Before and after: Facebook 2004 media kit redesign

by Kit Seeborg on August 30, 2012

Designers and creatives have been examining and building upon the work of their predecessors for hundreds of years. By deconstructing creative works, then applying new techniques and best practices, designers continue to evolve and enrich the way we experience information.

Brazilian presentation design and marketing agency MonkeyBusiness took on the original 2004 Facebook Media Kit as an exercise in redesign. The media kit was originally created by Eduardo Saverin, one of Facebook’s four co-founders. He developed it in 2004, while still an economics student at Harvard. Notice how MonkeyBusiness uses color to make the hand-drawn edits pop out from the black and white original.

Monkey Business redesign of Facebook media kit
The slidedeck presentation from MonkeyBusiness includes hand drawn edits which walk the viewer through the material analysis – the thought process of reorganizing and redesigning the information. Then the “after” version is shown, demonstrating the updated organization and design of the content.


As MonkeyBusiness shows us here, a presentation is worth a thousand words. Do you use the before and after technique to help your clients visualize the improvements you can make to their content? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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5 Tips for Presenting to Executives

by Guest Author on August 14, 2012

Presenting to your peers is (relatively) easy. The stakes aren’t high. If you screw up, they’ll usually let it slip.

But executives are different. Executives get things done through delegating to other people. So, they are always looking for who they can trust – and who they can’t. Make a good impression and the exec is likely to give you more responsibility in the future. Make a bad impression and you earn a place on their “do-not-trust” list. Either way, it affects your career.

Executives are a special audience for presentations. And the stakes are high. Here are FIVE TIPS to keep in mind to ace your next executive presentation.

1. Get to the point in one minute
Executives exist in high-pressure environments. With 80 hour weeks, emergencies cropping up, high stress loads and demanding bosses and shareholders. TIME is one of their most precious commodities.

So don’t waste it by arriving late, fumbling with the projector (“why won’t it connect?”), making long rambling introductions and so on. Get to the point as quickly as you can. Within the first minute, if at all possible. There’s a good chance the exec is itching to interrupt you and barrage you with questions so get to your main point before the presentation is derailed.

2. Talk about problems winning in the marketplace
Executives don’t care about today’s problems. That’s someone else’s job. Executives have their minds focused on the next three years and what it will take to beat competitors, reach new customers, hold onto existing customers and increase margins. So, talk to them about the problems they will have winning in the marketplace, and how your ideas will help them. If you can’t talk to them about that, you’ll get bumped down to some department head – and well you should.

3. Sell a vision before discussing the details
This is especially true for sales people. Don’t walk into a meeting with an executive and start talking about your super-wonderful fully-guaranteed remote-controlled electronic bobbin. Execs will immediately focus on cost and product features, often ending the meeting with “We’ll get back to you” so they can have someone research prices.

Instead, focus on painting a vision of a better future – hopefully one that maps onto their three-year goals. Once they’re nodding at the vision – and ONLY after they’re nodding at the vision – should you talk about your product’s details. Cost is likely to be less of a concern now.

4. Lead with stories, not data
Executives respect data and making data-driven decisions. But they are also realistic about what data can – and cannot – tell you. They’ve seen many projects fail despite the glowing research results. And they’ve seen boot-strap projects succeed despite the lack of any data to back it up.

Executives often trust their guts more than they trust data. They consider customer stories, quotes from their largest channel partners and competitor moves just as valid as data. So use that. Come to executive presentations armed with lots of stories and introduce stories first, then the data to back it up.

5. Don’t be afraid of executives; be afraid FOR them
Because the stakes are high, and executives often shoot presenters for sport, people are naturally nervous presenting to executives. But this fear will only work against you and broadcast your lack of confidence. So, adopt a different mindset: be afraid FOR executives.


Remember that executives have more power, but also more responsibility and more things that can go wrong: an employee leaks confidential information, a critical project misses a milestone, an indiscriminate comment derails their career. So, don’t be afraid of executives. Be afraid for them and think about how your proposal could help to allay their biggest fears.

There’s a lot more to presenting to executives but these five things will get you grounded. Now go nail your next executive presentation.

Bruce GabrielleAbout the author: Bruce Gabrielle author of Speaking PowerPoint: the New Language of Business. He teaches PowerPoint presentation workshops for Fortune 500 companies, technology firms, consulting firms and business schools. You can contact him at www.speakingppt.com or @speakingppt.

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How to Use SlideShare to Inspire Blog Post Ideas

by Joseph Putnam on August 10, 2012

A lot of bloggers have similar frustrations when it comes to blogging.

