While reading Dan Roam's blog today I stumbled on this great little clip of a 1966 Kermit the Frog skit on visualization from the Ed Sullivan show. And then I found an earlier version of the skit from the 1950s below. Jim Henson truly was a creative genius and a pioneer (and either he — or Kermit — was ahead of his time). In this skit from the old Sam & Friends show — which is even before my time — Kermit and Harry the Hipster do a riff on visual thinking (I love the visualization of jazz...).
Dan Roam's @ Google talk
And speaking of the power of visualization, there are a lot of good books out there on the topic, and one of my recent favorites is Dan Roam's Back of the Napkin (which I mentioned before). I recommend his book, but if you've got too much to read already then at least set some time aside to watch Dan's Google talk below. Dan makes many good points in the book (and this presentation). One of his points straight off is that the ability to visualize and even to draw is already within us. The problem is, after the age of six or so we're shunned away from visual thinking as we go through formal education. Obviously reading and writing, etc. are very important. No one is saying we need less of that. The problem is the visualization capabilities that are naturally within us never get fully developed in most of us. I wonder if this is part of the reason why most presenters fall into the old and excruciating bullet-point trap.
Above: A short (1:52) intro about this topic made in Keynote (link to video on bliptv).
Can you learn how to make better slides by looking at a few signs around your local IKEA store? This may sound absurd, yet the lessons are all around you, and you can indeed learn a lot from a well-designed billboard, including those created by IKEA. On page 140 of Nancy Duarte's Slide:ology, Nancy says that good slides in many ways are most similar to billboards. That is, the audience should be able to get the meaning in a very short amount of time.
"Presentations are a 'glance media' — more closely related to billboards than other media.... Ask yourself whether your message can be processed effectively within three seconds. The audience should be able to quickly ascertain the meaning before turning their attention back to the presenter." — Nancy Duarte
In yesterday's jazz post I mentioned Ken Burns, one of my favorite documentary film makers and storytellers of our time. He is perhaps most famous to many people for the "Ken Burns effect," a technique for adding motion to still photography. In this technique life is given to a photo by slowly panning or zooming in or out to give emphasis or create drama, etc. Burns learned the technique from his mentor in the '70s and applied it in the making of the documentary Brooklyn Bridge in 1981 (nominated for an Academy Award). The effect first appeared in software (as the "Ken Burns effect" at least) in Apple's iMovie several years ago. Below you can see a good example of the Ken Burns style in this powerful introduction to the documentary Jazz. The first five minutes is mostly old film clips, but after that you begin to see the usage of old photos set to subtle motion. The beauty of it is you really never notice. The modern interviews, the voice over, and the mixing of still images with motion picture footage is smooth and seamless. Like any good art, the viewer doesn't notice the technique. What they notice, and are taken in by, is the whole of the visual experience and the narration, that is, the story.
Ken Burns on the "Ken Burns effect" Below is a great piece featuring Ken Burns explaining the power of the technique and a funny story of how Ken met Steve Jobs, etc. Really good stuff.
A few days ago Mental Floss (the blog) ran a nice post that was an extension of an article they ran in their Mental Floss magazine on Miles Davis and his 1959 album Kind of Blue. Young jazz students learn early that Kind of Blue is one of the greatest jazz albums ever recorded and is required knowledge for all aspiring jazz players. I said many times before that the parallels with jazz and presentation run deep and wide. The Kind of Blue album is a great example of what's called modal jazz. It's difficult to explain what modal jazz is: according to ModalJazz.com "...in a modal jazz song, improvisations are based on individual scales or modes rather than on the overall key of a piece. The result is a song that contains fewer chord changes and allows more time and freedom for melodic improvisation. In essence, it's about a return to melody." Modal jazz has a simpler presence and a more organic feel to it, and it allows the players more freedom for expression. We can relate presentations at least in spirit to what Miles was going for with music and expression in the early '60s.
Miles knew it took a very special kind of musician to deal with this lack of structure — it's harder and scarier. Likewise, in our world of presentation, it takes the kind of person who is willing to get in front of slides that are minimalistic and let the words come from both his mind and his gut, from both his reservoir of knowledge of the material and the compelling energy of his imagination which together follow a theme and are in sync with the visual. You need some structure and you need a theme, but often storytelling (and that's what jazz is at its core) is enhanced with minimal structure, allowing for greater amplification of meaning.
Ken Burns' Jazz on Kind of Blue Interesting discussion below on Kind of Blue from Ken Burns' documentary called Jazz. (Note also how Burns mixes in still photography, voice over, and interviews; presentation lessons here too.)
The power of economy A lot of the big keynotes at tech conferences seem so unnatural — lots and lots of stuff, but the most basic question — "so what?" — is never answered. It's interesting that one of Miles' most famous songs is So What. So what indeed. If you can not answer this, all is lost. It's not about more "stuff" — often there is more meaning, and even more beauty, in doing more with less. There is beauty in economy. This is true in art, music, design, ...and in presentation. The legendary jazz players, it is said, were great economist — they understood the concept of economy and could do amazing things with just a single note, and they certainly knew the power of silence or "the empty space." Young musicians too often feel that the music is about the dazzle and bedazzle and making an impression. The great, wise jazz musician knows, though, that it's about the story — this story right here and right now — a story that is never expressed exactly the same way twice. (Hear a live version of So What from 1959 below.)
