Nancy Duarte's Blog, page 28

Resonate has made the leap from book to iBook! A significantly enhanced version of the best-selling business book is currently on an iBookshelf near you.

We are proud to say that Resonate is the first interactive business book built using Apple’s iBooks Author, a tool to help publishers create digital books that leverage the iPad’s video, sound, interactive diagrams, and text functionality. If not for the outstanding capabilities of the program (and the iPad!), the Resonate iBook would simply not exist.

The app enabled our designers to create and convey content not possible on the printed page. Resonate’s original print publication contained references to online multimedia content, but it was a separate experience from reading the book. With the iPad’s ability to to support interactive applications and multimedia, the reader is able to transition seamlessly between static and multimedia content.

“Even though Duarte originally packaged Resonate for print, this book was waiting for the interactive opportunity made available in iBooks Author. The iPad technology allows us to produce the book in the visual, cinematic manner I originally envisioned.”

–Nancy Duarte

Among the key concepts in Resonate is the “sparkline,” a representation of the dramatic shape of any persuasive presentation. While this is explained in the print version of Resonate, in the new iPad publication the sparklines come to life through the use of embedded interactive JavaScript applications. These interactive apps intertwine the data in the sparklines with audio recordings of the speeches. The book includes analysis of speeches given by President Ronald Reagan, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Steve Jobs.

The iBook is packed with goodies, but we walk through our favorite features here:

To buy the new iPad edition of Resonate, visit:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/resonate/id517154732?mt=11

I love knowing people that have so much passion, they MAKE their dreams come true. On the heels of Lou’s successful work on whale entanglement with “In the Wake of Giants”, he has started a kickstarter campaign to create the sequel, “Northern Wake”.

You can help by donating, or reposting the link to get the word out!

Here, we even made a tiny URL for you: http://tinyurl.com/7wukqe9

Here’s Lou’s current award-winning short film:

You’ve always wanted to be a filmmaker, what are some of the roadblocks you had to overcome to realize your dream?

Lou: The roadblocks, how do you do a natural history documentary meant to compete with fully crewed, budgeted films? You do it by making it personal, and by bringing every lesson you’ve learned in thirty years to bear on the final piece. It was brutal.

The footage of entangled whales was mostly captured on cameras the Hawaiian Island Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary was using for research. Helmet cams. Nobody bothered to clean the lens of water spots, they weren’t planning to do anything like this before. There were hundreds of hours of un-logged footage of whales that had gotten themselves tangled up in marine debris.

I had to go through several documented rescues, three to four cameras per effort, and find synced stories. Hoping for some semblance of coverage before a battery died or a card filled up and went unchanged. It was part luck, part magic, and then…more luck.

“In The Wake Of Giants” may not have come to fruition and definitely not been award-winning if you hadn’t put your own personal passion into it. What did you learn from this experience?

Lou: Yeah, passion is right. But passion about what? That’s the real question here. If I’d listened to the “whale-huggers” around me, I’d have made a film about whales. Lots of whales, breaching and frolicking and looking all majestic and beautiful. “Charismatic Megafauna” as they’re often categorized. And that’s where passion came in. The film is about people, good people, who sacrifice a lot and risk a lot to survive a quest–to accomplish a mission. It’s a story.

More to the point, it’s a hero’s journey. The week after we premiered, I showed it to you, Nancy. You were writing your book, Resonate, and gave me a copy of “The Writer’s Journey”. I couldn’t believe it, finally someone explained to me what I’d been doing. It’s funny how you can have passion about something you don’t totally get. Then somehow it’s explained to you and you become evangelistic about it. That’s what’s happened with me, these films, and the commitment to story.

There are a LOT of natural history films around that are these meandering, well-scored moving wallpapers. I want a story. That’s what I’ve become most passionate about, and what I’ve learned from doing this.

What kinds of work do you do to “pay the bills” so you can continue to produce short films?

Lou: I’ve done just about every job in production. So I’ll do what it takes these days. I prefer to produce, write and direct and take clients with me into realms they never dreamed possible for their product or service. I’m focusing a LOT on micro-documentaries, targeting three minute story packets for multiple screen sizes. My website, www.blatsnapper.com, has some examples.

