He made the point to me that there’s too many people out there that claim to be choice modellers and in reality it takes 2 years colid study to know how to do it . In his estimate there’s only a handful that would cut the grade.
If you’re keen to do some the price has come down dramatically from hundreds of thousands to tens. All because of the Internet. Not the mention the advances in theory and computation that he was instrumental in!
David Briggs, Principal, Galaxy Research David has been involved in every poll you’ve ever done! His polling company can predict election outcomes better than anyone! Check it out
Of particular importance to getting such fantastic outcomes is how the questions are written. He reckons he couldn’t have got such accurate predictions if it wasn’t for the Internet and the way it standardises the polling process!
David Brudenell, Commercial Director, Pureprofile David’s company offer access to 300,000 Aussies for online market research faster than anyone else in town! He managed to survey a couple of hundred people about World Youth Day during the forum! Here’s the results in the Daily Tele . All in a couple of days!
In the past I’ve been asked by readers of my blog not to just write about the information I have gathered at functions, but instead to write down my experience of the event.
This has been a good tip, as it has helped me to gain further insight into my experiences and contextualise my learnings so that other people can digest what they read from a completely different point of view to their own.
Nancy Duarte contributed to Garr’s book. Her company did Al Gore’s presentation that was turned into the Academy Award Winning movie, An Inconvenient Truth. They also do many of Steve Job’s presentations too!
Her tip for ‘digital natives’ was to use Mind Mapping to plan out your presentation. It was interesting to note that Garr didn’t propose this, he reckons you should use paper and pen.
I don’t consider myself a digital native! However, I do use mind maps to plan all of my presos. Because maps are essentially pictures it is easy to remember the presentation content and they also help with creativity, as I discuss in this post.
So I punched out the mind map in an hour, easy!
BUT
Then it took me 15 more hours (a weekend) to finish my first 70 slide presentation!
WTF!
Normally, it takes about another hour to whip up the preso. I’m thinking, ‘Jeez this stuff is slow going. Is it worth it?’
Side note - Mindmanager is even kind enough to export the mapped presentation to PowerPoint in a completely boring hierarchical fashion, just as PowerPoint and KeyNote were designed! Not that the Zen man, Garr, from Japan allows that! B O R I N G
Finding piccies
Once I was happy with my mind map I procrastinated….
Then, when I got up the gumption, I searched for pictures representing ‘web2.0′ into iStockPhoto. It didn’t work!
then I clicked on ‘Did you mean: web’ and started looking tediously through iStockPhoto for images. As I found ones that looked pretty I stuck them in the lightbox thingy.
lightbox thingy
Then I tried to buy it a low res image and realised I had no credit.
$$
This stuff doesn’t come for free! I ended up spending a 100 bucks on ‘low res’ iStock images - they seemed good enough for a Keynote slide. Plus a few I took other very low res images off Google images too.
I soon got sick of this and asked my Twitter crew for any ideas. Some suggested using the search function, but that was not good enough.
I tried a few searches on the most popular piccies, and I found this…
That wasn’t very fruitful.
And then I realised that I needed a process!
The process
I went through each box of my mind map and got a pic for each thought. That allowed me to focus and use a repetitive task.
As meditators know, repetition, without distractions helps to get you into ‘the zone’.
Kinda Zen really!
Time faded away and I cranked through hundred of images and ‘lightboxed’ any that reflected an emotion related to each box on the mind map. Afterwards I quickly picked out the ones that worked.
When the word in a box wasn’t particularly interesting I just used text or a quote from some other smart person. Actually when I got sick of finding photos I did this!
A principle that I used through the whole presentation was to ensure that the slideshow could be read [on slideshare] by someone clicking through it in a couple of minutes. They had to be able to draw enough info out of it to leverage some understanding. By doing this I was able to present the slides to a client on Monday in 10 minutes. And at the conference, later that afternoon, I managed to string it out to 25 minutes.
This is a high level representation of how I looked at the map and picked out relevant images (slides)
‘Of course some nodes of the map are just words, you need to fill up the time you have!
So what happened next?
I had another presentation to prepare for the following day. It was along similar lines and it only took 30 minutes! This is because I reused 2/3 of the slides and I knew what to do and could quickly and easily predict how to find the images I needed for the slides.
This alerted me to how professional presenters do their preparation.
Garr uses the same iStockPhoto images in his slides and book and his slide deck is massive. During the preso he selected relevant slides to talk to. He even added some photos relevant to the day, which I’m sure he does each time he presents.
Then I had to do some presenting!
So I practiced it with:
my wife
a client, and
in my mind.
All the time worrying that it might:
take too long
come out wrong
run out of time
be too short
be boring
I went to the toilet 3 times before I delivered the presentation. You know, in the hour before I delivered it. Ok, half an hour
Then I couldn’t get Keynote to display the time and next slide on my Mac.
