Dan Roam schools me on creative process. His new book, BLAH BLAH BLAH, offers awesome tips on how to utilize visual and verbal concepts to refine ideas to their most pure state.

Dan Roam uses an animalistic metaphor to explain how your brain processes information, and reveals how to help facilitate communication between our verbal and visual minds. That and more in his new book, BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Dan Roam used the rules of verbal grammar to build a Visual Grammar Graph that bridges the gap between verbal and visual concepts. Vivid Grammar is featured in his new book, BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Dan Roam explains why we talk too much, and how we can use our predilection for vision to become better problem solvers. “Vivid Thinking” is one of the many gems in his new book, BLAH BLAH BLAH. 

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.

In a span of two weeks I shared the stage with Guy Kawasaki twice.

After watching the hosts and audiences FAWN over him, I realized that Guy is qualified to write Enchantment because he lives it. It’s kinda autobiographical in a way.

He can charm and woo an audience like no one I’ve ever seen. And it seems pretty genuine from here.

Guy practices what he preaches. He advices that to achieve likability you should make crow’s feet. Guy most definitely smiles with his eyes. In fact, his entire face and mouth are very involved in his smile. When Guy wrote his post about getting this photo retouched, notice how they minimized his crow’s feet, but didn’t remove them altogether:

He also advises us to “Dress for a tie”. Don’t dress above or below the person you’re trying to enchant. If you overdress, you’re saying “I’m more important than you.” Underdressing says “I don’t respect you.” Guy is pretty smart, he dresses right in the middle. Not overdressed, not underdressed by wearing an Aloha shirt.
(Above Right: Photo courtesy of flickr user eschipul.)

Not to be confused with the Guayabera shirt or the bowling shirt.
Guy’s communication is also charming. He’ll usually preface bits of advice with, “Here’s a power tip for you…” Why, oh why, do I just answer a question instead of using an enchanting preface like “power tip?”

I watched Guy closely and admired his charisma and charm… which ultimately is ENCHANTMENT.

Here’s some more enchanting reviews from folks I respect:

Brian Solis
http://www.briansolis.com/2011/03/guy-kawasaki-on-the-art-of-enchantment/

Fast Company
http://www.fastcompany.com/1744096/five-lessons-in-uncommon-sense-from-guy-kawasakis-enchantment

Nick Morgan
http://publicwords.typepad.com/nickmorgan/2011/04/guy-kawasakis-enchantment-whats-in-it-for-public-speakers.html

Dear Jennifer,

I keep watching your life to see if you’re for real. In addition to passionately teaching about happiness at Stanford GSB, and writing for Good Magazine, you had the energy to write a world-changing book The Dragonfly Effect and create a community of some of the coolest people on the planet. But that’s not what impresses me the most.

I’ve never met anyone more genuine, transparent, and authentic. I keep waiting for your facade to drop, but you’re the real deal. You made incredible sacrifice to write The Dragonfly Effect with your husband Andy Smith. It’s no easy feat to work with your husband (I know) and I love how your eyes light up when you look at him, even as you promote your book here, and here.

The book itself is an expression of your lovely, selfless heart. After one of your students started a national campaign to find a bone marrow match for his ill friend, his ability to harness social media for social good became the foundation for your book. But, YOU really live what you preach. Even at your book launch presentation, you wept over unwarranted loss of Asian lives because there were so few Asian bone marrow registrants.

At your book party, you had a cheek swab station (photo courtesy of Beth Kanter) so people attending the party could be added to the registry.

And in December, you’re sacrificing your precious family holiday time to kick off yet another registry in India and launch it at the INK Conference. This book isn’t a gimick, it’s an extension of your compassionate heart. You are asking people to make a small change that will have far-reaching impact. The book’s namesake is from the only insect that is able to move in any direction. When the four wings of your model are working together it creates change. It also plays off “The Butterfly Effect,” which implies that even small changes can have a ripple effect.

Yet the image of you that is burned in my mind, that I’ll treasure the most, is this one:

You look so radiantly happy holding your kids, sitting on the grass at your own book launch party because you gave your own stage away for someone else to share about bone marrow registry.

You seem to have it all, Jennifer; including happiness and the ability to change the world. I’m thankful for you and your work.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Love,
Nancy

Longtime friend of Duarte, Garr Reynolds has championed the cause of effective presentations through his blog and books for years.  Now he gives you the tools to help you create those effective presentations, all in one beautifully designed (shall we say delicious?) package.

