Last night President Barack Obama delivered what could be considered the biggest presentation of the year. In outlining his vision for America and his legislative priorities for 2012, the President attempted to persuade a variety of different audiences – including the United States Congress, business leaders and 25 million members of the American public – that he has a plan to continue improving the lives of Americans.

So how did he do? Leaving aside the merit of his proposals, did he tell a story compelling enough to convince such a broad audience?

Graphic recording of the State of the Union address created by Duarte designer Dave Nguyen

President Obama used several valuable tactics to make his case. Rather than focusing only on statistics when trying to communicate employment figures or strategies to create jobs, he contrasted these statistics with stories of real Americans struggling to make ends meet. After pointing to “millions of Americans” who “are looking for work,” he talked about Jackie Bray, a single mother from North Carolina who found a new job after participating in a training program, and Bryan Ritterby, a man who lost his job in the furniture industry but now works for a wind turbine manufacturer. The president’s speechwriters clearly gave thought to how to personalize the hardships facing many Americans and how to suggest that the president is in touch with these struggles.

Interestingly, both President Obama and Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana (who delivered the official Republican response) evoked the late Steve Jobs as an example of a job creator. Although the two men told very different stories about the role of government in job creation, their common allusion suggests that American cultural references don’t differ as much from Republican to Democrat as we may think.

President Obama also used several clever rhetorical tricks to make certain ideas stand out. He created contrast between “what is” and “what could be” should Congress take his suggested action. For example, he used this strategy when describing the tax code.

Even his call to action contained this contrast by comparing what we need to “stop” and what we need to “start.” He used this type of language repeatedly throughout the speech to help reinforce his message that America’s “future is hopeful” if we move forward.

He also consistently used visual language and phrases meant to resonate and be repeated. When describing Washington partisanship the president said we have to “lower the temperature in this town” to end the “perpetual campaign of mutual destruction.” He evoked the ideas of historical figures like the “Republican Abraham Lincoln” to emphasize the possibility of uniting Washington and the country. And he played on the words of President John F. Kennedy when he challenged business leaders to “ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country” and promised that “your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.”

President Obama saved the most memorable part of his speech for the close. But his S.T.A.R. moment for the night was also his biggest missed opportunity. In detailing his personal recollection of the mission to apprehend Osama Bin Laden, he constructed a striking metaphor for creating unity across America.

“Those of us who’ve been sent here to serve can learn from the service of our troops. When you put on that uniform, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white; Asian or Latino; conservative or liberal; rich or poor; gay or straight. When you’re marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails. When you’re in the thick of the fight, you rise or fall as one unit, serving one Nation, leaving no one behind.

One of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission to get bin Laden. On it are each of their names. Some may be Democrats. Some may be Republicans. But that doesn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter that day in the Situation Room, when I sat next to Bob Gates – a man who was George Bush’s defense secretary; and Hillary Clinton, a woman who ran against me for president.

All that mattered that day was the mission. No one thought about politics. No one thought about themselves. One of the young men involved in the raid later told me that he didn’t deserve credit for the mission. It only succeeded, he said, because every single member of that unit did their job – the pilot who landed the helicopter that spun out of control; the translator who kept others from entering the compound; the troops who separated the women and children from the fight; the SEALs who charged up the stairs. More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other – because you can’t charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there’s someone behind you, watching your back.

So it is with America. Each time I look at that flag, I’m reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those fifty stars and those thirteen stripes. No one built this country on their own. This Nation is great because we built it together. This Nation is great because we worked as a team. This Nation is great because we get each other’s backs. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we’re joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong.”

This story was powerful because of its personal nature but also because of the themes of commonality and the powerful visual imagery he used.

But this message could have been even more impactful had he built on it throughout the speech. The best presentations have a common theme or message, a purpose that we at Duarte often call the “throughline.” Although the president’s address was powerful in pieces, it often lacked a common overarching theme to tie the elements together. While he may have intended to create this throughline by introducing the military as an example of unity in the beginning, this common message was often lost in the bulk of his words.

