CommLog

Our Approach To Presentation Design

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 a 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   

Tips for Intercultural Communication

While doing some client research on intercultural communication, I found this simple article from HBS's Working Knowledge. The author offers tips for communicating with a diverse workforce:

1. Learn how the source culture best receives communications.
2. Train international employees early and often.
3. Train the non-foreign-born, too.
4. Assign mentors and take care of the spouses.
5. Practice open-door communication--carefully.
6. In company-wide communications, avoid jargon and slang.
7. Play by the rules and stick to business.

Some of these tips remind me of what we take away in business from uncertainty reduction theory, a seminal theory in intercultural communication. The theory proposes that we seek to reduce uncertainty in our communication interactions. We do this automatically by making predictions at the cultural, sociocultural, and psychocultural level. In other words, we make assumptions about other people based on prior experience or accumulated knowledge. When we communicate with people we don't know or with individuals from an unfamiliar culture, it's critical that we check our assumptions and seek to learn about one another by making factual observations, asking questions, and disclosing personal information that prompts a reciprocal response.

Future of the Global Workplace

"Regular employment" may be dying, making temporary labor a strategic concern.  The world is getting "talent constrained" (India and China especially), and, as a result, labor arbitrage may be the wave of the past.   

For a provocative view of the future of the global workplace, click on to a very interesting interview with Jeff Joerres, president and CEO of Manpower, recently published in the online edition of The McKinsey Quarterly:

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_page.aspx?ar=1709&L2=18&L3=31&srid=27&gp=0

Are Your Stars Aligned?

If you’re thinking about re-designing your organization—remember, it’s all about aligning with your strategy. Strategy—which includes vision, mission and goals—should be the foundation for building your organization, and it should be front and center every time you make a decision about your organization.

Need to decide what your structure and reporting lines should look like? Revising your reward system? Considering how to attract, retain and develop the right people? Trying to foster better collaboration and networking across groups? If you’re tackling any of these challenging issues, you should refer to your strategy as a guidepost for making organizational design decisions.

Jay Galbraith created the star model as a framework for thinking holistically about the major components of organizational design. It’s a great visual and helpful reminder about how all of the pieces of your organization fit together.

An excellent resource on organizational design is Designing Dynamic Organizations by Galbraith, Downey and Kates; it’s user-friendly, a comfortable read and provides a place to dig into details on the star model.

Download Star.doc