This list includes things like not liking their current theme, not having enough time to write, and not knowing what to write about. Out of these three, the last seems to be the biggest frustration.

Lots of ideasAs long as there’s something to write about, most bloggers don’t have any trouble writing a post. But finding those elusive golden ideas can be a challenge.

Ideas also happen to be super important for bloggers. Why? Because ideas are the currency of every writer. Without good ideas, writers don’t have anything to write about. Often, the challenge isn’t writing well enough or polishing prose to be perfect but finding ideas worth writing about and ideas that people want to read.

So how can bloggers use SlideShare to come up with more ideas?

SlideShare to the rescue

Let’s assume for a moment that you’re a blogger who writes about marketing. You’re struggling with finding new blog post ideas so you turn to SlideShare for inspiration.

As you’re perusing the presentations, you find one titled “The Content Marketing Manifesto.” It was created by a guy you’ve heard of named Rand Fishkin who’s known for his SEO and marketing advice. Since SEO and marketing is something you write about, you decide to check out the presentation.

As you click through the slides, you’re first blown away by how awesome the content is. You have thoughts like this: “Wow, I didn’t know that people are putting up free information like this on SlideShare,” and, “Whoa, I had no idea that I could learn this much by just reading presentation slides.”

You keep clicking and continue to be impressed with how much awesome information is being presented. Then you come across slide number 27. It says, “Don’t get sidetracked by relevance.”

Wait a second, what do you mean, “don’t get sidetracked by relevance”? Isn’t that what content marketing is all about? Isn’t relevance the whole point? So you click to the next slide to learn more. It contains a relevance scale that says:

The Relevance Scale: Relevant to Current Customers, Relevant to Potential Customers, and Relevant to Any Who Interact w/ Potential Customers

After reading this, you’re blown away. “I can’t believe I haven’t thought of this before. I’ve been creating content for current customers and potential customers, but I didn’t think about how beneficial it would be to create content for anyone who interacts with potential customers. That changes everything.”

What a great idea!Now, you’re totally inspired. You start to tell yourself, “Wow, I’ve got to write about this. I’ve got to write a post that explains that content marketing shouldn’t just be for potential customers; it should also be for anyone who might influence potential customers. I need to right this post right now!”

So you switch over to your WordPress dashboard, start writing, and crank out a 750 to 800 word post explaining to the world the content marketing revelation you’ve just experienced. But the process doesn’t stop here.

After writing the post, you realize that you can also embed the presentation into your post. Not only can you write about it, but SlideShare makes it super easy to embed presentations into posts. Voila! Now you’ve written an awesome post from an idea you found on SlideShare, and you have a presentation you can add to visually spice up the post.

Woohoo! You’re such an awesome blogger! Everyone thinks you have so many good ideas to write about!

Ahem, sorry about that, we got a little carried away there, but the point still holds: SlideShare helped you identify a blog post idea, write the post, and even added some spice at the end. How cool is that?

So the next time you’re looking for blog posts ideas, you’re invited to come over to SlideShare and look around at the presentations related to your field. If you’re lucky, you’ll find more than one idea and have enough to last for a month or more. Good luck!

p.s. If you want to view the content marketing presentation mentioned above, you can do so here: The Content Marekting Manifesto.

Joseph PutnamAbout the author: Joseph Putnam is a freelance copywriter and the proud owner of 5 North Marketing. You can subscribe to his blog to learn more about marketing or keep up with him on Twitter @josephputnam.

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Connect with your audience through storytelling – an interview with Samantha Starmer of REI

by Kit Seeborg on August 7, 2012

With so much information bombarding conference attendees during an event, it’s easy to overwhelm and saturate an audience with facts, figures and data. A skilled storyteller can form a deeper connection with each audience member by sharing knowledge in story form.

Samantha Starmer leads cross-channel experience, design, and information architecture teams at REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.). An active public speaker, Samantha has evolved her presentation style to that of storytelling. Audience members quickly forget that they’re in a conference room or auditorium, and are immediately drawn in as Samantha’s story unfolds.

We caught up with Samantha just after her return from O’Reilly OSCON where she presented the workshop How to Design for the Future – Cross Channel Experience Design.

Samantha, thanks for grabbing some time to talk with us. What led you to adopt storytelling as your style of public speaking?

Samantha StarmerHappy to! Two things: having attended a lot of conferences, both user experience (UX) and retail-specific conferences, I kept finding myself wanting to get up and leave. Even when there was value in what the presenter was saying.