Audience members who viewed the “enhanced content” online may have had similar thoughts. Although the president avoided some of the worst PowerPoint crimes – he generally avoided bulleted slides and he made good use of statistics by not overwhelming the viewers with information – the materials lacked a common visual theme and did not always take advantage of the images painted by his powerful words.

President Obama did a lot right last night. When picked apart, sections of his address resonate with the type of language that good writers challenge themselves to craft. But as a whole, the 2012 State of the Union needed a good dose of the unity that the president challenged the nation to create.

To view last night’s State of the Union, visit:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/

You can also find the “enhanced content” on SlideShare at:
http://www.slideshare.net/whitehouse/state-of-the-union-enhanced-graphics

The Republican Response is available at:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7396293n

To honor one of one of the greatest communicators of all time, we’d like to re-post a popular blog from last year: The analysis of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech from the March on Washington.

MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech is not only literarily brilliant, its structure follows the presentation form perfectly, by traversing back and forth between what is and what could be, and ending by describing what the new bliss of equality looks like. In addition, MLK carefully chooses phrases and metaphors that resonate deeply with his audience.

If you’re struggling to create your next big presentation or even just crafting the message for your next staff meeting, take a few minutes to be inspired by the brilliance of one of America’s most beloved orators. Thank you, Dr. King, for standing up and speaking out to change the world.

US forces in Iraq lowered their flag on Wednesday, officially marking the end of our nine-year military mission. As the final few thousand troops begin their journey home, we celebrate their bravery and mourn the thousands of lives lost during the war.

In a historic moment like this one, we also take the time to reflect on the people and events that changed the course of the conflict. One of those people was Captain Travis Patriquin.

In 2006 the Army sent Patriquin’s brigade to reclaim to the city of Ramadi from al Qaeda. At the time Ramadi was the source of some of the worst violence in the country, having claimed the lives of hundreds of US soldiers. As Patriquin got to know members of the Sunni community and an influential local sheik, he grew concerned about the ideas driving US strategy. He became convinced that the solution to the bloodshed was to arm and train the local Sunni tribes to aid in the fight against al Qaeda.

He created and circulated a now-infamous PowerPoint presentation entitled “How to Win in Anbar” which argued for this change in strategy. Captain Patriquin purposefully discarded most of the “bad” conventions he saw in military presentations – complicated infographics, long lists of bulletpoints – and instead used simple illustrations to focus on the story he wanted to tell.

His design had the desired effect. His presentation went viral, getting passed around military servers around the world and eventually landing at the Pentagon. According to a recent book on Captain Patriquin’s legacy, it even ended up in the inbox of General David Petraeus.

Today, many credit Captain Patriquin with inspiring the “Sunni Awakening,” a phenomenon that helped hasten the end of the war. Col. Joe Harrington, the current executive assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was recently quoted as saying that “Travis Patriquin has as much to do with the success that the Americans and the Iraqi government has as anyone else.”

Tragically, Captain Patriquin is not here to witness the success of his ideas. He was killed by an improvised explosive device in Iraq in December 2006. But he left behind a powerful legacy of service and a reminder to all of us that good ideas have the power to change the world.

Visit http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/how_to_win_in_anbar_v4.pdf to see Captain Patriquin’s presentation and watch this video to learn more.

Good communication can be difficult enough in English. When you complicate it with a cross-cultural divide, the challenges increase immensely—and sometimes hilariously.

That’s the premise behind David Henry Hwang’s play Chinglish, which debuted on Broadway on October 27. We geeked out because this hit production opens with a PowerPoint presentation. That’s right, goodbye boardroom, hello Broadway!

Production shot from Chinglish’s run at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre.

The presenter is an American, and he talks about the difficulties of doing business in China. His company is vying for a job creating English signage for a Chinese cultural center.

Hwang got the idea for his new play during a trip to Shanghai in 2005. He told the New York Times, “We went to one brand-new cultural center that had gorgeous Italian marble, fine Brazilian wood, smart German design and these horribly translated signs for handicapped restrooms that read, ‘Deformed Man’s Toilet.”‘ Everywhere he looked, he saw “an eagerness among Chinese and Americans to impress one another, yet wildly basic misunderstandings because of language and cultural differences.”