Combining his love of presentations and his love of Japanese culture, Garr packaged his presentation job aids into a bento box-style container that is as functional as it is lovely.

Inside the box we see several items: Two yellow sticky note pads, two red pencils (packaged to resemble chop sticks), a green iStockphoto coupon (good for 20 free images at iStockphoto.com—a $300 value) and a red Presentation Zen DVD.  [Garr chose these colors to reflect the five colors of a balanced Japanese meal—yellow, red, green, black and white].  In the 50 minute DVD, Garr talks shares his Presentation Zen techniques for the preparation, design and delivery of a presentation, incorporating beautiful imagery and illustrative examples to reinforce the principles—a definite must-watch.

But that’s not all!  Underneath the top layer of the box is another layer which contains one more surprise: a 168-page sketch book to use when working on your presentations.

The sketchbook not only has lots of blank pages for your ideas, but also has pages for you to put your sticky notes when you are storyboarding your presentation (see image below).  Garr also includes quotes from Presentation Zen throughout the sketchbook to encourage you as you create your next masterpiece.

With the Presenation Zen Way, Garr serves up presentation help that is both visually delightful and easily digestible.  Itadakimasu! (Japanese for “Let’s Eat!”)

Nancy Duarte spent “two years working nights and weekends” writing Resonate, and Forbes’ Bruce Upbin managed to boil it down to forty-six words. Actually, I’m not even mad. That’s amazing.

The conclusions are: Don’t be too cerebral. Tell stories. Figure out what the audience cares about. Create common ground with them. Move back and forth between opposing ideas to create energy. Deliver facts but put them in context and make them shocking if possible. Find inspiration anywhere you can.

Yup, we couldn’t have said it better, or more concisely, ourselves.

Check out the whole article here. And please, please follow Bruce’s advice and watch the video of Ben Zander. It’s eighteen minutes of loveliness. Here, we’ll save you some time and repost it here, too.

What you think is a tantalizing blog title, is in reality the titles of two of Nick Morgan’s books. His first book Give Your Speech, Change the World was introduced to me by Mitch Joel.

Photo courtsey of www.ducttapemarketing.com

This last year he wrote Trust Me—Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma. One particular passage he wrote has changed my delivery style immensely. I mentally walk through this process now before I walk on any stage:

Most of the non-verbal mistakes that speakers make stem from not being open to others. So the goal is to be open without thinking too hard about body language at all.

To accomplish this, you simply think about someone with whom you would be delighted to be open. You think about your spouse, your child, or a friend. You imagine that you’re about to see that person after a long absence and you’re delighted to be together. In other words, you role-play in your mind a communication between you and your favorite person.

Nor form a memory of what that feels like physically, not about what you say. Notice everything you can about your behaviors. What are your facial gestures? What are you doing with your hands? How is your torso positioned? How close are you? Catalogue and remember the behavior, and then use that behavikor when you’re in a crucial meeting.

[audio:http://blog.duarte.com/audio/NickMorgan_interview.mp3]

Listen to the podcast where he answers these questions:

1. You defined authenticity as “the frank expression of emotion of some kind, whether positive or negative. It has to do with transparency of motive and intention or when people show us their hearts.“ I agree with that but get pushback from analytical types who say people don’t need heart, they need information. What do you say to that?
2. You state that there are two conversations going on when communicating and we need to become skilled at both verbal and non-verbal because non-verbal trumps verbal. Does everyone have a gap between what they’re saying verbally and their body language?
3. You say that “leaders who rely on ad-libbing and improvisation risk looking unprepared and stilted”. And that leaders need to practice to look spontaneous. To me, when people over-prepare the opposite happens, they seem stiff and rehearsed. How do you propose presenters find balance?
4. I was happy to see Maslow touched on in both your books. I loved the section on being connected and agree that people listen to ideas that fulfill a deep need. Is there a process for helping find that “great need” for even what some would say is a boring type of presentation like a staff meeting update?

Subscribe to Nick’s blog and Twitter @nfrodom1 (I know, weird twitter name, so I had to ask. Apparently when AOL was out of normal e-mail addresses, he used that handle. Same happened with Twitter so he used his AOL name. He’s a huge Lord of the Rings fan. So it’s his first initial, then Frodo, then last initial, and a number one. I guess someone else already had it without the one.)