Cliff Atkinson, a management consultant who specializes in organizational issues related to PowerPoint, sent me his newsletter the other day. He refers to a Harvard Business Review interview with Robert McKee, Hollywood's king of screenwriting. While McKee suggests that we throw away the PowerPoint and rely solely on story, Cliff provides a way to use both.
I shared one of my stories with Cliff, and he walked me through the steps that marry story with visual presentation. Pretending that a director would film the story, we created a storyboard for the major scenes--eight in all.
The next step? Create a PowerPoint presentation with eight blank slides (white background, no text).
From the menu, choose View => Notes Page.From this view, paste each scene's text into the text area.The benefits? Cliff explains:
1. By distilling the story into a storyboard, you become even more intimate with your story’s structure and flow. With text in the Notes section, there's no need for text on the slides.
2. Each slide is now a 'visual trigger'--a trigger that prompts you to continue with the next 'beat' of your story.
3. Each image by itself is ambiguous enough that it requires you to explain it and make the connections. Seeing the slides alone, without text, makes no sense. But with you, it creates a synergy between you, the media, and your audience.
4. After the meeting, give Notes Pages to the gathering. The handout provides a verbal-visual document that can be used to evangelize your story.
These benefits dovetail nicely with story--together, they help you connect with your audience. If you’ve created an edge with great design, your product deserves a great presentation.
Sarah McLachlan’s Fallen is a beautiful song when she sings it. Now, imagine for a second some helium-voiced comedian singing the same poetic lyrics. Not a soothing feeling, is it? If you have a remarkable product, but give a dull, lifeless performance, you might find potential customers looking elsewhere for solutions.
You want to stand out from the crowd, you want to be remarkable, you want to be different. If you aren't different, you’ll disappear into the crowd. Using story is one way to be remembered.
Memorable experiences are important according to Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, authors of The Experience Economy. The authors write, "Those businesses that relegate themselves to the diminishing world of goods and services will be rendered irrelevant. To avoid this fate, you must learn to stage a rich, compelling experience."
Master storytellers use words to paint rich, powerful pictures. Just ask Scheherazade, who staved off nightly threats of execution by telling an enchanting story. Yes, well-told stories have always been powerful.
While others stress, and strive, and strain to influence, you’ll get past the ego defense shield that's put up when people are confronted with facts and figures.
How is this possible?
You, my friend, are using story and images.
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