A FitzMartin How To : the secret to a great presentation

The purpose of this note is to inspire you about presentations.

Is there anything worse than a truly bad presentation? The trouble is that's all anyone seems to make these days. It doesn't have to be that way; with the right point of view and a touch of technology, you can add a little inspiration to your next presentation.

Technology is a wonderful tool-when it works to make a larger point. The beauty of technology, of course, is that our marketing/presentations need no longer stand still. New tools have moved (pardon the pun) our messages out of the two-dimensional world, allowing us to add music and movement to create presentations that compel both emotionally and intellectually.

But the key to making it work is NOT to fall in love with the technology. Instead, harness its capabilities, and the media in which the project will operate, to say something meaningful. Technology is seductive and it's hard not to lose focus on your objective in an effort to look cool. (It happens in movies, too. Jurassic Park is one of many movies that are long on cool effects and short on character development; I cheered for the dinosaurs!)

The way to avoid the trap is to tell a story, then make sure your visual elements arise from the message. Here are a couple of examples.

Compass, in this short filmthat played on the side of the NASDAQ building in Times Square, wanted to promote 20 years of impressive growth. We incorporated movement into the graphs and even leveraged the spherical shape of the building to emphasize the larger points we were making.

The Freshwater Land Trust used this short filmto tell the concept of Red Mountain Park on Capitol Hill. And while cooperation from government officials in this town is as common as snow in summer, the Land Trust presentation had everyone jumping on the bandwagon before the plane left for DC. What made it successful, again, was wowing our audience with the technology, but never losing focus on the content, always telling the story. We made the technology sell.

Thanks. Hope you can share this with the gang in sales and watch ’em drool.

Sean