The second thing that happened was I hired Jonathon Colman to do SEO. He gave a presentation to our team about what SEO is, and he did it by telling a story. I saw how well it resonated. This got me to reexamine how presentations can connect with the audience.

How did your thought process evolve as you changed your approach to creating presentations?
I gave a presentation for the Intelligent Content conference a few years ago on UX. It was the first time I had talked on that topic. I was busy and hadn’t put the structure into the presentation yet. I had the points in mind but then I noticed something about the hotel in Palm Springs: it had a policy of no signs. This impacted my feelings about the hotel and whether I would come back. I spent the day exploring and taking photos of the area surrounding the hotel. I put the photos together and the story came together. It was particularly relevant as I was currently having the experience!

Have you noticed any differences in the way people react to storytelling style vs. traditional bullet point style of presenting?
Right off the bat I saw people nodding and laughing, frowning – emotionally reacting in a different way. Now I kick off with that story because it creates a different kind of relationship with the audience. It connects people right away.

What challenges or stumbling blocks do you experience when crafting a presentation in story form?

Samantha Starmer with cameraI’m consciously looking for the story now (the Palm Springs just kind of happened upon me). At the OSCON conference I took a bunch of pictures in Portland and will save them for the next presentation. I’m constantly pulling out my iphone and taking photos, not really knowing what they will turn into. I let it percolate a bit.

Stumbling blocks? It’s easy to get so wrapped up in the story that it’s not relevant to the point you’re trying to make in the presentation. I always have to remember what the point of the presentation is about, it’s easy to go too far with the story or get into details that don’t have anything to do with the point. You have to keep it honed back in to the presentation. I’m always looking for story opportunities, but I’m always conscious of the point of the story.

What’s your approach to assembling slides?
I start with the outline of the point I’m trying to make. Sometimes just a couple of blank slides with words. Then I layer the pictures on top of that, and often end up with way more than I need to use. Then I need to edit back to make sure it’s the right size, and then practice it. During practice I winnow back.

My quality of presentation got exponentially better when I started to practice. I have a background in improvisational acting, but my presentation is always better when I practice. It’s the arc of the story but most importantly the transitions. I hate to practice, but I force myself to because then I stay true to the point.


How do you introduce context differently when presenting in a storytelling style?
You’re not necessarily talking about the context – not context face on, it’s meta-context. You’re trying to draw a parallel to what you’re talking about. A story adds, especially for a conference situation, it puts people in the context . They can more quickly understand the rest of what you’re trying to say because they personally identify with the context you’ve set in the story. (If you’ve done it successfully.)

Which visual designers inspire you?
I’m not someone who follows particular people or artists. I tend to be collector – my learning style has always been to look at everything. Then pick out bits and pieces. That’s my lifestyle as well. Even back in high school, I would wind up with way too much material.

What tips can you share with presenters who want to move away from bullet points and toward storytelling?
Be always ready and open to absorb a story and portions of a story. I’m always attuned now to situations that might help me tell a story. Or images or comments. Have your high-level theme in your mind first, then make sure that it ties to the story you’re trying to tell. The pictures that I take are less around the photos themselves and more around telling a story. All the time keeping in mind the point you’re trying to make. I personally wouldn’t go out seeking a story. It just never works – it needs to happen to me instead. It’s a part of my consciousness all the time.

For me, I haven’t studied about what a good story is, but ever since I was young I was a voracious reader. I mostly read narrative – fiction and memories. I think that helps me internalize what a story is.

After more than 10 years of customer focused work at companies like Amazon.com and Microsoft, Samantha Starmer now leads cross-channel experience, design, and information architecture teams at REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.). Samantha regularly teaches at the University of Washington, and enjoys speaking about experience design and how to gain support for increasing its organizational value and visibility. You can find Samantha on SlideShare, LinkedIn, and on Twitter at @samanthastarmer.

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A Super Easy Way to Spice Up Your Blog Posts

by Joseph Putnam on July 30, 2012

Most blog posts look about the same.

They’re somewhere between 500 to 1,000 words long, and they have a title that starts with either “5 Ways to do Such and Such” or “How to do Such and Such.”

That’s a generalization, but it’s close to the truth.

Part of the reason posts are so similar is that this formula works. If you write too much or if you write too little, people either won’t read everything, or they’ll wish you’d written more. Also, if you write a list post, there’s a good chance people will click through to read because everyone loves a good list. The same is true for how to’s.

But doesn’t this get boring sometimes? Don’t you wish you could do something different, something special to add some spice to your posts?

The good news is that you can. Let’s take a minute to talk about how.

