Simple and complex at the same time

I came across this nice diagram with a useful lesson about what we should be doing in life (via Flowing Data).

A neat concept, and the Venn diagram is the right framework to visualize it.

The chart is simple, but it actually takes the reader a few seconds to internalize it. If you want to use something like this in a stand-up presentation, some modifacations to the slides are required:

• Simpler words to express the ideas
• Create more visual space for the overlapping areas
• Animations (unfortunately, I cannot avoid it here) to introduce the circles, introduce the overlaps between 2 of them, introduce the overlap between all 3 of them.

Unfortunately, my slide does not look prettier than the original one, and standing on its own, it does a worse job in explaining the concept. On stage though, it will work better.

The PGDN PGDN PGDN pitch deck to let Mr. VC get it

Another excellent post by Mark Suster on the subject of pitching to VCs, specifically whether you should send your deck in advance. Read the post here, or get an overview of his entire series on VC pitching here.

The main conclusion: do send A deck in advance. As I suspected, VCs double-click the PPT attachment of an email, and go PGDN PGDN PGDN (this fast) until the end before reading the body of the email (if they read this at all).

OK, we all know that most presentations do not stand on their own, and that the presenter him/herself adds 80% to a presentation. To get through to a busy VC though, you have to leave all these ideals behind. Sorry.

Think of this PGDN PGDN PGDN presentation as a specific type of presentation that has a completely different objective from the standup ptich presentation. You try to get the VC to think longer than 60 seconds about your company:

• Use the same graphical techniques you would use to try to grab the attention of volatile SideShare audiences. Big images, big fonts so that someone going click, click, click gets the messages
• Focus the content of the presentation on letting VCs "get it". And this is some of the stuff that entrepreneurs usually leave out. What do you do? "What, you want me to write down that we are making a firewall with a built-in spam filter?" "We do much more than that: we are offering a radically new holestic security concept!" The latter is hard to get...
• "We have no competition". Not useful. VCs trying to "get it" like to put you in boxes, compare you to competitors/companies they know. Make life easy for them.
• A VC who (thinks that he/she) gets it, can spend more time on your company, make some calls

When you make it to the next stage in the process, adjust your presentation (coffee chat, standup presentation to the full partner group of a VC). You can add slides (market potential estimate, company business model and financials, roadmap), but even changing the way you present existing slides can be good. (It is a pain to edit and maintain different versions of the same presentation).

The PGDN PGDN PGDN presentation is not your typical presentation, it is graphically appealing replacement of the elevator pitch in the email body.

OK, OK, I get the point, thank you

Repetition helps the brain to remember things. But when looking at a slide, it is just fine to say things once. OK, OK, I get the point (for now).

Via Noisy Decent Graphics.

Chart concept - kicking the competition out of the game

Anat created another great chart this week to visualize how a company is going to kick the competition out of the game. See the example below with the client-specific details and colors left out.

The image is purchased from iStockPhoto, the balls are standard PowerPoint circles with some "extreme bevel" added to it, gradient shading in the back, the font is Planet Benson 2.

Look - my first zooming Prezi creation

After a first review of Prezi and pptPlex I started to get into a more detail with Prezi. One of the applications of these zooming tools is to create an effect of a perpetually zooming canvas. (There is a series of children books that uses this effect brilliantly.)

You can see my Prezi creation here (put together very quickly). Zoom out with your mouse to get the full picture. All images were taken from iStockphoto.

Zooming around with pptPlex and Prezi

I wrote about pptPlex and Prezi before, but for the first time I actually spend some real time to get into the details with 2 tools to let you design presentations on a big canvas, which you can mover around during a presentation, and you can zoom in and out of.

• pptPlex is a PowerPoint plugin developed by Microsoft as part of their Office labs.
• Prezi is a web-based tool with its own user interface, independent of PowerPoint or Keynote.

An introduction video about pptPlex: An introduction video about Prezi:

Both of these tools have a learning curve, and I would be curious to see whether any of you have tried them out as well. Some of my observations below could simply be because I am ignorant of some of the features of the software.

My overall comment is that I really like the ability to freely move around, zoom in and out in presentation content. For example in fund raising presentations (small smart audience with little time), questions from the audience might take over the pre-set order in which slides are presented. But this also brings me to the main "negative" feedback of these tools: both are basically "frameworks" that link a series of slides or objects. I am missing the ability to design a presentation really as just one infinite canvas. The effect you get in Google Earth: zooming into ever more detail.

