Mike Rowe’s sheep story.
As a presentation director, I’m constantly looking for and looking at great presentations. I’ve seen lots of great slide decks on SlideShare and have gained lots of inspiration from places like Presentation Zen and slide:ology.
But what I really like seeing is the delivery of great presentations. And, of course, the TED site has plenty examples out there. I ran across this presentation from Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe. What I liked about this presentation is that it had no slides. It didn’t need it. Of course, you’ve got to be one hell of a storyteller (which he is) to be that compelling as to not need any sort of visual support. Very impressive, and I learned something.
To expand a little on the source from which I originally found this video, Nancy Duarte says:
Attracting really good designers to work for Duarte has been tough, because designing presentations is “dirty work”. Designers tell us that REAL designers create print campaigns or web sites, and designing presentations is beneath them.
Interestingly enough, I’ve always enjoyed working on presentation design and have tried to figure out a way to turn it into a career for years. The problem was never that I thought that this type of design was beneath me, but that I couldn’t find many people that saw a need for great presentation design. Presentations were apparently SUPPOSED to be boring, bullet point-ridden fare. When I was offered the Presentation Director position I jumped at the chance because this was the opportunity I had been waiting a long time for. And as I start to talk to people from this vantage point, I’m seeing that the tides have turned and not only are there a lot of people out there clamoring for people like me to design their presentations, there are an awful lot of designers out there that are more willing to do the “dirty work” of presentation design. There’s a lot of gratification in it.