There are film-school students who will work for Top Ramen and Cheese Whiz. So I’ve been producing more guerilla styled work but avoiding the day rate. Instead I’ll tell a client they can buy me for a discounted week. If they get tired of my ranting about story, they can tell me to cook them dinner, and I’ll happily do it.

You have a Kickstarter campaign for your new film. What will it be about?

Lou: The next film is the sequel to In The Wake Of Giants. It picks up where the first film left off, to answer the question, “How can we prevent this from happening in the first place?”

It’s through the unlikely collaboration of commercial fishermen, conservationists and scientists. Fisherman are prototyping new methods and working alongside the conservation community. Of course, we will also be shooting new rescue footage as it happens. I expect there might be more activity up there than in past years. As the polar caps recede, new areas for oil exploration are opening up. There will be 33 new exploratory vessels from Shell Oil alone this summer in Alaskan waters. More activity means more likely encounters between marine mammals and humans. This is the summer to be there. I need to raise $42,000 through kickstarter to match the outside grant funding I’m after for a small guerilla budget of $68,000. That’s a drop in the proverbial ocean.

There are two things that make kickstarter.com work for projects. Of course, the first is gaining backers for the project. But, a close second is sheer volume of tweets, retweets, and social networking. Nancy, if your readers could take a minute and repost the link here, I think the next thirty days or so could be a blast!

I love knowing people that have so much passion, they MAKE their dreams come true. On the heels of Lou's successful work on whale entanglement with "In the Wake of Giants", he has started a kickstarter campaign to create the sequel, "Northern Wake".

You can help by donating, or reposting the link to get the word out!

Here, we even made a tiny URL for you: http://tinyurl.com/7wukqe9

Here's Lou's current award-winning short film:

You've always wanted to be a filmmaker, what are some of the roadblocks you had to overcome to realize your dream?

Lou: The roadblocks, how do you do a natural history documentary meant to compete with fully crewed, budgeted films? You do it by making it personal, and by bringing every lesson you've learned in thirty years to bear on the final piece. It was brutal.

The footage of entangled whales was mostly captured on cameras the Hawaiian Island Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary was using for research. Helmet cams. Nobody bothered to clean the lens of water spots, they weren't planning to do anything like this before. There were hundreds of hours of un-logged footage of whales that had gotten themselves tangled up in marine debris.

I had to go through several documented rescues, three to four cameras per effort, and find synced stories. Hoping for some semblance of coverage before a battery died or a card filled up and went unchanged. It was part luck, part magic, and then…more luck.

"In The Wake Of Giants" may not have come to fruition and definitely not been award-winning if you hadn't put your own personal passion into it. What did you learn from this experience?

Lou: Yeah, passion is right. But passion about what? That's the real question here. If I'd listened to the "whale-huggers" around me, I'd have made a film about whales. Lots of whales, breaching and frolicking and looking all majestic and beautiful. "Charismatic Megafauna" as they're often categorized. And that's where passion came in. The film is about people, good people, who sacrifice a lot and risk a lot to survive a quest–to accomplish a mission. It's a story.

More to the point, it's a hero's journey. The week after we premiered, I showed it to you, Nancy. You were writing your book, Resonate, and gave me a copy of "The Writer's Journey". I couldn't believe it, finally someone explained to me what I'd been doing. It's funny how you can have passion about something you don't totally get. Then somehow it's explained to you and you become evangelistic about it. That's what's happened with me, these films, and the commitment to story.

There are a LOT of natural history films around that are these meandering, well-scored moving wallpapers. I want a story. That's what I've become most passionate about, and what I've learned from doing this.

What kinds of work do you do to "pay the bills" so you can continue to produce short films?

Lou: I've done just about every job in production. So I'll do what it takes these days. I prefer to produce, write and direct and take clients with me into realms they never dreamed possible for their product or service. I'm focusing a LOT on micro-documentaries, targeting three minute story packets for multiple screen sizes. My website, www.blatsnapper.com, has some examples.