• In pptPlex the canvas cannot be controlled 100%. Charts get placed in the grid, but it is impossible to create links between, make them flow over into each other. Also, the PowerPoint editor has natural limitations of zooming into a slide (the building block of the canvas)
• In Prezi it is possible to create one perpetual zooming canvas, but the drawing tools are a bit more basic: it is harder to position shapes exactly, and connect them with other shapes and lines exactly.

Now for some more specific impresseions.

pptPlex

• Installation is a bit tricky, you need to install the latest .net framework. I am a computer science engineer and have reasonable IT skills, but failed to get it to work on a first try. After some time (and probably some Microsoft software updates) I saw the pptPlex plugin somehow pop up in my PowerPoint. Don't really know how.
• pptPlex presentations can only be shown on a PowerPoint installation that has the plugin installed. So given the technical difficulties of doing this, you are bound to running things of your own laptop. Things cannot be shared via email.
• Per my previous comment: the canvas' editing options are a bit limited

Prezi

• The big issue with Prezi is that you have to learn a new user interface. It is straightforward, but still it requires effort. This will make it hard to use this software for group collaborations.
• As a cloud-based tool, presentations get stored in your own web-based storage space. You can export presentations to a Flash player for offline viewing/presenting.
• The graphics capabilities of Prezi are (still) limited. Colors, shapes, fonts, lines, you are restricted to a limited number of pre-set options. You could work around this by using images (that can be imported. In the extreme case you could edit diagrams in another software, save them as JPG and import them into Prezi. But this would make the editing and maintenance process of a presentation very cumbersome.
• Data visualization tools in Prezi are non-existent
• Per my general comment: it is hard to position objects exactly. Prezi is more a freehand object positioning tool than a precise technical drawing utility.
• You can upload PDF files (including converted PPT documents) to Prezi, which will put the slides on the grid (slightly randomly). You can add a path between the slides. But when you now run the presentation it almost becomes like a regular PPT presentation with incredibly spectacular slide transition effects, which I am not a fan of.

On balance, I like the functionality provided by Prezi better. Ultimately, it would be great to have the Prezi functionality completely integrated in the regular PowerPoint environment.

This was some feedback based on an hour of trying things out. I need to take the plung and try to create a real, full presentation in one of these tools to push them to the edge.

Did any of you try these tools out?

Hyphenation and line wrapping - do it manually

When you use very little words on a slide, the position of the them becomes crucial. I always correct the automatic line wrapping manually.

• Make sure that key noun-verb combinations are placed together in one line
• Adjust the text (using different words) to make sure that there are no big empty white spaces in a line because of long words that did not fit in (I rarely use hyphens)
• Re-order "sentences" according to their length

Either the designers of this ad wanted to make something that is hard to read on purpose, or this is a mistake.

Via Ads of the World.

Confident graph lines

The standard chart templates in Excel and PowerPoint create fragile, thin graph lines. No one can see them. Right-click the line and make it bold and fat and it will stand out.

Cool - font designed by following car movements

iQ font - When driving becomes writing / Full making of.

An unusual approach to font design. You can download the font here. Via Swissmiss. If you are into design, you should follow her blog.

No better place than Flickr to get "real" images

The weekend in Israel is starting, I am posting a bit early because of a busy social calendar. Recently I needed a large number of images of young people texting on their mobile phone. Flickr beats any professional stock image site completely in these type of situations where you need "real people". Click through the presentation below to get a sense of the type of images I picked.

Flickr images of people texting

View more documents from Jan Schultink.

All images in this presentation have a Creative Commons license.

WTF - What The Font

I am not sure whether this is new, but I only came across this tool recenlty. You provide What The Font with an image of a text sample and it gives you suggestions what font might have been used.

