Microsoft Office Reference Guide

Mar 26, 2004

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While most of my updates have to do with technical issues, since I write a great deal about PowerPoint — which is essentially a communications tool — I also like to dabble in soft skills from time to time.

A while back I wrote about "What the Heck Do I Say", which covered some resources I recommended for enhancing story-telling skills and getting rid of boring bullets. More recently I covered PowerFrameworks, an online resource for animated diagrams that can help provide visual analogies for presenters.

In my own book, "Solving the PowerPoint Predicament: Using Digital Media for Effective Communication" (QUE, 2006) I began with many commonly practiced skills in the area of communication, structure and design and then tried to show how to practically achieve those results using digital media — mainly PowerPoint.

Now a friend and colleague whose specializes in communication in the psychiatric and medical field, Dr. Leslie Lundt who now is on the ReachMD medical information show on XM Satellite, mentioned a book that I think has particular relevance to presenters; and let's face, that means not just PowerPoint users but also those who use Excel, Word, Publisher, Visio and other Office tools to deliver information.

"Made to Stick", by Chip Heath and Dan Heath is a book you may have heard about, but if you're in business I believe you owe it to yourself to at least go to the web site, if not actually read the book.

You can get the gist of the theory in the Excerpts, where the authors relate a relatively grisly urban legend about a guy who has his vital organs harvested, and suggest that what makes urban legends so compelling is their "stickiness."

Why is this of potential interest to presenters; and again, not just PowerPoint folks but anyone who even uses a spreadsheet to make a point? They contrast the urban legend to a glob of text from a presentation:

"Comprehensive community building naturally lends itself to a return-on-investment rationale that can be modeled, drawing on existing practice," it begins, going on to argue that "[a] factor constraining the flow of resources to CCIs is that funders must often resort to targeting or categorical requirements in grant making to ensure accountability."

Have you ever happened to doze through a PowerPoint like that?

Can you just visualize the bullets?

Comprehensive Community Building — Return on Investment

Modeled upon existing practice
Constrain the flow of resources to CCI's
Targeting or categorical requirements in grant making
Assure Accountability

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

The authors go on to give a clear, practical model for what makes ideas sticky and not forgettable like this example.

They use an Acronym for Success:

Simplicy Unexpectedness Concreteness Credibility Emotional [component] Stories

What I found cool about this book is that the Heaths' (yes, they're brothers) writing style is fun to read and loaded with powerful examples and anecdotes.

Early on in their description of the quality of unexpectedness they use an example from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) that sought to dramatize the fat content of popcorn at the movies.

Rather than using dry language about "saturated fat content", CSPI instead called a press conference with the message that "a medium sized 'butter' popcorn contains more artery clogging fat than a bacon and eggs breakfast, a bit Mac and Fries for lunch, and a steak dinner with all the trimmings — combined."

Imagine how something like this might work in a single powerful PowerPoint slide.

Instead of an Excel chart with 3D columns or bar, a "pictograph" might be animated to visually show each of these meals' caloric or fat content in stacks of eggs, burgers and fries — and compare it to a smaller stack of kernels of popcorn.

As the presentation slide is run, these elements could be animated and later compared even more dramatically within the slide, as the message is delivered.

For the Office user who creates the slide I would also submit that telling a story in such a dramatic fashion is much more fun and fulfilling that cut and pasting the Excel bar chart into PowerPoint and possibly adding another slide with bullets.

Perhaps more important, since in most cases these kinds of presentations are a team effort, the creative team, the subject matter team and the PowerPoint/digital media team can all benefit from thinking in the realm of "stickiness."

What is going to result in your audience leaving the presentation with the main message you want to convey implanted in their frontal lobe, instead of heading for the door thinking about lunch?

Books like "Made to Stick" are valuable to these kinds of teams precisely because they get creative juices flowing in a way that computer programs generally stifle — they make you jazzed to come up with a powerful message instead of taking the easiest way out — and end up reading a bunch of boring bullets to your audience.

As I've written before, professional presenters and coaches already have many techniques to make their ideas sticky. My colleague Jim Endicott talks about the "stakes" and identifying the pain — mainly because the consequences for an unsuccessful presentations aren't just boredom — they are lost contracts and abruptly ended careers.

It's interesting that "Made to Stick" is not targeted only at presenters and Office users, but it might well be an excellent textbook in framing ideas for exactly that audience.

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