The topic of cultural differences is especially timely for us, because the opening of Chinglish coincided with Nancy’s visit to Beijing and Taiwan. Over the course of nine days, she presented to Chinese dignitaries, businesspeople, and educators and researched how cultural differences influence storytelling.

To avoid the kind of misunderstandings that Hwang observed in Shanghai, Nancy hired a cross-cultural consultant. The coach spent three hours helping Nancy understand her audience and the cultural gap between how she communicates and how the Chinese process information. Her coach compared culture to an iceberg. Behavior is the tip of the iceberg, and the customs, assumptions, beliefs and values that influence behavior are hidden beneath the surface.

Nancy had an incredible experience, and she brought us back one priceless souvenir that’s very apropos to Chinglish:

This was an actual placard from a panel discussion in Taiwan. Though, as mis-translations go, it’s hard to imagine a better title than “Instructor of World-Class Spellbinders.”

I spoke in Beijing on Saturday, and worked with an interpreter for the first time. Public speaking is hard enough, and working with an interpreter complicates things… unless you’re prepared.

I had two interpreters. One was the primary and the other was a secondary interpreter, plus they had two on stand-by (paranoid event planning I guess). The primary interpreter, Sally, was a subject matter expert, and the secondary interpreter, Rebecca, was a professional interpreter. Sally kicked it off and was doing great (I thought) and then I got a note to have it switch to Rebecca. Then a note to switch back to Sally. Apparently, because Sally wasn’t a professional interpreter, she was looking at me and at her notes and not at the audience. Even though she is a compelling communicator when alone on stage, they felt she was bringing down the energy of the talk. They slipped in Rebecca, coached Sally and had Sally come back on and she kicked it up! She and I both learned from this experience.

Interestingly, it was when Rebecca was interpreting that she created a S.T.A.R. Moment. That’s an acronym for Something They’ll Always Remember. In my talk, I was describing in what a S.T.A.R. moment is. But when Rebecca relayed in Chinese what a S.T.A.R. moment was the place roared with laughter (they didn’t laugh when I explained what it is.) Rebecca had inserted a traditional 4-character Chinese saying that means “something you’ll remember until you’re so old your teeth are falling out.” She did a great job mapping my information to the local culture.

Here are six tips for working with an interpreter:

1. Prepare half as much material. If you are given an hour, prepare half an hour of material. It takes twice as long to convey your information with an interpreter.
2. Transcribe or write out your talk. A week ahead of time, I sent over a transcript of a similar talk that I had delivered so the interpreters could read through it and practice. Even though I didn’t deliver it exactly the same way, most of the material was incorporated.
3. Work through idioms and metaphors. Many of the phrases and sayings we use have no direct interpretation into other languages. Since my interpreters had the transcript ahead of time, by the time I landed, they had already identified areas where they had questions, so they could make sure they applied regional stories and metaphors that would work. They also identified where some of my language should change or simplify so the English-as-a-second-language audience members would understand what I was saying.
4. Practice for pacing and pauses. You need to practice with the interpreters. Each interpreter has a different length of phrase they can handle interpreting at one time. They also need to coach you on the speed you’re talking, so the English-speaking audience members can process what you’re saying.
5. Complete your thoughts. Each burst of content you say should be a complete thought. Sometimes I would say a phrase that felt like the length the interpreter would need, and I would leave the last few words off for the next phase of interpretation. It broke the content into odd blocks and opportunities were lost for laughter and understanding.
6. Have good chemistry with your interpreter. I was very fortunate that I knew Sally before I went to China. She writes a blog in Chinese about presentations, so I knew she would know the material. Rebecca spent most of the morning with me getting me to laugh and relax. I knew both these ladies so well. Several times on stage we would laugh together and even hugged on stage as we pulled the audience along. It made me more comfortable to feel like they were comrades, and being able to trust they would value my material and represent it well.