Video-preview of PowerPoint 2010 - my thoughts

Robert Scoble posted a number of videos with previews of the upcoming Microsoft Office 2010 release. Here is the one about PowerPoint 2010 (speaking is Chris Bryant, product manager on the Office 2010 team):

Here are the main points covered in this video (which does not mean that these are the major new features in PowerPoint 2010)

1. More "cinematic" transitions. More spectacular slide transitions. I never use any form of slide transition, they distract the audience, or worst case: makes them laugh while you are presenting a very serious subject
2. Animation painter. Copy and paste animation effects from one object to another, not essential
3. Better video integration. I like this, I think that video will be used increasingly in presentations. Today, integrating rich media into your presentation is a high-risk activity that is likely to result in things going wrong (technically) in the middle of your presentation. PowerPoint 2010 allows you edit videos and sync them with animations
4. Backstage view: an elaborate screen to control file protection, compression, etc.

Here is my (partial) wish list of features for a new PowerPoint release. Some of them are probably impossible to implement for the moment...

• A powerful 3D engine to control where to put shapes on a surface, where to put light sources, pretty much like professional design programs like AutoCAD. The third dimension is only used to add some effects to a PowerPoint slide, it could be so much more. It would literally open a whole new design dimension to slide design
• Fully integrated canvas zooming a la PowerPoint plex or Prezi, enabling you to work on one big interactive slide that you can zoom in and out of
• A powerful animation control engine, not more flashy effects, but a clear sequence editor to move objects across a slide to exact locations, including a good solution to deal with and edit layers of overlapping objects.
• Tight cloud integration. Files are getting bigger, collaboration changes. This video about PowerPoint 2010 did not address these "workflow" issues, but I think they are being addressed in the overal Microsoft Office 2010 release.

You can sign up for the technical preview of Office 2010 here. The product will ship in early 2010.

Meet Mark on the cover of a typical corporate PowerPoint template

I came across this template in a meeting yesterday. I am not picking on this specific company that is using this PowerPoint template, it is just a great example of templates that almost all companies in high-tech use. "Business-like" settings, professional models and big logos and graphical elements repeated on every page.

Technically, these templates are well executed (images, composition, colors). Your presentations look professional but they do not really stand out. They could look so much better and more original.

I do realize that creating a standard PowerPoint template for large corporations that have thousands of employees, most of them not skilled in PowerPoint, that have to produce documents that look vaguely consistent in format is a challenge.

Some suggestions:

• Avoid professional models in slides, but especially in templates. They are not real people.
• Get rid of "frames" around slides, the blue line at the bottom is not required
• Avoid heavy graphical elements on the page, especially at the top. It makes the slide too heavy
• I do like using images as separators for different sections in presentations. Instead of using images of models, hire a photographer and use real images: anonymous people in the street of cities your offices are located, images of a delivery truck unloading your product for different stores, cafes that feature your beer brand on their building facade. If you want to use people, take real ones (employees from all over the world that use your software) and include many, many, many images to avoid boredom of seeing the same face

A great VC pitch layout

Mark Suster, an entrepreneur-turned VC at GRP Partners, is in the process of creating an excellent outline for a VC pitch presentation. Subscribe to his blog "Both sides of the table" and/or follow his progress on this very useful overview page.

More VC pitch resources here, and my own contributions on the topic are here.

It's OK to start from scratch sometimes

Overheard in the office:

[Person walking into the office] "That's a nice chart you are making there, what is it for?"

[Me] "A fund raising presentation for a new interesting startup."

[Person] "Tell me more about it."

[Me] "OK. It's not confidential. Here is the deal" [Short and sweet story follows]

[Person] "That sounds like a great investment opportunity"

[Person leaves the office]

[Me thinking] "I need to re-write this presentation from scratch..."

Sometimes the best presentations get created after the work is basically finished. All the pieces of the puzzle fall in one place. There is nothing wrong with opening up a blank screen and re-writing the entire deck in one big burst of creativity. It would not have been possible without the time spent on the first version.

Slides that Stick - one year old

My first post was on 11 July 2008. We are 1 year and around 350 posts later. It has been quite a ride.

I started off with the idea of "documenting" some of my basic approaches to presentation design, but gradually moved away from trying to write these (time consuming) "how-to classics". Instead, I am picking 1 idea/concept that comes across my desk, strip it of client-specific details and share it with all of you. More interesting, less time consuming, plus an (almost) endless flow of ideas for blog posts.

This sharing has been the most rewarding aspect of my blog. I am getting to know many interesting people from all over the world. Maybe this post is an opportunity from some of the "anonymous readers" to write a brief introduction about yourself in the comments. Who are you? Where are you from? It would be great to meet you.