There are film-school students who will work for Top Ramen and Cheese Whiz. So I've been producing more guerilla styled work but avoiding the day rate. Instead I'll tell a client they can buy me for a discounted week. If they get tired of my ranting about story, they can tell me to cook them dinner, and I'll happily do it.

You have a Kickstarter campaign for your new film. What will it be about?

Lou: The next film is the sequel to In The Wake Of Giants. It picks up where the first film left off, to answer the question, "How can we prevent this from happening in the first place?"

It's through the unlikely collaboration of commercial fishermen, conservationists and scientists. Fisherman are prototyping new methods and working alongside the conservation community. Of course, we will also be shooting new rescue footage as it happens. I expect there might be more activity up there than in past years. As the polar caps recede, new areas for oil exploration are opening up. There will be 33 new exploratory vessels from Shell Oil alone this summer in Alaskan waters. More activity means more likely encounters between marine mammals and humans. This is the summer to be there. I need to raise $42,000 through kickstarter to match the outside grant funding I'm after for a small guerilla budget of $68,000. That's a drop in the proverbial ocean.

There are two things that make kickstarter.com work for projects. Of course, the first is gaining backers for the project. But, a close second is sheer volume of tweets, retweets, and social networking. Nancy, if your readers could take a minute and repost the link here, I think the next thirty days or so could be a blast!

The sixth Pecha Kucha Night – San Jose is just around the corner! If you're interested in diving into a highly creative, low-risk presentation environment, Pecha Kucha is for you.

Each speaker presents 20 slides, for 20 seconds each. Which means that you get to hear several unique and highly visual stories, told in less than seven minutes.

DETAILS

Date: Tuesday, April 17

Time: 7-10 P.M.

Location: Sonoma Chicken Coop

Address: 200 E Campbell Ave, Campbell, CA 95008

AGENDA

7pm: Mingle, grab a drink, and get your FREE raffle ticket

7:30pm: PowerPoint Karaoke

(Raffle tickets available for sale after 7:30pm.)

8pm: Presentations begin

Photo courtesy of flickr user RicBret

In case you don't know about Pecha Kucha yet, an excerpt from their website describes it best:

PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat", it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It's a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.

Michael Goodson Multi-year winner of the privately held invitational Lip-Synco competition will discuss creating award winning lip sync videos, and we'll be showing some that will destroy your preconceptions of lip sync as an art!

Howard Cooperstein Howard returns with a heartwarming tale of family, hardship, triumph and social media like nothing you've heard before.

Maurieen Stakey Area artist Mo will discuss and show her art, everything from comics to magazine covers.

Scott Stiefvater The Divisiveness of Mourning will explore how a family loss challenged and grew the survivors involved.

Mark Jaremko A true renaissance man, Mark explores what it is to be a "maker" in the Silicon Valley, demoing some of his inventions, and providing some guidelines and inspiration for those that may want to take a similar path.

Hope to see you there!

(And if you're interested in presenting, reach out to us and we'll put you in touch with the event organizer.)

SXSW is an event like no other. Where else can you hear Rainn Wilson's thoughts on spirituality, Ray Kurzweil on artificial intelligence, Anthony Bourdain on social media, and Al Gore and Sean Parker on democracy?

This annual event attracts creatives, developers, marketers, educators, non-profit folks, and start-up entrepreneurs from around the world. For the first (and definitely not last) time, Duarte sent a small team to SXSW Interactive. Over the course of five days, we attended as many sessions, keynotes, and conversations as we possibly could. We came back to work with new insights and renewed enthusiasm. We still have plenty to process, but here are some of the highlights.

Cartoonist Matthew Diffee gave one of our favorite talks, "How to Be an Idea Factory." He draws single cell cartoons for the New Yorker and TEXAS MONTHLY, and he walked us through his creative process, from coming up with an idea to drawing a cartoon and writing a caption. We realized that, at its most basic, a single cell cartoon isn't really all that different from a slide in a presentation. Each begins with an idea or concept and is executed with visuals and either speaker notes or a caption. Diffee has the extra challenge of making it funny every time. His presentation incorporated the worst clip art he could find, making the cartoon interludes of his own work that much more satisfying.

