Present-ation

What Are You Trying to Accomplish with Your Presentation?

Are you pitching an idea to your co-workers or a client? Are you in a development phase with a group of creatives? Are you going to allow the audience to help shape the project or is it all or nothing? Get your attitude in shape before you walk in the door.

Did you make time to practice? Don’t go in cold. And, don't go in alone. If you can, invite some one with you to take notes, observe the body language of your audience and participate in a post meeting de-briefing.

Summarize

Provide context at the beginning of your presentation. Can you describe your plan in a couple of minutes? In the world of screen writing it’s called a ‘synopsis’. Advertising professionals and film and animation producers call it ‘the pitch’. Graphic Designers create ‘problem statements’. The entertainment industry refers to "log lines"

Include

• The Demographics (target audience)

• The Objective (the 'job' this piece of media is doing)

• The Emotional Connection (engagement)

• The Brand (point out the elements that will make it memorable)

• The Delivery Platform (single or multiple platforms?)

Example

"The Professional Practices website is a ready, on-line resource for KCAD alumni that provides confidence in moving forward with their careers and maintains a connection with their college experience post graduation."

Breakdown of Example

• Demographics: "KCAD alumni"

• Objective: "ready, on-line resource"

• Emotional Connection: "confidence"

• Brand: "connection with their college experience"

• Delivery Platform: "website"

Processes

How are you going to close the deal? By giving your audience confidence that you can execute this concept through the use of clear, good looking visual aids and thorough process documentation.

Run-Through

Quickly take them all the way through each process sketch, storyboard, animatic, site map and wireframe as well as the finished work without stopping. Spend most of this time on the finished work. It's not important for your audience to analyze or fully grasp any of the process details during this run-through phase. The point is... to show that there was rigor involved in the process.

Walkthrough

Go through the finished work again, stopping frequently to gauge and receive reactions. If it is an in-house presentation, discuss ideas for improvements as you move through. Refer to your process documentation as needed to defend your design. Keep the discussions centered on the project objectives from the point of view of the target demographic.

Leave-Behinds

Leaving behind some materials or a link to an online repository/website will enable your audience to act as agents for you and give them incentive to present your ideas to people that were not in attendance. It will also give clients and team members more opportunity to review and analyze your work as well as collaborate with you.

Don’t leave any materials that you would not want copied and distributed unless you have them sign a non-disclosure agreement. If you want to limit who can see on-line materials... you can set permissions in a Google Doc, Folder or Website to control access.

Sign-Off

Your client or team should physically sign-off on the materials presented prior to the execution phase. Rework the materials as many times as necessary to make sure the materials match the agreed upon intent. Date everything.

Estimate

All timing and financial estimates should be tied to the dated, signed-off documents. Estimates should allow for some creative ‘drift’ from the original materials. If the client changes the project substantially, go back to step 1 (Definition) and work back to this point with a revised estimate.