AIGA Presentation: Concept Is King
Kill The Powerpoint Presentation Naps
Kill The Powerpoint Presentation Naps
I was contacted to give a presentation on my creative process as a manager for the Weather Channel. How do I interact with other executives? How do I sell my ideas successfully? How can I help steer a bad idea into a better idea?
While I've been a creative manager for over 5 years, a lot of that time was spent more on the creative, less on the manager side. No. Actually, you know in The Karate Kid where he spends all that time waxing on and waxing off, and eventually discovers he had the ruby slippers all along and just didn't know it? Yes. That movie.
That's sort of how it happened. I became a manager, and over time discovered I'd been a manager all along, and interacting successfully with executives - I just didn't realize it until tapped to give this presentation.
With that in mind, I set out to create the greatest presentation in the world. Once I decided that was impossible, I decided to make something that was at least more inspired than bullet points and stock photography, and fade ins and fade outs.
That's where I found Prezi.com. It's a great presentation tool. No. Seriously. Add to that my hand-drawn images and I was able to fool an entire crowd into thinking I had a remote clue about creativity and managers and stuff.
LINK TO THE PREZI PRESENTAION!
However - my presentation was not a read-along presentation. I talked over these images, explained and described what was happening. So now I'm faced with a choice - show you the presentation without the talking, or show you pictures and type up a lot of words. I'd rather just show you the presentation, and let you imagine that I'm saying the most brilliant things in the world.
Because I was.
While I've been a creative manager for over 5 years, a lot of that time was spent more on the creative, less on the manager side. No. Actually, you know in The Karate Kid where he spends all that time waxing on and waxing off, and eventually discovers he had the ruby slippers all along and just didn't know it? Yes. That movie.
That's sort of how it happened. I became a manager, and over time discovered I'd been a manager all along, and interacting successfully with executives - I just didn't realize it until tapped to give this presentation.
With that in mind, I set out to create the greatest presentation in the world. Once I decided that was impossible, I decided to make something that was at least more inspired than bullet points and stock photography, and fade ins and fade outs.
That's where I found Prezi.com. It's a great presentation tool. No. Seriously. Add to that my hand-drawn images and I was able to fool an entire crowd into thinking I had a remote clue about creativity and managers and stuff.
LINK TO THE PREZI PRESENTAION!
However - my presentation was not a read-along presentation. I talked over these images, explained and described what was happening. So now I'm faced with a choice - show you the presentation without the talking, or show you pictures and type up a lot of words. I'd rather just show you the presentation, and let you imagine that I'm saying the most brilliant things in the world.
Because I was.
Between a sequence of images, (handshakes) I illustrate how I started out as a musician, drawing my band flyers, then getting a job at a rock club designing flyers, to getting a job at a design agency, to getting a job for The Weather Channel, to becoming a manager at the Weather Channel, to finally becoming a Creative Innovation manager for the Weather Channel. (get it? no shirt, then flannel, then dress shirt, then suit, then suit with a skull ring? Oh yes. I'm rock and roll.)
Regardless of your amazing design skills, when it comes to creative pitches, the concept is king, not the design. You can write a simple, perfect concept on a used Waffle House napkin and make a connection. You can design the hell out of a monkey riding a pencil sharpener and very few people would understand that you're selling tuna fish.
AHH. And here is my favorite illustration - Know Your Clients. You never ever deal with a single client. They are connected to a wide variety of other approval owners. On the big corporation level, you've got legal, media buyer, agency brand managers, nephews, oh, it's a lot.