[image error]

We appreciated how Diffee broke down his creative process into simple, manageable tasks. "I fill a pot of coffee, then I empty the pot and fill a page with ideas," he said. This approach makes it easy for him to get started. Eliminate distractions. Make your creative process a matter of habit. Practice everyday. Let yourself get better. Do a little more everyday. Remember, being creative is fun, and it's hard for everybody. It's great advice, no matter what your medium.

Baratunde Thurston gave the first keynote, "How to Read the World." He is Director of Digital for The Onion and co-founder of the black political blog, Jack & Jill Politics, and he recently published How to Be Black. He began by talking about his family's political history and his own relationship with politics and humor. He asked, "What happens when comedy takes on power on a global scale?" He shared inspiring examples of how political satire is shining a light in some very dark places around the world, including Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, China, Nigeria, and others. He gave a great speech, and you can listen and see his slides.

We learned about technology, transmedia, advertising, design, social media, and social change. We sketched, tweeted, talked, and trekked all over Austin fueled by breakfast tacos & BBQ. Next year we'll be even more ambitious.

Kate Middleton received a lot of press attention this week for delivering her first public speech as the Duchess of Cambridge. In her three-minute address at the Treehouse, a hospice run by East Anglia's Children's Hospices, she tried to connect with her audience and make a favorable first impression.

The Duchess faced a challenge familiar to many newly promoted business leaders, elected officials and public figures: with so much riding on first impressions, what can you do to win the favor of your audience?

Here are some tips to help those stepping into the spotlight shine.

Practice - Audiences can tell when you're unprepared. Practicing will help you feel confident and comfortable when you have to step up in front of a room full of people for the first time. When President Barack Obama practiced for the presidential debates in 2008, his team built an entire mock stage to replicate the exact conditions of his speech and figure out what he needed to do better. That might be a bit extreme for the average speaker; instead, ask someone whose opinion you trust to watch you rehearse and give honest feedback. Or, as a complement to a practice audience, record yourself practicing and then watch the video to see what works and what doesn't.

Relax – It's important to prepare, but it's just as critical to stop worrying about perfection. When a speaker becomes too focused on getting each word precisely right, they get nervous and stiff during their presentation. Audiences would much rather hear from an authentic speaker than a perfect one.

Relate – Your audience came to see you speak, not to see your slides. Make it worth their time by remembering to be relatable. Weave in a story, tell a joke, or remark on a personal anecdote to make your presentation more compelling and keep your audience engaged. Tim Cook did this well in his first product launch as CEO of Apple. He began his presentation by making a joke about the audience's keen awareness of the change in Apple leadership. By lightening the mood, he helped the whole room relax and focus on the launch.

Restrain – One thing that Kate Middleton did well was to give a speech exactly the length it needed to be. Too many speakers overload their presentations with unnecessary facts and content to try and make a powerful impression. But most audiences aren't looking for lots of detail and they're not hoping you make your presentation longer. They're looking for a compelling story. Include exactly as much content as you need to get your idea across and not a word more.

The Duchess of Cambridge has a huge platform. When she speaks, the worldwide media pays attention. That can create a tremendous amount of pressure and it puts a premium on practicing and finding ways to relax. She did a nice job with her first public speech and we can't wait to see what she does in the future!

From Copernicus to Kerouac, diagrams have been helping people see what they're saying for the past 16,5000 years.

Find the perfect diagram to visualize your info at http://www.diagrammer.com, and download the PowerPoint®-ready file for just $0.99.

Where there is madness, Nancy Duarte finds method. This is how twenty years of sketches and infographic concepts became Diagrammer™, a searchable taxonomy of over 4,000 PowerPoint®-ready diagrams, available for you to download for just 99 cents each.

After more than twenty years of visualizing information for client presentations, Duarte designers had sketched thousands of concepts. Ever-anxious to find patterns and processes, Nancy gathered sketchbooks from each of the designers at Duarte. She then asked her trusty assistant (at the time, that was me!) to photocopy each of the pages of each of the books, so she could set to work cutting them to pieces, and sorting them. Nancy sat and sorted for hours, searching for patterns, deciding which concepts could be grouped, and which ones necessitated their own category. Lo and behold, a taxonomy emerged. This taxonomy of diagrams was featured in Chapter 3 of Nancy’s first book, Slide:ology, where it quickly became one of the book’s most popular sections.