What about this: the presentation subtitle?

Here is a new idea. Zen-style presentations with large images and a few words in a big font do not stand very well on their own. Maybe we should apply something from the movies: add subtitles to a PowerPoint slide.

• Crammed in a small black box that blends in with the black frame of the projector
• A small font that can be read when sitting in front of a screen, but blurs away when viewed from a distance (when a presenter is explaining the chart)
• Unlike notes pages, the text appears on the slide itself (in PDF, in SlideShare)

It's like reading a newspaper page:

1. You read the small print under the images first
2. You read the headlines after that
3. You read the actual text last

An example below, click on an image to get a larger picture.

Interestingly, this concept is very similar to the "lead" in the ancient McKinsey exhibit format.

Another problem that would be solved by this is to make the information captured in a presentation searchable. In particular large knowledge firms (such as management consultants) struggle with archiving the knowledge that is hidden in PowerPoint presentations with little text.

Home run image

It is hard to find that one image that tells your entire story, especially when writing fund raising presentations for technology startups. This one comes pretty close: "Dont' lose your contacts when you drop your phone", and ad by Indian mobile phone operator Airtel for a phone address book backup service.

See how the composition of the image creates an enormous depth of field. Although it might clash with a minimalist approach to design, I would put the message in a big bold title on top of the image if I were to apply something like this in PowerPoint. Over-communicating is better just to make sure that everyone gets the point.

A larger image can be seen here on Ads of the World.

Chart concept: the mini-dialogue with text balloons

The text balloon is commonly used in cartoons. It is now making its way in PowerPoint presentations as well. There are 2 fundamental ways in which you can use them.

1. A full-length comic story. For presentations that are designed for online viewing (without the explanations of a live presenter) you could create an entire presentation that is in fact a comic book. Create characters, put them in different scenes and write a dialogue that tells the story. Here is an example. They are beautiful, but take a lot of design work to make, need to be very consistent from page to page, and are basically useless as supporting slides for a live presentation.
2. An example of a familiar situation. How to visualize this familiar situation: "We all know the feeling when you show up at the reception desk and it turns out that there was a miscommunication about the time and place of your meeting because you did not get/read an email". A mini dialogue can do a wonderful job.

If you use mini-dialogues:

• Make sure that text is readable (short, big)
• The point of the dialogue is very easy to understand
• Use a non-cheesy portait image or cartoon character. (Debby would not be good for this type of chart)
• Give the audience a few seconds to digest the slide

An online VC pitch by gapingvoid

While browsing Hugh MacLeod's "gapingvoid" blog (wonderful cartoons) I stumbled across this online investment pitch for an enterprise software startup that calls itself thingamy. There are different phases in VC due dilligence. The 60 second look, the first 15 minute meeting, the first hour spend, sitting through a pitch and finally the complete "turn everything upside down" check on the company.

You should read the blog post by VC-ist Brad Feld about "Saying no in 60 seconds": investors are ploughing through huge deal flows and need to make up their mind quickly to avoid wasting a startup's time, and wasting their own time that they could have spent on deals they want to do, or working with their portfolio companies. It sounds harsh, but a polite "thank you" after a 60 second analysis is still better than no answer at all.

So I took the 60 second stage of due dilligence (as a VC amateur, but a professional presentation ptich designer). My feedback.

Things I really liked:

• It's public. The fact that you are looking ofr money, the story behind your company, all available to see for everyone on the Internet. More startups should have the confidence to do this. Spread your story within the boundaries of proprietary IP.

• The headlines and the supporting cartoons on the 30megs site.
• The completely different approach to fund raising gets you a plus as an entrepreneur/team.

Things that can be improved:

• Getting the practical "what do you actually do" out there quickly. In 60 secons it was still not competely clear to me. I am sure that in an hour I will find it out, but people like Brad Feld have made up their mind by then.
• The menu structure on the company site makes it a bit hard to read the text. Maybe a standard piece of text would have been calmer to the eye.

But all in all my compliments to this bold approach to fund raising. I see a big future for SlideShare as a content distribution platform for a much more open fund raising process, at least for the first 60 seconds of it.

For more useful links on the subject of VC pitch presentations go here.