beyond bullets

Join Me for an Oct. 5 Online Workshop

If you're interested in taking your storymaking or storyboarding skills to the next level, join me in an online workshop tomorrow, Oct. 5, at 9am PT or 5pm PT.

Based on the techniques described in my book, Beyond Bullet Points, the first workshop, Story Template 101, explores how to use the 3-act story template to define and refine your communications. The second workshop, The PowerPoint Storyboard, builds on the basics by exploring a range of visual techniques to apply to your storyboard.

Using the Microsoft Office LiveMeeting web seminar service, you'll be able to view the materials in a browser while we discuss it by phone, and the sessions are recorded for you to view at a later date.  Workshops are $25 per person, and are limited to the first 12 people who enroll, in order to keep interaction levels high. If you can't make it tomorrow, there will be more workshops coming up.

Learn more, or sign up through a web page here.

PowerPoint 2.0

Larry Lessig has been called a PowerPoint virtuoso, and his approach recently inspired Dick Hardt, Founder and CEO of Sxip Identify, to use a similar film-inspired approach in his recent presentation, "Identity 2.0" at a conference called OSCON 2005.

You can view his presentation at this link.

It's very creative, visually interesting, and makes great use of visual humor. You're sure to be inspired to try some of the techniques he used on your own storyboards; and it's a good example of a completely bullet-free presentation.

From a delivery perspective, Dick would have dramatically improved his performance by using a remote control instead of being chained to the keyboard of his computer to advance his slides.  And from a structural perspective, I don't recall the 3 or 4 main points that Dick wanted us to remember and apply after his presentation.  But those are relatively minor quibbles, in light of the innovative and engaging visual story that Dick told.

Although the content of Dick's presentation was "Identity 2.0", I think that the form of the presentation really demonstrated "PowerPoint 2.0", or technically since he was using Apple presentation software, "Keynote 2.0".  Whatever you call it, it presents the much more interesting future that we have to look forward to.