One of the greatest things I’ve learned on this trip is that when you’re presenting in another country, knowing your audience is almost more important. The studying I’ve done about the culture and how it communicates paid off. I modified my natural communication style and even answered questions with more nuance to their culture and, threw in historical context and cultural examples that were relevant. So, know your audience and know your interpreter and everything else will fall naturally into place.

The description of the fictitious Turbo Encabulator has long been used by engineers to warn against the use of technobabble. It has a lengthy and fascinating history, which includes this 1977 performance by Bud Haggart.

There is most definitely a lesson here about avoiding the use of confusing jargon in our presentations. We should be conscious of our audience and sensitive to their familiarity with the terms that we use. We should only use jargon, acronyms and other technical terms if we are sure that our audience will understand them. If there is the slightest chance that they won’t understand, then we need to simplify our language. Remember, if they can’t understand your message, they can’t adopt it.

Here at Duarte, we also saw this as a challenge. We believe that visuals can help bring clarity to otherwise confusing information. So, we took this on as an exercise in graphic recording, wondering if illustrating this epic masterpiece of nerd-dom might somehow make sense out of the confusion. Here are the results of our efforts:

Now re-listen to the video while looking at the visual. Does it help? Can using a visual make even a purposely confusing, technical-jargon-filled message clearer? What do you think?

So, if you have very technical information to convey, consider evaluating the words you use and eliminating jargon that won’t resonate with your audience. Then, visualize! Use a picture to replace those thousand (technical) words. If you do, your presentations will be so strong, it will be as if they are powered by the modial interactions of magneto reluctance and capacitive deractants!

When Helen Fielding used a diary to tell the story of Bridget Jones, this stylistic choice seemed logical: the journal format allowed the reader to see the seemingly small details of Bridget’s everyday life. But what if Bridget had written her diary in a very unusual format? In her recent Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, author Jennifer Egan dared to explore this question by writing an entire chapter of her novel in the form of PowerPoint slides. As one of her characters – a twelve-year old American girl named Alison – struggles to understand her complex emotions, she chooses to use charts and diagrams rather than traditional prose.

In an interview with the Office Show, Egan explained that she was curious about PowerPoint as it seemed that “no one used the word memo or paper or presentation any more – it was always PowerPoint.”

She discovered in writing the chapter that PowerPoint allowed her to tell different stories than conventional fiction, to detail Alison’s segue of thoughts or to reveal the structure of small moments such as the attempts of Alison’s brother – a child with Asperger’s – to communicate his love to their father. The format also allowed her to control the pace of the story by inserting pauses in a way that can’t be properly communicated with words. A novelist can indicate via text that a pause occurred, but the reader is still actively engaged in reading those words. Instead, by visualizing a pause between the character’s thoughts and actions, PowerPoint allows the novelist to in effect stop time in the reader’s mind.

Egan believes that the PowerPoint chapter is essential to the central story of her book because it pulls the different themes together into a cohesive whole. But how well can this technique be replicated? What lessons should we draw from Egan’s use of PowerPoint?

Egan chose PowerPoint to reveal the structure of small moments rather than emphasizing the connective tissue between moments, the focus of most conventional fiction. But it’s telling that this technique was used to convey the story of only one chapter and one set of characters. While she may have discarded the connections between moments in this single chapter, its placement within the overall narrative weaves it within the fabric of the broader story arc.

PowerPoint cannot be a substitute for good story-telling – this is why Egan’s chapter works, and why PowerPoint is not actually a replacement for memos or papers or presentations. Each of those mediums relies on the connective tissue between ideas. For papers and memos, writing serves this purpose: the author must spell out their ideas and the transitions between them, as Egan does when she writes conventional fiction. For presentations, the speaker plays this role: the slides may provide visual cues and represent distinct ideas, but the presenter is what ties the slides together.

The true achievement of Egan’s PowerPoint chapter is demonstrating how the use of media-in-media can enhance the overall quality of a story when used well. The placement of the chapter within a more conventional novel brought to life otherwise unobtainable details. This should serve as a powerful reminder to presenters who believe that their slides are the heart of their presentation. PowerPoint is most successful when used as media-in-media: not as a stand-alone presentation, but as a tool to aid in the story that the presenter is telling.

