCs who get into the trenches alongside management teams are those who foster success.  They call themselves Venture Capitalist and they do so with pride.  After all, it is all in a name.

Amusing video about the life of venture capital.

58,000 Students

As a university teacher, a lover of technological advances, and a communication scholar, the notion of 58,000 students participating in a free online course enthrals me.  Today's NY Times article, "Virtual and Artificial, but 58,000 Want Course" describes how Peter Norvig and SebastianThrun are offering a course on artificial intelligence this fall through Stanford. Anybody, not just enrolled Stanford students, can sign up for the course.  Non-Stanford students won't get credit, but they will get access to the same course.

According to the article, "The two scientists said they had been inspired by the recent work of Salman Khan, an M.I.T.-educated electrical engineer who in 2006 established a nonprofit organization to provide video tutorials to students around the world on a variety of subjects via YouTube.“The vision is: change the world by bringing education to places that can’t be reached today,” said Dr. Thrun."

From a communication scholar's perspective, opening up a course to 58,000 students is most certainly changing the world through education.  So how can technology make it happen?

Apparently is starts with the basics of streaming Internet and interactive technology for quizzes and grading.  But, to avoid systems crashing, Stanford will use Amazon Cloud. Google Moderator services will help manage the barrage of student questions by polling and ranking questions that are most prominent.  Top-ranked questions will be answered in online discussion with the professors. In order to foster student-to-student interaction, a study group on reddit has been formed. 

An interesting experiment in using technology to communicate and educate world wide, I look forward to watching it unfold. More information on the course can be found at http://www.ai-class.com/. 

 

Visual Presentations

Here is a quick presentation on how you can create more visual presenations.

 

Download TipsVisualPresentationsJuly2011

Communication Critical in Medical Care

We all know intuitively that communication is an important aspect of medical care.  Each of us can recall experiences where a doctor did a good or bad job communicating with us.  For me, the bad job was in the ER just before my mom was diagnosised with colon cancer when I was literally arguing with a doctor who wanted to send her home with antacids without doing any tests.  My 'perseverence' with that doctor resulted in a CT scan that showed the cancer. Boy was that an example of a doctor being unwilling to listen.  The good experience for me was the level of details received from my orthopaedic (Dr. Diefendorf) before, during, and after my rotator cuff repair surgery.  He told me what he was going to do every step of the way and then afterward showed me in pictures exactly what he had done.

Seems the medical community has gone from acknowledging the importance of communication in the abstract to practical implementation.   New applicants to medical schools are being asked to go through the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) process, according to a recent New York Times article, "New for Aspiring Doctors, the People Skills Test."  The applicants have two minutes to review a scenario of an ethical conundrum and then eight minutes to share how they would handle it. They then repeat the same process with more interviewers.   According to the article, ""We are trying to weed out the students who look great on paper but haven't developed the people or communication skills we think are important", said Dr. Stephen Workman, associate dean for admissions and administration at Virginia Tech Carillion."

In an Atlantic Magazine article, "The Triumph of New Age Medicine" the medical community's research and attitudes about alternative medicine is explored.  It is a long article with many interesting angles, but I narrowed in on the effects of communication in the equation.  The article outlines the commonality of many alternative medicine treatments; "These include a long initial meeting covering many details of the patient’s history; a calming atmosphere; an extensive discussion of how to improve diet and exercise; a strong focus on reducing everyday stress; an explanation of how the treatment will unleash the body’s ability to heal itself; assurance that over time the treatment will help both the problem that prompted the visit and also general health; gentle physical contact; and the establishment of frequent follow-up visits."  Two aspects of this typical treatment scenario seem to make a difference 1) good provider/doctor-patient relationships  and 2) improvement of an overall healthy lifestyle. 

Looking at the first aspect in more depth, communication is the core to the development of a good relationship.  According to the article, "A 2008 study on physician-patient relationships found that physicians deemed “exemplars” based on their reputation and awards received were likely to create an emotional bond with patients; to convey to patients that their commitment to caring for them will endure over time; and to imbue patients with “trust, hope, and a sense of being known.”

Good to know that what we all intuit is now being taken seriously by the medical community.  Yet, we still have a ways to go.  As the Atlantic article concluded,  "Every single physician I spoke with agreed: the current system makes it nearly impossible for most doctors to have the sort of relationship with patients that would best promote health. The biggest culprit, they say, is the way doctors are reimbursed. “Doctors are paid for providing treatments, not for spending time talking to patients,” says Victor Montori, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic. A medical system that successfully guided patients toward healthier lifestyles would almost certainly see its cash flow diminish dramatically. “Last year, 75 percent of the $2.6 trillion the U.S. spent on health care was for treating chronic diseases that, to a large degree, can be prevented or reversed through lifestyle change,” says Dean Ornish of UCSF. Who (besides patients) has an incentive to make changes that would remove that money from the system?"

Of course, as patients we can influence change by demanding better communication from all our medical providers, and, when we have the option, voting with our pocket books for better provider relationships.

 

 

Couch it in a Narrative

Harvard Business Review did a short blurb on reserach by Emily Moyer-Guse of Ohio State and Robin Nabi of UC Santa Barbara showing that a narrative is an effective form of persuasion.

The research study had 367 undergraduates view either a narrative or a non-narrative, news-style program about teenage pregnancy.  Those who saw the narrative self-reported that they would be more likely to use birth control, more so that those who saw the news-style program.  According to the research abstract, "Results suggest that entertainment education programming may overcome various types of resistance to persuasion for some viewers by masking persuasive intent and fostering parasocial interaction and identification with characters."

As I have said many times before, humans prefer stories.  It is easier to assimilate information, and, as this research show, be persuaded if communication is in the form of a narrative. 

Persuade with 5 Canons of Rhetoric

When you want to get somebody to change an attitude, belief, value, or behavior -- happens just about every day -- you need to employ the art of persuasion.  A quote from a student of mine:

“Thus, to change a person’s view, their belief or their actions is to slide through their ears and into their skull and embed yourself into their brain.” 

How does one do so?  Rhetoric, of course.  Since it has probably been some time since you studied the 5 canons of rhetoric, here is a short reminder.

1. Invention (inventio) is finding the means to argue your point.

2. Arrangement (dispositio) is the organization of your argument, such as the most common organization of problem/solution or lesser-used refutation.

3. Style (elocutio) is your choice of words and phrasing or how you put together your specific arguments.

4. Memory (memoria) is what you employ to help your audience remember what you tell them, such as repetition, catch phrases, and visuals.

5. Delivery (pronuntiato) is the non-verbal aspect of communication including voice volume and articulation along with facial expressions and gestures.

What I commonly see is that people will put significant effort into the first canon of invention, but very little effort in the remaining four.  It is easy to just come up with the reasons of why somebody should do as you suggest, but that is not enough.  If you employ all five principles, you will be much more effective at persuading others.  Why?  Because people on not just influenced by logic (logos), but also by pathos (emotion or passion) and ethos (credibility).

So the next time you want to persuade, remember there are 5 canons of rhetoric, and use them all.