Presentation Thinking™

“Presentation Summit” is the annual presentation party—a place where all things PowerPoint, presentation design and speaker inspiration come together.  Created by our friend Rick Altman, we’ve had several Rancheros from GhostRanch attend this annual conference that’s turned into a community. What they bring back is not only fresh insights but hilarious stories—and we wanted to highlight them on th...

Having started a career in broadcast journalism, VP of Marketing Garrett Denney knows how to communicate effectively.  When we met Garrett as the MC for a Product Marketing Alliance event in New York, we knew he was a natural presenter.   So when he shifted into the tech and marketing world, what skills did he take with him?  Through his role as a Product Marketing Manager and now VP of Marketing...

It’s Thanksgiving here in the United States but we didn’t want to miss an opportunity to create a special (and short) holiday episode in which Mikey and Molly riff on everything they’re thankful for within our podcast and presentation world. From our mascot, Shakespeare, to the pilgrims who invented PowerPoint (just kidding), we run through our “Favorites” short-list.  We are especially appreciati...

Kaarin Howard is a B2B marketing professional passionate about building webinars, among other strategic content, for your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). With a background in marketing events and launching startups, she came into the B2B marketing world ready to wear the 5 (or 50!) hats typically thrust upon them. When Mikey and Kaarin connected on the popular marketing forum, Exit Five , we were ex...

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of viral memoir Eat, Pray, Love acknowledges in her 2009 TED Talk that her best work might very well be behind her. As an artist, however, she’s stuck with the challenge of “topping” her last work.  Why are artists and creative people burdened with these crazy-making tropes? In ancient Greece and Rome, “genius” referred to the divine entity that visited artists— not the a...

Startup hubs are an amazing place for community, innovation and inspiration.  Few know this better than Jenna Blaszczykiewicz, the Senior Director of Marketing for global innovation hub based in Chicago, 1871 . Jenna started her career in architecture design, shifted to the tech space and now merges all of that with marketing. Jenna is brilliant at identifying new opportunities for narrative strat...

15 slide decks, 2 designers and a couple of days—What is it like to work on-site as a presentation designer?? GhostRanch designer Tamara Jarvi is here to share her experience with us! Tamara recently joined a GhostRanch client at an amazing event to help pull off over a dozen decks she and her team worked on.  From last-minute edits and additions to fonts breaking down from PC to Macs, we discuss...

From Abercrombie & Fitch to Twitter, companies around the globe have rebranded again and again—for better or worse.  Mikey & Molly dive into the good, the bad and the ugly of rebrands to understand WHY a company might rebrand and analyze the opportunities for shifting a brand story.  While a simple logo change might be the perfect design update to keep up with the times, swapping a little...

Every year, TechCrunch brings out some of the most impressive innovators to their “ Startup Battlefield ”—a competition for startups to win up to $100,000 and serious clout.  Lucky for us, the 6 finalists (out of over 200+ startups!) are filmed and available online for us to hyper-analyze their pitch decks—so that’s exactly what Mikey and Molly did.  We get particularly into Biotics AI , which (sp...

Paleoanthropologist Genevieve von Petzinger is entranced by the engraved signs and symbols found in caves all over the world. She has spent years researching this ancient visual communication and in her 2015 TED Talk, Why are these 32 symbols found in ancient caves all over Europe? , von Petzinger shares what she’s learned.  Her research catalogs the first ever collection of 32 signs and, stunning...

Description If you know the name “Brené Brown”, chances are you associate the word “vulnerability” with it.  Brené’s 2010 TED Talk, “The Power of vulnerability” , became one of the most-viewed TED Talks ever—and it launched her into a higher level of recognition in her career.  A self-titled “storyteller researcher” with a social work background, Brené studies human connection and what commonaliti...

Apple has long-since stood out in the tech world in its product announcements and presentations. Steve Jobs’ keynotes created a genuine “ you had to be there” atmosphere and set the bar high for the brand story that Apple was to embody. The loss of Steve Jobs and arrival of COVID forced them into a more produced, pre-recorded format, one such event premiering in September of this year.   Mikey and...

As certified TED Talk enthusiasts and amateur speaker coaches, Mikey and I thoroughly enjoyed Catherine Molloy’s 2022 TED Talk on conscious communication, “ Think before you speak, hacking the secret of communication .”  Catherine Molloy is a communications expert who walks the walk in her delivery. There are intentional pauses, NO talking from the screen or talk track and plenty of great storytel...