Adding some spice to your posts

Variety is the spice of life, so they say. Thus, the first step to spicing up your posts is doing something different. Something different than another 750 word post with one picture and two sub-headlines.

spice up your presentationsHow do you do this?

A super easy way is to embed SlideShare presentations into your posts. This provides unique content that no one has seen before, and it doesn’t take any extra work to do. You simply find a presentation you like, copy the code, and embed the presentation into your post.

Now, instead of just having words on a website to be read, you also have an interactive presentation for all of your readers. And if you find the right presentation, it will be advice from a well respected expert in your field.

How cool is that? With the click of a few buttons, you can add a 50-slide-long (or more) presentation to your post without having to do any extra work.

Here are the benefits:

  1. You get extra content for your post that you would have to write out otherwise.
  2. Readers get an interactive content experience they weren’t expecting.
  3. You can share advice from well-respected leaders directly on your blog

How to embed a presentation

To embed a presentation, you’ll first need to find one. The easiest way to do this is to go to the homepage and to search for the topic you’re interested in. As an example, I’m going to search for “web design.”

The tenth result is for “10 Things CEO’s Need to Know About Design.” It has a catchy title, so I’ll go ahead and see what it’s about.

After making my selection, I’m taken to a page with the presentation and find out that it was created by a guy named Jason Putorti who works at a company called Bessemer Venture Partners. The presentation has 108,000 views, which is quite impressive, and the description mentions that it’s about explaining design concepts to non-designers. Since I’m going to write a post about the presentation, I’ll go ahead and view it now. Be back in a sec…

…Ok, I’m back. After viewing the presentation, well, part of the presentation, I’m impressed with the first point about design which is this: Design can change businesses.

At first I had no idea what this meant, but then an example was given with Mint.com. The presentation showed that because of their beautifully designed site (which in turn was professional and credible), customers were willing to hand over their credit card and bank information in order to track their spending. That’s not an easy task, but they were able to accomplish it because of a beautiful website design that increased their credibility.

It’s a great point and a great story. It would also make for a great blog post. I’m going to write one (hypothetically) that talks about the importance of design and how it affects a business’s credibility. It will be titled something like this: How Beautiful Design Can Affect Your Business. I’ll then go on to write about the importance of design and how much it can affect a business and impact a company’s bottom line.

But here’s the great part: I also have a presentation I can add to spice up the post. I’ll mention it in the beginning and then embed it at the end. It’s as easy as locating the “embed” link above the presentation, copying the code, and then pasting it into my blog.


With the click of a few buttons and the time it takes to write a 500 word or so blog post, I’ve got a post that stands out from all of the other ones that I’ve written. It has more than just words and a few pictures. It also has a 78-slide-long presentation that people can watch to learn more about design. That’s super cool. I’m sure my readers will like it as well.

So there you have it: a super easy way to spice up blog posts and give readers more information without requiring any extra work from you. I personally like the idea of publishing more information without having to do more work. Don’t you?

Joseph PutnamAbout the author: Joseph Putnam is a freelance copywriter and the proud owner of 5 North Marketing. You can subscribe to his blog to learn more about marketing or keep up with him on Twitter @josephputnam.

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Rashmi Sinha inspires women-owned businesses in OPEN Forum spotlight

by Kit Seeborg on July 27, 2012

American Express continues its four-week series “Celebrating Women Business Owners” with SlideShare CEO Rashmi Sinha in ‘Women-Owned Businesses: Financing Your Venture’. A follow-up to its second annual State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, the series highlights the achievements of women business owners.

Rashmi joins three other successful women founders featured in the article, each with their own infographic. Open Forum invites you to share and/or comment on Twitter, Facebook or your own blog about how you are #PoweringTomorrow in your community and within your business. Join in and spread the word about celebrating women founders with your friends and colleagues, and raise awareness about women-owned businesses.

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8 Ways to Use the Power of Pinterest and SlideShare to Grow Your Business and Expand Your Speaking Career

July 23, 2012

Editor’s Note: In this guest post, Beth Hayden shares tips for using Pinterest with SlideShare, based on the concepts in her new book: Pinfluence: The Complete Guide to Marketing Your Business with Pinterest. With the recent integration of Pinterest into the SlideShare platform, it’s even easier to collaboratively use the two social media platforms to [...]

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Use new embed codes for HTML5 presentations that play everywhere

July 20, 2012

As part of our transition to HTML5, we are pleased to let you know that embedded presentations are now Flash-free. We have also made several other improvements to our embed code: Embedded presentations can be viewed on iOS devices New features in embedded presentations will be updated dynamically The embed code is shorter and simpler [...]

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