Finally! Nancy Duarte, the Principle of Duarte Design (the firm behind the creation of Al Gore's Oscar-winning presentations), has published a presentation book for the rest of us. It's called Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations. Slide:ology is practical, it's highly visual, and it's beautiful. I love this book. Slide:ology should come bundled with every copy of PowerPoint or Keynote ever sold from now on. I received a draft copy about three months ago that blew me away — the final product is even better than I expected. I just got my copy over the weekend. At 274 pages, the book is meaty without being bloated. This book is not the last word on presentation, but it's the best book on the art (and science) of creating and delivering presentations with the help of multimedia written to date. Period. A really cool feature in the book is that many of the presentations Nancy shows in her book are available for download or can be seen via video on a specially created Slide:ology website for free. There are no longer any
While reading Dan Roam's blog today I stumbled on this great little clip of a 1966 Kermit the Frog skit on visualization from the Ed Sullivan show. And then I found an earlier version of the skit from the 1950s below. Jim Henson truly was a creative genius and a pioneer (and either he — or Kermit — was ahead of his time). In this skit from the old Sam & Friends show — which is even before my time — Kermit and Harry the Hipster do a riff on visual thinking (I love the visualization of jazz...).
And speaking of the power of visualization, there are a lot of good books out there on the topic, and one of my recent favorites is Dan Roam's Back of the Napkin (which I mentioned before). I recommend his book, but if you've got too much to read already then at least set some time aside to watch Dan's Google talk below. Dan makes many good points in the book (and this presentation). One of his points straight off is that the ability to visualize and even to draw is already within us. The problem is, after the age of six or so we're shunned away from visual thinking as we go through formal education. Obviously reading and writing, etc. are very important. No one is saying we need less of that. The problem is the visualization capabilities that are naturally within us never get fully developed in most of us. I wonder if this is part of the reason why most presenters fall into the old and excruciating bullet-point trap.
Can you learn how to make better slides by looking at a few signs around your local IKEA store? This may sound absurd, yet the lessons are all around you, and you can indeed learn a lot from a well-designed billboard, including those created by IKEA. On page 140 of Nancy Duarte's Slide:ology, Nancy says that good slides in many ways are most similar to billboards. That is, the audience should be able to get the meaning in a very short amount of time.
"Presentations are a 'glance media' — more closely related to billboards than other media.... Ask yourself whether your message can be processed effectively within three seconds. The audience should be able to quickly ascertain the meaning before turning their attention back to the presenter."In yesterday's jazz post I mentioned Ken Burns, one of my favorite documentary film makers and storytellers of our time. He is perhaps most famous to many people for the "Ken Burns effect," a technique for adding motion to still photography. In this technique life is given to a photo by slowly panning or zooming in or out to give emphasis or create drama, etc. Burns learned the technique from his mentor in the '70s and applied it in the making of the documentary Brooklyn Bridge in 1981 (nominated for an Academy Award). The effect first appeared in software (as the "Ken Burns effect" at least) in Apple's iMovie several years ago. Below you can see a good example of the Ken Burns style in this powerful introduction to the documentary Jazz. The first five minutes is mostly old film clips, but after that you begin to see the usage of old photos set to subtle motion. The beauty of it is you really never notice. The modern interviews, the voice over, and the mixing of still images with motion picture footage is smooth and seamless. Like any good art, the viewer doesn't notice the technique. What they notice, and are taken in by, is the whole of the visual experience and the narration, that is, the story.
A few days ago Mental Floss (the blog) ran a nice post that was an extension of an article they ran in their Mental Floss magazine on Miles Davis and his 1959 album Kind of Blue. Young jazz students learn early that Kind of Blue is one of the greatest jazz albums ever recorded and is required knowledge for all aspiring jazz players. I said many times before that the parallels with jazz and presentation run deep and wide. The Kind of Blue album is a great example of what's called modal jazz. It's difficult to explain what modal jazz is: according to ModalJazz.com "...in a modal jazz song, improvisations are based on individual scales or modes rather than on the overall key of a piece. The result is a song that contains fewer chord changes and allows more time and freedom for melodic improvisation. In essence, it's about a return to melody." Modal jazz has a simpler presence and a more organic feel to it, and it allows the players more freedom for expression. We can relate presentations at least in spirit to what Miles was going for with music and expression in the early '60s.
Finally! Nancy Duarte, the Principle of Duarte Design (the firm behind the creation of Al Gore's Oscar-winning presentations), has published a presentation book for the rest of us. It's called Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations. Slide:ology is practical, it's highly visual, and it's beautiful. I love this book. Slide:ology should come bundled with every copy of PowerPoint or Keynote ever sold from now on. I received a draft copy about three months ago that blew me away — the final product is even better than I expected. I just got my copy over the weekend. At 274 pages, the book is meaty without being bloated. This book is not the last word on presentation, but it's the best book on the art (and science) of creating and delivering presentations with the help of multimedia written to date. Period. A really cool feature in the book is that many of the presentations Nancy shows in her book are available for download or can be seen via video on a specially created Slide:ology website for free. There are no longer any