Presentations for the Future! (For Now)

UGC (or user generated content) has been the fuel of the social media revolution. It started with simple blogs and comments and has morphed into our present landscape cluttered with social networks, fan videos, and microblogs. All of this activity online has shifted the digital consciousness from the software and hardware that lives in your computer tower to the collective consciousness of cloud storage and exchange.

What has allowed this social media revolution message to really take off is that people have been armed with increasingly easy-to-use tools to create compelling multimedia on their own PCs. One human being can literally be a production house unto themselves. This means that people can create videos, websites, photo albums, etc. worthy of others' attention. Our sophistication as media consumers has thus increased significantly. We demand slick graphics, an appealing layout, and engaging imagery.

This demand for visual sophistication doesn't just exist in the realm of online entertainment, but has been running simultaneously in the world of business. Replacing pages of dry reports is the behemoth PowerPoint and decks of dry bullet points...augmented with animated transitions and easy-to-use color schemes, charts, and image importing.



PowerPoint has encouraged people to...think more about visual presentation and has become de rigueur in business communication. In fact, there was recently an article in the New York Times on the rampant use of PowerPoint by our own U.S. military.



Recently, a friend of mine tipped me off to Prezi.com. It's a web-based software program (that wonderful cloud-computing we were talking about before) that lets you easily create very dynamic Flash presentations.

Below is my own first attempt at using the software:

Bio Prezi on Prezi

My own presentation is rather limited. I kind of cheated and uploaded a large pdf, but that has created pretty blurry text. You can create text, add images (but maybe not use an entire image as your presentation), embed video, zoom in, zoom out, rotate your view, determine whatever path you want the points to follow. It's pretty great. It allows lots of personal control and at the same time is pretty simple to use.

You can store your presentations in Prezi's cloud (much like the currently popular SlideShare, you can share your presentation via link, embed it, or download it to your hard drive for an offline experience.

As a potential business communications tool, I think it shows genuine promise. It offers greater visual control and flexibility than PowerPoint. It is a web-based application, which means its very friendly to netbook users (but not necessarily iPad/iPhone users since it is a Flash-based application).

What really excites me about Prezi is that, rather than fracture an idea into bulletpoints one slide at a time (creating weak arguments and oversimplification of complex issues), the Prezi platform requires that you structure the narrative of your argument before you start using the program, that you look at the over-arching thesis of your argument and how you want to travel from point to point to point. Because of its zooming capabilities, it also becomes easier to take a step back and look at the "big picture" of an argument or zoom in for more "granular detail" (text/image points that were not previously visible in the presentation).

Angelie Agarwal does a much better job of showing in a simple way, some of the potential of Prezi (particularly for our Armed Forces):

De-Spaghettization of a PPT slide on Prezi

I would encourage you to check out Prezi's brief demo video to get a better grasp of how you might be able to begin to use it in your own communications/UGC/thank you cards to friends:

Good Idea, Bad Idea

Mems the "Good Idea, Bad Idea" segments on Animaniacs of yesteryear?



Ah, yes. Those were the good ol' days. Well, that segment was exactly what came to mind when I got this friend request on FourSquare:



GOOD IDEA:
Get involved in FourSquare, as a business/brand. It's a great way to interact with passionate consumers, you can incentivize check-ins and broadcasting, you can offer geo-specific, game-like promotions. I love it when brands get involved on FourSquare.

BAD IDEA:
Friend request someone you don't know, who has never been a patron to your establishment.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Nashville on a business trip. I stayed at the very lovely Hermitage Hotel. Loved it. I never went anywhere near the Loew's Vanderbilt Hotel.

Having long forgotten, Nashville, Loew's friend requests me out of no where this week! On a social platform where I broadcast my every movement. Why on earth, complete-stranger-business, would I want to give you the same license to cyber stalk me that I would give me to my close circle of friends on FourSquare?

Your friend request left me feeling creeped out. And not in the good way.


GOOD IDEA:
Develop a best practices guide for your social media managers before diving into a territory you don't fully understand.

Tirade over. Friend request denied. I think I will go to my much-loved BiRite, now, for some stress-eating indulgence

A Titanic Error?