In our effort to practice what we preach (and spread the good word of presentation design), co-host Mikey Mioduski has embarked on a quest to the TED Talk stage.  For every keynote he gives, we give ourselves the opportunity to peel back the curtain into his thought process, training and delivery of a talk.  In August, Mikey presented at the Go-To-Market Alliance in San Diego and he debuted his “B...

What makes a good speaker a REFERABLE speaker? That’s the question that Michael Port and Andrew Davis set out to answer in their 2021 book, The Referable Speaker . As presentation enthusiasts and aspiring speakers ourselves, Mikey and I made our way through this book for another Book Club episode—and we highly recommend it.  Port & Davis share their journeys to becoming public speakers, as wel...

Forgive us, for we have sinned—with the 5 Deadly Sins of Presenting Creative work! Blurting, Ad Whispering, Wanderlust, Telepathy & Impalement. After years of experience in presenting creative work, author and presentation pro Kerry Feuerman (who we spoke with last episode !) has witnessed everything—from the nitpicky to the nuclear—that could go wrong in a presentation room.  It’s what inspir...

Kerry Feuerman is a presentation professional.  Having worked in advertising and presented creative work for a majority of his career, he’s well-suited to give presentations on, well, GIVING presentations. After receiving an amazing workshop at GhostRanch Story Camp in July of 2023, we knew we needed to learn more from Kerry’s experience. We discuss the power that a presenter has, what’s at stake...

David Christian is a historian who knows how to keep the “Big Picture” in mind. In fact, he coined the concept of “Big History” , which examines universal patterns from the Big Bang to the present day.  Continuing our series on breaking down some of the most-viewed TED Talks of all time, David’s 2011 TED Talk, The History of Our World in 18 Minutes , boasts the kind of title you just HAD to click...

As a remote agency, the GhostRanch “Rancheros” rarely give presentations in-person. But at this year’s Story Camp in Boulder, Colorado, all of that changed.  On Day 1, we brought in Presentation Skills training specialist Kerry Feuerman to give his incredible workshop on “The 5 Deadly Sins of Presenting Creative Work”. And on Day 2, we practiced presenting in front of him. (Eeep!) Creative Directo...

If you’ve ever done a “Wonder Woman” pose before an interview, you might have Amy Cuddy to thank.  Her 2012 TED Talk, Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are , is one of the most popular TEDs of all time and for good reason. Cuddy’s research on non-verbal communication AKA body language includes an impressive string of books, studies and teaching at incredible universities.  Interested in how com...

UX Design—”User Experience”—is such a vital part of how anyone interacts with the internet or an app. It facilitates a user’s journey through using any product or interface. It’s more than simply changing the color of a site or adding bells and whistles—it’s world-building.  And UX Designer Daijah Reese fully endorses this notion through her work experience. Daijah joins the pod to discuss storyte...

Andrea Pacini is a “Jack of all Trades” in the presentation world: An author, speaker, entrepreneur and Presentation Coach, we couldn’t have been more honored when he reached out to join the pod!  With his book, Confident Presenter, being released on July 18th, we revisit key components that make a speaker confident and what makes a good presentation GREAT—including message, visuals & delivery...

If you’re a product marketer you know that Problem Slides and Solution Slides are important.  You have to clearly convey what the problem is in your industry, the pain points and then have your product or service swoop in as the magical “Good Witch” to solve all those issues.  It’s A LOT to convey in just two slides—but they’re also two of the most important opportunities for you to tell a memorab...

If you’ve ever seen a movie, you know that music is a huge component of its storytelling. (Duh??) The "score" that a film composer creates can add emphasis, emotion, suspense and basically evoke whatever feeling they want!  Piggybacking off of our recent TWIST episode on the same topic, Molly watches and discusses several TED Talks about what makes scores great, the music theory behind i...

It’s no secret that we love a good PIXAR story on this podcast.  PIXAR’s “22 Rules of Storytelling” adds yet another piece to the list of incredible storytelling strategies and resources that PIXAR provides us.  First put together by a former PIXAR writer, Emma Coats, these snippets of storytelling strategy are chock full of important life lessons, creative process advice and—obviously!—presentati...