Read more about A Visit from the Goon Squad at Jennifer Egan’s homepage.

Marshall McLuhan was one of the earliest scholars to discuss the changing nature of media in the electronic age and today would have been his 100th birthday.  Famous for coining the phrase “the medium is the message,” he devoted a great deal of attention to explaining how television changed the way the audience understands and participates in content.  In his commentary on the landing of Sputnik, he called this new type of viewer a “simultaneous man” who prefers “flexibility and diversity” and lives in a “global theatre.”  “On Spaceship Earth there are no passengers; everybody is a member of the crew.” He unpacked some of these ideas on the television program Our World in 1967.

McLuhan’s ideas have recently resurfaced, as many are now applying his theories to the proliferation of electronic media forms.  If television once created a generational gap between parents and their children, one can only wonder what McLuhan would have thought of the internet and the new era of transmedia storytelling.

In McLuhan’s posthumous work Laws of Media, he argued that all forms of media have a tetrad of effects, or four different types of influence on society.  He posed these effects as questions: What does the medium enhance? What does the medium make obsolete?  What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced? What does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes?

Although McLuhan focused most of his writing on television, it is worth thinking about how his ideas intersect with another medium – the presentation. Unlike television, presentations often include a combination of in-person communication and electronic media that offers good presenters an opportunity to use their medium to engage their audience.

But how do presentations fit into McLuhan’s tetrad?  The answer may depend on what the presenter does well.  For presenters who give thought to how to use their slides successfully, presentations can enhance communication, and form a connection that causes the audience to embrace the speaker’s goals.  They can retrieve the spoken word from seeming obsolescence in our visually focused culture (TED talks come to mind). For presenters who use technology poorly, however, mediums like PowerPoint run the danger of making the speaker themself obsolete as the audience focuses on the slides instead of the story.  Taken to the extreme, they may ultimately flip PowerPoint into obscurity as bored audiences try to find ways of avoiding yet another bad slideshow.  In order to prevent this fate, presenters should consider taking McLuhan’s advice and embrace the needs of “simultaneous man”: flexibility, diversity, and a need to be engaged in a meaningful way.

To explore more of McLuhan’s ideas, this great commemorative site celebrates his life.  Many examples of his work are now available electronically, marking his part in our cultural zeitgeist.  He even appeared as himself in the film Annie Hall.

Perhaps McLuhan’s ideas can help inspire our next great communication theorist, as he has helped inspire us here at Duarte!

Communicating in any medium is hard work. Graham’s dances did not come easily to her. When the idea for a new dance was starting to take form, it was “a time of great misery.” Graham worked late into the night, propped up in bed, writing down thoughts, observations, impressions, quotations from books—anything that could help feed her imagination. “I would put a typewriter on a little table on my bed, bolster myself with pillows, and write all night.”

She read widely as she searched for ideas and inspiration, studying psychology, yoga, poetry, Greek myths and the Bible. Gradually, the ideas that filled her notebooks would begin to reveal a pattern, and she would write out a detailed script.

In her work, Graham repeatedly portrayed a woman called to a high destiny and forced to overcome fear before she could answer the call. This was personal, as Graham herself believed that she had been given “lonely, terrifying gifts”—a sort of divine command to penetrate the interior of the human spirit, no matter what comfortless truths she might find there.

In 1955, the U.S. government asked Graham to tour major cities in seven countries as a cultural ambassador. She gave lectures at each stop, but was a very nervous presenter. In her biography of Martha, author Agnes de Mille describes the scene: “She hung onto the barre, clung to the walls. She couldn’t think what to do with her hands, with her robes, with her feet.” Finally, she escaped into her dressing room and locked the door. But Graham tried again and again, and overcame her fear. Eventually, the State Department officials named Graham “the greatest single ambassador we have ever sent to Asia.”
Until she was 90, Graham continued to deliver lectures, which she had developed into an art form. A striking figure with a seductive voice, poetic insights and a faultless sense of timing, she learned how to hold an audience spellbound.

