Geetesh: |
I'm sure there's an interesting story in how you
did this book -- tell us about how slide:ology evolved? |
Nancy:
|
Believe it or not, I wrote all
the copy and assembled the pictures in PowerPoint --
I knew early on that I wanted each page to be similar to
a slide. One key message per spread.
After assembling the
first pass, I pasted them in the hallway at my house. I
studied them every day and wrote notes about each point
I wanted to make. Then, I spent 5 days holed away in
a hotel to finalize all the structure. Once that was
nailed, I wrote like crazy and collected samples of our
work to explain each point.
My Art Director established
the look for the book and then my designer applied the
look to all my PowerPoint content. Even though the final
book looks simple and clean, the development process was messy. |
Geetesh: |
When I saw slide:ology for the first time, I could
see your stamp everywhere in the book. In a way, this book
symbolizes everything you do in the world of slides. How
difficult or easy was it to choose what to include |
Nancy:
|
I tried to include anything useful to presenters that applied
to slides only. Cutting out content around message and
delivery was tough but this book was going to focus solely
on slides and hopefully the next book will cover content
and delivery.
I also had to cut out some of my favorite
stories. They didn't really fit into the structure. After
being in this business for over 20 years, we have some pretty funny
stories. I guess they'll be blog posts. |
Geetesh: |
There are a lot of readers who would want to know
more about Nancy, the person. If you had to put something
about yourself in a small paragraph, what would it be? |
Nancy: |
In many ways I could be a study in contrasts. I'm a passionate
revolutionary and yet a tender soul. Many times I struggle
with feelings of guilt because I get so fired up about
a cause or objective that sometimes I run over people
accidently which I feel enormous guilt about.
OK, that
was WAY too deep. I guess I could have simply said that
I love to hike on the weekends and watch Law & Order
reruns.. |
Geetesh:
|
What's your thought about stories? While it is a new
mantra of combating bad presentations, there are still tons
of slides being created in the corporate sphere that use the
typical bullets and background approach. Is a happy equilibrium
possible? Are we moving to some middle path? |
Nancy:
|
"Story" is such a broad topic. There are meta stories, microstories,
story structures and story telling. Stories can break the dullard spell
that slides have. They also create a more human connection with the presenter.
But if the presenter hasn't worked at creating a strong visual story,
audiences can still become frustrated when the presenter uses their slides
as a teleprompter. Including stories is a good first step but many presenters
aren't able to take the time required to deliver a presentation without
slides-as-crutch. |
Geetesh: |
If there was just one thing that slide:ology could
achieve in helping people create better presentations,
what do you want that to be? |
Nancy: |
The book will change your perspective on what a world-class
slide is. When you begin your next presentation, you'll
create it from a new vantage point and you'll "see" things
differently. |
Geetesh: |
Do
share some trivia with us about an unconventional experience
you might have had that was related to slide:ology -- something
that's never been told before? |
Nancy: |
One of my employees ordered the book on Amazon and promptly
returned it because he thought it was damaged. The texture
on the cover is painterly so some white shows through and he
thought it was scraped. Amazon graciously sent him a second
book and when he received it, he realized that it too had
the identical "scrape" and it was an intentional
design element. Needless to say, if he works AT Duarte and
thought that, we figure that others would too. So we've decided
to remove the white texture on the next print run to avoid
confusion. |
