TUESDAY OCTOBER 7, 2008

Cliché of the Week: The Parthenon (and contest results)

Behold, our revolutionary company strategy! It’s so compelling and powerful that we had to build a temple in order to contain it. The foundation represents our technology platform, which is the foundation of our strategy. The pillars represent…

Sound familiar?

You’ve probably seen the Parthenon slide in a variety of styles and colors (the green color represents future initiatives and the blue color represents…) and you may have even used your own Parthenon slide to explain your company’s five-year strategy.

We’re not here to place blame or criticize. In fact, let’s declare a day of amnesty and forgive the sins of the past. After all, you were just doing the best you could with the tools you had, right? And now that you see the cliché, you can look to the future and unleash your creative energies on the next version of your company strategy.

Like our other clichés, the Parthenon slide has been so overused that it now brings a destructive element to any presentation that uses it. This slide didn’t work for the Greeks (in their early presentations to the Roman empire), and it probably won’t work for you.

So what can you do instead?

Tell a story. How did your new vision/strategy come about? What makes it resonate with you? Instead of building a vision-house, use a good story to captivate the imagination of your audience.
Build a unique graphic. No one said expressing your strategy visually was a bad idea; just don’t settle for uninteresting. Find the shape that truly expresses your company’s unique take on the world. Go creative. Hire an artist. Get out the finger paints. Make something new!
Refine your vision. If your vision has enough parts to build a house with, then it’s probably a little too complicated. Spend your creative time simplifying it.
Write it out. Sometimes words are best. Maybe everyone needs to receive a well-crafted letter from you regarding the future of the company. Print it on thick parchment paper. Seal the envelope with a red wax seal. Have them hand-delivered by messengers. Not every presentation takes place in the conference room. (And I bet they won’t forget about your vision.)

There are a hundred other solutions to the Parthenon slide. Leave your ideas in the comments so we can all try something new next time.

UPDATE—Contest Winners:

Many thanks to everyone who submitted ideas to our last cliché post. We randomly selected three winners:

Jessica R.
Jan S.
Jim D.

We’ll be contacting them via email and sending them an autographed copy of slide:ology. We loved hearing from everyone, so keep the comments coming and look forward to more contests in the future!

Topic: Design, Message
Tags: Clichés, Design, story, Visuals

COMMENTS (5)

Jan Schultink

^{October 7th, 2008

11:42 pm}

Thank you Doug! Today is my lucky day.

About this Pantheon. It actually originated in the days that management consultants (like me) just started to use (overhead projector) slides that were more than just bar/line charts (early 90s).

Rectangles, triangles were easy to draw in software such as Solo. And yes, “vision” was always somewhere at the top. Everyone was really excited about a different way to arrange text in a slide. Including an image in a slide would fill up your entire hard drive…

BlueBerry Pick'n

^{October 11th, 2008

12:36 pm}

I’ve often wondered about the sheer ’see! I made a diagram! Ideas! mystically transformed from crap into substantiated fact!” intensity by which these presentations are hammered at an audience.

Somehow, I’m supposed to be woo’d into an acolytes’ avid & abject receptivity.

You know, I think many an ancient cults’ walls are based on a ‘pssst, cimmmere, lemme explain the universe for you… ‘ come-unto-the-Light tentshow.

“Its mystic, honest… it doesn’t mean anything because you haven’t delved hard enough… here drink this… now go blinking back into the Alley & tell everybody how transformationally meaningful it was or they’ll think you’re a thrill-seeking punter for sitting here in the dark… “

Chris Spagnuolo

^{October 13th, 2008

8:07 pm}

Another cliche: Hands holding a growing plant. Seeing it everywhere these days. Getting a little passe. Enough lants for growth!!! Samples:

http://images.google.com/images?q=hands+plant&btnG=Search+Images&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&sa=2

Gary Smith

^{October 19th, 2008

7:43 pm}

I never thought about how damn cliche that Parthenon is until now. I have seen many people use this over and over and over again…and I must say…it has never been inspiring.

Maybe it reminds me too much of 7th grade world history assignments.

Here’s a much more interesting metaphor I saw lately…the oil rig. Okay it’s not too popular with the green crowd…but it sure does raise a nice emotional reaction…which a good metaphor should do…to break the audience out of their zombie states.

The oil rig has pillars that go down into the sea like hundreds of feet…and also has a nice payoff…like millions of dollars of oil.

So I like this metaphor more because it’s original and it has an emotional tie in to money…which drives every company at the visceral level.

Scott McArthur

^{October 20th, 2008

2:54 am}

Creating a visual dialogue/ metaphor is a challenge for most of us PowerPoint junkies and I have found that referance to the professionals often does the trick. Get hold of a designer and or a strategic artist and use their skills to help you create a no cheese picture!

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