OK. It's been too long since a post. Good reason, I swear. I have been busy doing the work that I love. More on that next blog post.

For now:

While I was at work researching great examples of love, I, of course, came across that great love story of the 90's--Titanic.

This seemed like a ready example that many people could identify with. This movie moved millions of people across the world to go the theaters again and again, form fan clubs, and shed tears. Great. Easy story for me to share...until I realized I have NEVER seen this movie. I don't even know the plot points (other than that the ship goes down and Leonardo DiCaprio probably dies).

So, I turned to my bestie, Tai, hoping she could give me the low-down on this great love story:


The fact is, I never wanted to see it as a teenager, as a sort of act of rebellion against all things blatantly pop culture. I now listen to Britney Spears with barely a hint of shame.

So the question is, now that I am over my adolescent distaste for trite should I bother with this movie and Netflix it?

Glenn Beck: My Latest Frenemy

I think Glenn Beck hates me because we used to be besties when I was Mormon.

It's sad. He can't let it go.

Profundity for the People

A couple of blogposts ago I talked about bringing profound thinking to marketing efforts.



Well, I just came across this interesting MediaPost article on people of "my generation":
Conclusion? Yes. Organized religion is taking a diminished role in the lives of Americans, but obviously that desire for quiet, reflective thinking (as takes place in prayer) remains.

I would say most of us know people many people who eschew the label of "religious," but like to still think of themselves as "spiritual."

The whole article is an an interesting read on the attitudes and demographics of "Millenials" (I still don't know how I feel about that moniker), even if you're not into marketing or sociology.

The Natural History of the Rich

Yes. I followed my unsentimental foray into the institution of marriage with a safari into the mansions and golf courses of the rich.

Written by a journalist, it looks at the behavior of the rich through the prism of evolutionary psychology. Now, I have my own problems with evolutionary psychology, mainly that I think it so oversimplifies behavior that it can convolute ANY human action into a reach for propagating genes. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed this book.

The writer is entertaining and draws many varied, National Geographic-esque examples from animal behavior. He also clearly did his homework on caviar dreams, from detailed histories to interesting interviews with the obscenely wealthy. It has definitely left me with lots of little anecdotes for cocktail parties.

None of the conclusions Conniff made were earth-shattering. For me what it established more was the mysterious biological root to so much of our behavior. It is interesting to note that the DNA for almost every living creature on the face of the planet is pretty much the same. The smallest of variations account for all of our biological diversity, and the same sequences keep popping up in the unlikeliest of places, creating similar behavior in wasps, buffaloes, and humans.

It has definitely made me look more closely at the reasoning behind some of our most culturally expected behavior, so for that I would recommend the book. Just be patient with the beginning...and maybe the end. The middle is golden, though. ;)

Melancholia in Post-Modern Marketing

I recently read this New York Times article (fave pub) looking at depression through the lens of evolutionary psychology, speculating that depression is the result of "ruminating" aka pondering/introspecting/analyzing...basically thinking

I think, therefore I am...sad.

Thinking people are more likely to be depressed. Great. Tell me something I don't see in my own life.

The article goes on and on in an exhausting academic debate about the evolutionary benefits of having so many depressed people in our species.

What stuck out to me was this argument that there is an evolutionary/biological foundation for rumination/introspection/deep thinking. This is something people want and need in their lives.

There are some smarties/creative types out there that think they have the corner market on higher thinking, but if late night Boy Scout camping conversations taught me anything it's that people from every walk of life in our society share times of deep reflection and share the same concerns and conclusions.

Because I am in this cursed field of advertising, I am going to draw back conclusions to branding and marketing which is--why aren't we we creating things that speak to this obviously deep desire of people?

We make ads that speak to the desire to make love, to be loved, to be victorious, we encourage companies to be social to address people's need for community, and yet where is the brand/campaign/website that encourages users to engage in deliberative reflection?

There is a reason that Eat, Pray, Love was on the bestseller's list for over two years, and why the Oprah Book Club was such a big hit, in general. People want to think about these things. They feel better for having had these thoughts, for having a scaffold on which to hang these yearn-filled threads, for knowing there are others with the same wonderings and private struggles of internal reconciliation without feeling like a complete lunatic.