Shortly after Slide:ology was released, its readers began to (politely) demand that Duarte offer training. And so began the development of the Slide:ology workshop. While creating the curriculum, the diagram concepts were converted into PowerPoint®, so they could be easily implemented by attendees. These diagrams garnered such an overwhelmingly positive response, and Nancy knew people were hungry for tools to help visualize their information. A team of people set to work creating thousands of PowerPoint®-ready diagrams, and now, nearly five years later, we are proud to announce Diagrammer™!

The taxonomy has been refined a bit since its first appearance in Slide:ology. There are five main categories–Flow, Network, Stack, Segment, and Join–which we believe encompass every type of relationship between information. Each of these categories has two or more subsets, to help further clarify your data. Check out the taxonomy below, or have it explained to you by a real Duarte lab tech, in just 96 seconds.

PowerPoint® is a trademark of Microsoft, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

Where there is madness, Nancy Duarte finds method. This is how twenty years of sketches and infographic concepts became Diagrammer™, a searchable taxonomy of over 4,000 PowerPoint®-ready diagrams, available for you to download for just 99 cents each.

After more than twenty years of visualizing information for client presentations, Duarte designers had sketched thousands of concepts. Ever-anxious to find patterns and processes, Nancy gathered sketchbooks from each of the designers at Duarte. She then asked her trusty assistant (at the time, that was me!) to photocopy each of the pages of each of the books, so she could set to work cutting them to pieces, and sorting them. Nancy sat and sorted for hours, searching for patterns, deciding which concepts could be grouped, and which ones necessitated their own category. Lo and behold, a taxonomy emerged. This taxonomy of diagrams was featured in Chapter 3 of Nancy's first book, Slide:ology, where it quickly became one of the book's most popular sections.

Shortly after Slide:ology was released, its readers began to (politely) demand that Duarte offer training. And so began the development of the Slide:ology workshop. While creating the curriculum, the diagram concepts were converted into PowerPoint®, so they could be easily implemented by attendees. These diagrams garnered such an overwhelmingly positive response, and Nancy knew people were hungry for tools to help visualize their information. A team of people set to work creating thousands of PowerPoint®-ready diagrams, and now, nearly five years later, we are proud to announce Diagrammer™!

The taxonomy has been refined a bit since its first appearance in Slide:ology. There are five main categories–Flow, Network, Stack, Segment, and Join–which we believe encompass every type of relationship between information. Each of these categories has two or more subsets, to help further clarify your data. Check out the taxonomy below, or have it explained to you by a real Duarte lab tech, in just 96 seconds.

PowerPoint® is a trademark of Microsoft, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

It's no secret that Duarte has a big crush on TED. As presentation people, and lovers of all things story, TED is the man of our dreams. This year, we declared our love by hosting #illustraTED, a tweet-stravaganza dedicated sharing content inspired by #TED talks. (And over the weekend, they reciprocated our love by posting a little write-up about our event!)

Our team live-sketched and live-tweeted, churning out visual notes, iconic graphics, quotes, ten-word summaries, a few haiku, and even a limerick. We had a great time, even after Twitter put the kibosh on the fun. (Did you know there's a limit on the number of tweets you can tweet? Yeah, neither did we.)

We shared a few photos and videos below, but you can see 'em all in our Facebook album (no hourly limits there!) or time travel back to the event and review the @Duarte Twitter stream.

Big thanks to our followers for all the support, the wonderful people of TED for the continual inspiration, and of course, Duarte's #illustraTED team for for being straight-up amazing.

Inspired by Brene Brown (Artist: Erik Chappins)

Inspired by Cesar Kuriyama (Artist: Diandra Macias)

Inspired by Bill Nye @TheScienceGuy (Artist: Jonathan Valiente)

Inspired by Aaron Reedy (Artist: Jonathan Valiente)

Henrik Scharfe's TED in Ten Words

Brene Brown's TED Talk in Ten Words

Want to see sketch noting in action? Check out the making of video below.

Inspired by Awele Makeba (Artist: Eric Albertson)