Then it worked.
So I presented.
And I never once had to look at a presentation plan like this:
Although I did check the time 3 times. I finished ready for questions within 30 seconds of my ‘glass tap’ from the chair.
My experience
When I was at Garr’s presentation, I asked him. ‘How do you know what is on the next slide?’ ‘I don’t know’, he said. ‘It just happens.’
Well funnily enough it did just happen. I was right in the zone and engaged with the audience. My hair stood on end and it just flowed.
It was great! Written for small teams building [their own] Web 2.0 apps. I agreed with much and found some good things to ponder too! Ponder because some of the recommended approaches will be very hard to handle within the traditional client/consultant relationship. The other approaches challenge traditional user-centred design guidelines. Which is just fine with me!
Getting Real:
p.2 Start with the interface, what the customer experiences and build backwards from there - agreed
p.2 It’s about iterations, lowering the cost of change - only if it starts from the customers’ point of view
p.13 Build less features and preferences with a few cooks - don’t waste time
p.17 Constraints force creativity - and lower expectations!
p.19 Fix time and budget, flex scope. It’s better to make half a product than a half-assed one!
p. 23 Identify the key problem and stay focussed
p.26 The leaner your are the easier it is to change.
Less staff
Fewer long term contracts
Don’t have meetings about other meetings - oh yes!
Don’t let the past ruling the future - live in the moment!
Reduce long-term road maps - don’t live in the future!
Eliminate office politics
p.49 Essentials only - customers will make up the rest or ask for it
p.53 Expose the price of new features. There is always a hidden cost and feature loops, find them - And tell your client!
p.56 Don’t keep feature request lists from customers. You will never get to the list and if the feature is important they will keep asking - If you have a good feedback mechanism!
p.58 Ask people what they don’t want - It’s not just about what features they ‘think’ they need. This is the best idea of this article!
p70 Test your app via real world usage - People will actually be engaged and if it is built the right way it will be easy to change
p.72 Shrink your time. Break tasks down into easily manageable chunks - And don’t deliver the whole thing to the client at once!
p.77 Have alone time at work. Get your right brain activated and don’t get distracted - Otherwise you’ll never get anything done or meet deadlines!
p.94 Epicentre design. Start from the core (or essence) of the page and work out. Forget about building the frames and dropping in content and transactional stuff later.
p.100 Context over consistency. Give people what they need when they need it and get rid of what they don’t need.
p.121 Don’t use lorum ipsum. If you use real words then th copy can be perceived the way it would when it is completed - Then work out how to get clients to focuss on the interactions and design. Instead of the fact that the words are wrong!
Now it’s time to start discussing some of this stuff with my team!
Vanilla Ice hit the nail on the head with that opening line!
I was out at dinner a couple of months ago with some friends. We were talking about the huge number agencies some companies have working for them!
One brilliant solution that Steve, a friend, has implemented in his Telco business is to run an ‘All Agency WIP’. They had been doing it for about 3 months, when we spoke, and meetings were coupled with the sharing of info between the agencies during the week, via an FTP site. This helped maintain communication and momentum between meetings. They found the meetings quite a challenge, however, there have been massive improvements in communication and innovation in Steve’s business!
Steve realised that within his company he has access to an additional 20 full time employees (within his agencies). And just as he would have a weekly update and brainstorm with his direct line managers together, he believed that he should do the same with all the key agency staff. This happens regularly, not just on projects where the agencies are forced to work together.
Steve’s company currently has 6 agencies (Media, PR, Brand, Point of Sale & Collateral, Merchandise & Distribution, Promotion, DM Agency) …..they’re still trying to work on what the optimum size group is to make the meetings effective. …..Currently they have all department heads from his company’s marketing & brand teams plus 1 - 2 from each agency (Group Account Director, Account Director/Manager) so its generally a largish group. They clearly require some management.
You see, he’s doing something that is the same as the norm - a boring old WIP. But it’s a little bit different. He is thinking outside of the square. It might be a little hard to get all the [competitive] agencies engaging in a meeting together, but the outcomes are fantastic!
No longer to different agencies do parallel projects that double up on budgets, making it harder to drive profitability. Now the initiatives are being aligned to drive further sales success and manage consistent brand messaging.
In order to make the most of the meetings he set out some high level objectives:
Marketing Objectives
- Drive brand and challenge the market
- Get customers to buy stuff, spend more money & stay with us
Why have an all agency, all company marketing WIP?
- increase communication (internally and between agencies)
- better planning
- increase consistency
- reduce costs
- accountability
- challenge each other for best ideas
In order to execute it you need a good leader, a lot of will-power and openness to new experiences on the part of participants. And, of course, you need some metrics that put people’s balls on the line. That will make sure the all agency WIP is successful!