This all reminds me of the once beautiful meaning of the word 'melancholia,' which did not mean sadness, but meant deep, quiet, extended thinking about a question or problem.

Durer captured it best in his work entitled, Melancholia:


In the meantime, I am going to be on the look out, for campaigns/brands that offer this, and for opportunities in which such could exist.

Carnal Lust: Docs

My bff, Tai, frequently mentions the things she is lusting after on her blog (because she is thankfully a Mormon who is unafraid of filthy lucre) so I decided I might as well share some of my own worldly desires.

My latest yearning is for these:



That's right. Doc Martens. Tres 1998, I know.

The thing is, I have kind of been wanting some Docs since last year, right before I left for LA. They seemed like the perfect urban hiking boot for the San Francisco streets, in general I love having my foot cradled in a solid boot, and they had been out of fashion long enough that no one would think I honestly thought they were cool, thus also possessing a certain anti-cool appeal.

Apparently, my desire to be subversive manifests itself in massive geekiness. This is why I wore blazers in high school (long before that damned blazers and jeans trend fired up) and why I have been wearing grandpa cardigans since I was 18 (also long before everyone and their dog started wearing grandpa cardigans, dammit!).

On that note, a great tragedy has recently struck my home: my favorite cardigan--the blue cashmere one with the cowl neck that totally drowns me--is officially dying.

Exhibit A



Exhibit B




For those of you who know me well, this cardie has seen me through many frumpy days, many profound conversations over hot cocoa, and many long painting sessions in drafty studios.

I will have to find a new frumpy, comfy sweater, but it will never be the same as this thrift store gem.

Back to the Docs. So the pretension of LA forbade the wearing of clunky Docs, but now that I am back in SF it's a different story, right? Imagine my horror when I found that Docs and Doc-like boots have made a dramatic resurgence amongst the hipster set of my new-found home in the Mission!

While apparently Docs are still anathema in the hipster Bible (Vice magazine), it's only a matter of time....

What do you guys think? I found a pair online for $80. Should I get the boots and risk looking like I am following an emerging hipster trend?

The fact that I hate looking like I am following trends closely probably reveals how prideful I really am. So there. I have confessed and revealed my vanity and pride, hopefully achieving a measure of catharsis and exoneration.

Should I get the damn boots?

Logorama

If you have ten minutes, check out this Oscar-nominated short film by by Francois Alaux and Herve de Crecy.

It portrays a world consisting entirely of familiar logos and mascots. Unreal in and of itself, but it is also a "gritty" crime story.

BRILL-ers!

What's all the Buzz about?

Some people hail Google Buzz as the new Messiah of social media.

Here are the results of one of my first forrays into Buzz:



(You have to click on the damn link to actually read the convo. Lame.)

Ultimately, it is a microblogging service. I don't really see it as offering me something that I can't already do on Facebook, Twitter, or my blog.

The big thing it does offer is convenience. It is already there on my most frequently-visited site (which was initially unnerving/annoying). It's centralized. I do wish it was easier to organize and search through information. Maybe listing capabilities, like with Twitter (love that!).

So far, the people posting are my most adventurous of friends, so posts are interesting. It feels less commercial than Facebook (ironically) with a nice, clean interface that focuses on the content.

I do like that is can pull in my activities from so many different sources automatically.

I think it has great hope of scooping up people who have not gotten sucked in to other social media already.

What it may ultimately really do is poke people's curiosity enough to make them explore all of the many other things Google offers to make people's lives easier/better/screen-time consumed.

For example, in an attempt to figure out how to make Google Buzz more useful, I fell upon this nifty Mashable article on how to integrate Facebook and Twitter into my Gmail/Buzz. Still testing it, but so far less than dazzling results. Not really robust or smooth.

Still, I discovered a lot of cool gadgets, services, and streams in Google Labs, Gmail labs, and settings that I had not previously explored, making Google once again my favorite tech/web company.

Meaning I am committed to still keep playing with Buzz.