WHEN INTERNAL COMMUNICATION counsel goes horribly, terribly wrong. "Leading us all to / higher staaaandards"

Framing Expectations

I've posted some thoughts on internal service levels and framing expectations, over at CommLog.

Psychological Priming

BRENT EDWARDS HAS AN EXCELLENT POST up on "priming" (a psychological phenomena in which prior presentation of a word or concept could trigger a memory or other word and make it more accessible) and consonant confusion -- all in the context of a talking Elmo book that some folks heard as asking "Who wants to die?"

Priming, though debated within the academic community, has some strong research behind it. Gladwell devotes a portion of Blink! to the theory, which is where most people have been introduced to the effect. He cites a classic study in which two groups of students were asked to read a long list of unrelated words. Laced through one list were words associated with politeness; laced through the others were words associated with rudeness.

The students were then asked to return to an academic office down the hall to report they'd completed the task. For both groups, a confederate was blocking the door to the office with instructions to continue a conversation with the secretary until asked to move. The rude-word students were more likely to interrupt (and even barge in on) the conversation; the polite-word students were more likely to wait patiently -- some for minutes on end. That's priming.

A savvy speechwriter "primes," seeding a speech with words that will help invoke to broader but indirect strategic associations. Example: If the final part of a speech is to introduce a new strategic direction which employees might greet with caution, I might lace earlier parts of the speech with words that invoke assurance and confidence.

There's more on priming theory here, and John Bargh has produced much of the seminal research.

Tags: brent edwards, priming theory

Lawrence Lessig's Presentation on Google Book Search

STANFORD PROFESSOR LAWRENCE LESSIG IS LEGENDARY for his presentation style (as well as his legal mind). Lessig's style is both minimalist and cinematic, and several folks have written profiles to date [1].

One thing that's been nice is Lessig's willingness to post his presentations online (along with audio of his comments), and he's done so again: He's posted has latest review of the legal issues associated with Google's book search. It's a great example of a dynamic, speaker-augmenting use of presentation software And while it's a style that's likely too cinematic for most internal corporate presentations (especially if you're a junior presenting to senior management), it should, at the very least, act as inspiration (and if you're an outsider who's been brought in to speak, I suggest stealing shamelessly from the "Lessig style"). (Via Joho)

See Garr Reynolds, Sean Kelly, David Hornik, and others.

 

Technorati Tags: lawrence lessig, presentations, presentation style

* Scheduled post, written earlier.
 

More On Presentation Design

AN UPDATE TO THIS POST: Rebecca Blood points to this advice by Garret Vreeland. There are a million "here's how to present" pieces on the web, and this is the most frank, lucid, and absolutely spot-on set of counsel I've seen. Excellent advice, all of it. I'd add to his "stagecraft" section having a basic knowledge of production terms. I originally posted a basic lexicon some time ago at CommLog, but as the formatting is wonky from our change in hosts, I've placed it in the extended entry below.

Technorati Tags: dangerousmeta, presentation design, show production, garret vreeland   

Our Standard PowerPoint Layout

A COLLEAGUE AND I have spent the past few days helping a number of client teams prep for a significant presentation to senior management. We do this from time to time, and when we do our focus is typically on message strategy and credibility. That said, presentation design is a heuristic for both, and we inevitably end up teaching the basics of good v. bad slide design at the same time.

At the firm we take an approach to slide design that is different from traditional corporate practice. Our basic philosophy:

• You are the message: A person can communicate with greater persuasive power than any slide presentation.
• Exception: Pictures that say a thousand words. But they REALLY have to say a thousand words. They should also be high-resolution images, or don't use them. Garr Reynolds has more to say about this, and he's right.
• Your slides should "do no harm": They should never compete with the speaker, and only augment the speaker's point. As a result they should be lean on text and lean on animation (there's only one slide animation that has any taste, and it's the slow fade). Otherwise the audience is paying attention to the slide and not to you.
• Ensure everything is essential: Keep the ink:data ratio as close to 1:1 as possible. This means killing chartjunk and following sound principles of chart and table design. It also means killing all that branding and those logos -- the audience knows who you are.

As we explain this philosophy we typically point people to the research of Edward Tufte, which I'll do now. There's also much more in the CommLog archives if you search for "PowerPoint."

Yesterday we spent a lot of time coaching around the physical design of slides so they best reflect our approach. As we did I referred to the "CRA presentation style" more than once, and thought it might be useful to describe the physical setup of our standard PowerPoint template here as an example.

Our PowerPoint template comes in two flavors: White background and dark background. Here's a shot of each. We use the dark background in dark rooms, and the white background in light rooms (you may click any of these images for a larger view).

We've honored the Golden Ratio by matching the proportions of the slide itself to that of the Golden Rectangle (1:1.618). In our case the slides are set to be 10" wide and 6.18" high. This "letterbox" look is more interesting, permits more interesting layouts, and looks great when you project.

We use Gill Sans font, our preferred font for headings in documents across the firm (we use Garamond for text). Gill Sans is easy on the eyes, has an interesting feel to it, and holds up well regardless of text size.

When we use images (which we prefer to do over text ... they help convey an emotional dimension) they're always high resolution, and often full screen.

When laying out images and text, we turn on PowerPoint's "guide" function and set our guides so they reflect the "rule of thirds" and make layout choices based on the guides and their four points of intersection (for more on this go here).

When we DO use bullets, they're as simple as possible ...