You could say that by trying to discover herself, she founded the world of modern dance. During her long journey, she invented a new way of moving, a unique dance language that has thrilled audiences all over the world and enlarged our understanding of what it means to be human.

She was protesting. Stark. And American. Some called her ugly, others called her revolutionary.

All of us are unique. We each have our own pattern of creativity, and if we do not express it, it is lost for all time. Graham defied customs, broke through barriers and presented new ideas. She was loved and reviled, yet persistent in overcoming her fears to communicate what she felt in her soul. By remaining committed to communicating how she felt, she changed dance for all time.

P.S. Happy belated birthday, Martha. On May 11, Google paid homage to her with this lovely animation. We wanted to honor her with our own little piece of the web.

Although primarily known as a dancer, Martha Graham was also a powerful communicator. She developed characteristics that anyone who aspires to become a great presenter must cultivate and nourish. She stood out by moving against the grain of society. She persevered in spite of seemingly overwhelming obstacles. She fought against and overcame her fears. She respected and connected deeply with her audience. And she never held back from communicating her deepest feelings.

Graham spent her life challenging what dance is and what a dancer can do. She looked upon dance as an exploration, a celebration of life, and a religious calling that required absolute devotion.

Graham became a dancer against the odds. When she finally began to study dance with the idea of making it her profession, she was considered too old, too short, too heavy and too homely to be taken seriously. “They thought I was good enough to be a teacher, but not a dancer,” she recalled. But she knew what she wanted to do, and pursued her goal with the intensity that marked her entire life. Dance was her reason for living. Willing to risk everything, driven by a burning passion, she dedicated herself absolutely to her art. “I did not choose to be a dancer,” she often said. “I was chosen.”

Graham was ready to discard traditional ballet. She invented a revolutionary new language of dance, an original way of moving with which she revealed the joys, passions, and sorrows common to human experience. In place of graceful soaring leaps through space, she introduced stark, angular movements, blunt gestures, and stern facial expressions as she sought to lay bare fundamental human moods and feelings. Her dances were meant to be challenging and disturbing.

This new kind of dance wasn’t to everyone’s liking, as it was neither beautiful nor romantic. Graham was often the object of ridicule and the butt of hostile jokes. Women in America had won the right to vote only a few years earlier, in 1920, and many people were still uncomfortable with the image of the “new woman” who sought a career and voted. It was all right to be a high-kicking, scantily clad chorus girl, but a woman who ran a dance company and created works that commented on war, poverty, and intolerance seemed unnatural and suspicious.

But Graham was resolute in her desire to communicate how she felt.

Graham believed that the secret emotional world made visible by a dancer’s movement could not always be expressed in words. She wanted her dances to be “felt” rather than “understood.” Graham drew inspiration from the ugly side of life and put it on display. Each of her dances had a special significance to her, because they expressed a fear she had conquered in her own life.

In 1930, Graham premiered a haunting solo dance of mourning called Lamentation. She sat on a low bench, wearing a tube-like shroud with only her face, hands and bare feet showing. In the dance, she began to rock with anguish from side to side, plunging her hands deep into the stretchy fabric, writhing and twisting as if trying to break out of her own skin. She was a figure of unbearable sorrow and grief. She did not dance about grief, but sought to be the very embodiment of grief.

Graham recalled “One of the first times I performed it was in Brooklyn. A lady came back to me afterwards and looked at me. She was very white faced and she’d obviously been crying. She said ‘you’ll never know what you have done for me tonight, thank you’ and left. I asked about her later and it seemed that she had seen her 9 year old son killed in front of her by a truck. She had made every effort to cry, but was unable to. But when she saw Lamentation she said she felt that grief was honorable and universal and that she should not be ashamed of crying for her son. I remember that story as a deep story in my life that made me realize that there is always one person to whom you speak in the audience. One.”

Graham moved in a way that gave anger and grief back to her audiences. She had a genius for connecting movement with emotion. She could make visible all those feelings that people have inside them but can’t put to words.