So that's our template setup. We think it helps our on-screen stuff be more effective, which is our goal. We've also been inspired by the good taste of Garr Reynolds; go see his stuff. Hope the above is of use.

Technorati Tags: powerpoint, presentations, garr reynolds, information design   

* Cross-posted at CommLog.

Steve Jobs And The Ink To Data Ratio

THIS AFTERNOON I was describing "ink-to-data ratio" to some clients: the ratio of ink on the page / screen to the amount of meaningful information on the page / screen when conveying information visually. You want the ratio to be as close to 1:1 as possible, with every dot of ink / pixel helping to convey some relevant information to the reader / audience.

An example I often use when describing the ITD ratio is the default three-dimension bar charts presentation software (PowerPoint being the greatest offender) often creates -- in a simple graph showing a trend or comparisons along the x axis the depth of the bar conveys no meaningful information, but it does add ink (increasing the ratio of ink to data).

So I get online tonight and -- lo and behold -- Garr Reynolds has written a post about this very topic, but using Steve Job's recent MacWorld keynote as a case study. Many fine and illuminating illustrations, and as usual with Garr, an intelligent point of view. I won't bother presenting the matter further -- go read Garr's take.

Update: What do you know -- Garr points to a full post on the ink-to-data ratio here at MasterViews International.

Technorati Tags: presentation zen, garr reynolds, ink to data ratio, presentations, steve jobs, stevenote 

On Continuous Partial Attention

THE O'REILLY RADAR has a nice account of a recent speech by Linda Stone (former research lead at Microsoft) on "continuous partial attention" -- the diminished state of effectiveness that comes from attending to multiple communication inputs at the same time (noted before on this site here). Here's her hook:

Pop quiz.  It's okay to answer "yes" to a question even if you're contradicting an earlier answer:

• Technology has improved my life
• Technology has harmed my quality of life
• I pay full attention to people when they talk to me, when I am in meetings, when I work
• I pay partial attention to what I'm doing and I'm scanning my devices or software for other inputs
• Technology sets me free
• Technology enslaves me

In 1997 I coined the phrase "continuous partial attention".  For almost two decades, continuous partial attention has been a way of life to cope and keep up with responsibilities and relationships.  We've stretched our attention bandwidth to upper limits.  We think that if tech has a lot of bandwidth then we do, too.

With continuous partial attention we keep the top level item in focus and scan the periphery in case something more important emerges.  Continuous partial attention is motivated by a desire not to miss opportunities.  We want to ensure our place as a live node on the network, we feel alive when we're connected.  To be busy and to be connected is to be alive.

We've been working to maximize opportunities and contacts in our life. So much social networking, so little time.  Speed, agility, and connectivity at top of mind.  Marketers humming that tune for two decades now.

Now we're over-stimulated, over-wound, unfulfilled.

Sound familiar?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: turn the stuff off. Shut off the computer and turn off email auto-notification (after all, we have a mailbox outside the house that's available to people 24-7, but we don't check it 40 times a day, do we?). Frankly, shut off your cell phone, pager, Blackberry, and Treo while you're at it.

We need white space to think, work, and process. You may not be accessible, but trust me: you're still available. If somebody absolutely needs to get you during that hour or two (or three), they will. As you can probably surmise from this blog, I'm one of the most technologically connected people out there. That said, I unshackle those channels all the time (it's one of the reason so many of the posts here are noted "scheduled post, written earlier" -- when I blog, I blog, and when I don't, I don't).

It's essential to a decent workflow, and frankly, quality of life. Communication technology affords enormous advantages, but every technology also creates it's own problems -- continuous partial attention being one.

From time to time each day, unshackle the new media and set your work free. You'll be glad you did.

Tags: linda stone, continuous partial attention, oreilly radar

 * Guess what: Scheduled post, written earlier.

Jobs On Stage

HIS STEVENESS delivered his MacWorld keynote yesterday -- likely the most watched and critiqued senior executive speech in the world each year. Watch it via streaming video here (free QuickTime required) and see a senior exec. doing the on-stage thing about as well as it can be done. He does so well, in fact, that he easily breaks one of my rules: Give no speech over 20-30 minutes in length. It's a great example of how an authentic performance and interesting content can suspend time (and of those two, interesting content is much more important).

Job's focus on prep for the keynote is legendary, and there's a nice inside account of it here. He follows my Paul Newman Principle: He doesn't practice because he's Steve Jobs; he's Steve Jobs because he practices.

It's also a lesson in presentation development: You'll surely note that Jobs slides and the ones you likely see and produce at the office don't have much in common. (Yours should look more like his.) For more on the "right way" of PowerPoint / slideware development, visit Presentation Zen.

Technorati Tags: Steve Jobs, MacWorld, Speeches, Leadership, Presentation Zen

* Scheduled post, written earlier.
 

Miscommunication

FOUND THIS ON FLICKR:

Funny - that's just how we represent it at work. Actually, it's not that inaccurate. One stick person is saying "dots" while thinking "dashes"; the other is saying "plusses" while thinking "triangles." With a little symbol replacement, it could easily be one stick person saying "I'd like that by Tuesday," thinking "... because if I miss my deadline I'm going to get fired," while the other stick person is saying "Tuesday is no problem," thinking "... but if I miss it by a day or two it sounds like no big deal."

There you have it: Miscommunication (in this case, because of presumed and un-articulated context on the part of both parties).