Presentation Thinking™

Our previous episode (#186) with Cameron Magee covered the importance of rehearsals and the lead-up to an event or conference. This time, we’re talking about what’s going on AT the live event.  Continuing our “Some Guy From the Crew” series, Cameron Magee joins the podcast again to discuss live events, the layout of the room, stage, event trends and more!  As the Owner of avad3 , a rad AV and even...

Mikey and Molly might be the first-ever students of storytelling to embark on a curious journey of studying every talk and keynote that Steve Jobs has ever done.  When discussing the greatest speakers of all time, the general B2B world typically includes Steve Jobs somewhere in the list and we nod our heads in agreeance. But aside from a few highlights of his talks (and what’s portrayed in various...

Cameron Magee knows the ins and outs of an event’s backstage area.  Having led his production and AV company, avad3 , for almost 15 years, they’ve produced over a thousand events all over the country. Trusted by Walmart, The White House and many more—Cameron is passionate about serving these events for their varying needs as an “event production partner.”  Cameron joins the ‘cast for the first of...

Sugata Mitra is one of the few people to have five TED Talks. Why?  He’s a perfect combination of scientific, challenging norms and soft-spoken charm.  As a theoretical researcher with an interest in education and the role of the internet, Sugata’s “Hole in the Wall” experiment has become a famed example in how kids can self-organize and essentially teach themselves anything with access to the int...

Ivan Wanis Ruiz is ready for us to never be bored during presentations again.  Returning to the podcast for a Book Club style episode we dive into his book, End Boring: A Tactical Approach to Public Speaking and Communication. For his research, Ivan speaks with buskers, professional wrestlers and police interrogators to study the neuroscience of why people absorb information the way they do. This...

Founder of Hello World Studio and Professor of Graphic Design at Mt. San Antonio College in California, Krislam runs their graphic design program, inspiring new waves of creators stepping into our visual storytelling world.  Krislam joins Presentation Thinking to discuss her favorite parts about teaching such a creative craft, how students transition their concepts into presentations and the value...

Listen up! Julian Treasure is a communication expert and sound researcher, interested in harnessing the power of voice and sound for speakers, listeners and learners.  His TED Talk, How to speak so that people will want to listen , from 2013 is one of the most-viewed TED Talks of all time (a measly 47 million views and counting on YouTube).  Upon first listen you might think “huh” —he gave me a fe...

Stories and messages are best remembered with visuals. We’ve used countless examples of iconic movies to demonstrate this concept.  But what about music videos?  After the VMAs (Video Music Awards) were held a few weeks ago, it got us thinking about classic arcs, story shapes and how they might show up in our favorite music videos. Songs already tell stories themselves but when paired with a memor...

Ivan Wanis Ruiz thinks bios are boring—but we’ll do our best to introduce this founder of Public Speaking Lab and the guy challenging all the presentation advice you’ve ever been taught. Ivan’s background brings a little bit of everything. Event MCing, acting, marketing, finance and presently a founder and coach have all contributed to his adaptable presentation skillset—and he’s determined that t...

Visual thinker, founder and “Chief Doodler” Hayley Langsdorf can capture more with a sharpie than any bulleted list of meeting notes.  If you’ve never heard of a “live scribe”, neither had Hayley a few years ago. This is someone that sketches out important ideas from board meetings or keynotes at a conference in real-time.  Having studied English literature and worked in communications, Hayley mai...

Originally built as the GhostRanch company retreat, Story Camp has been brewing for a few years. It’s a concentrated three day series where the company gets to focus, relax and level up on presentation skills.  This summer was different - we set our sights to invite clients and the public to join in on what we feel is a secret formula for blending professional presentation development and inner ch...

Dr. Christopher Cummings may have started his career in the classroom but he would eventually find himself in the “COVID-19 war room” during the global pandemic in 2020. A high stakes job you may never have considered, Chris is a behavioral theorist and Research Social Scientist.  He’s in the business of understanding—scientifically and psychologically—how we perceive risk. How do you convey compl...

Dr. Steven Franconeri is a leading speaker and teacher on data storytelling, a professor at Northwestern University and the Founder of Becise - a platform helping people transform their data into compelling narratives.  (Steven ALSO just so happens to be one of our guest speakers of our first-ever Story Camp —an annual presentation thinking skills summit that you should definitely check out next y...

Jimi Gibson is the VP of brand communication at Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, TEDx speaker and also, a magician (amazing combo, right?). After starting a career in magic as a young kid receiving Merlin’s Mail-Order Magic, Jimi was introduced to marketing through an advertising agency. He realized the structure of a magic trick is not unlike a successful marketing message and Voila—his Magic Sc...

If you’ve ever had to stare at a data set and wonder how to make meaning of it, this is for you.  Ben Wellington is a teacher, researcher and the creator of a little blog called “I Quant NY”.  With the release of NYC Open Data, there were hundreds of data sets newly available to the public for anyone to view and use. To learn data mapping tools and combine his interest in urban planning, Ben start...

You’re Invited…to Presentation Party Time!  Presentation Party Time is a deep-dive type episode dedicated to a specific project so that we can understand the inception, development and execution of the presentation process.  For this episode, it’s a sales deck GhostRanch worked on with Scott Hull + Associates —an artist agency helping get creatives hired. And in an age of GenAI, this is a super in...

Mikey’s Resource Roundup: AI for presentations, Better comms for managers & a Brad Pitt throwback. In this short n sweet episode, Mikey clues us in to the Presentation Thinking beat with an article he just read, a course he just took and—naturally—one of his favorite movie clips of all time. This is a Spice Cabinet-esque episode that’s chock-full of goodies on how AI can best help to create po...

Hayley Langsdorf is an artist that uses Sharpies to illustrate big ideas from board rooms and beyond. She is a self-described “live scribe” for events, meetings and conferences.  Hayley’s 2019 TED Talk, “Drawing out our collective intelligence", draws out—literally—the power of the pen. As humans, we’re all moved by story; and when visuals are added, it’s extra memorable.  Even simple figures...

If you are interested in presentation design, you might already know Mike Parkinson—founder of Billion Dollar Graphics , speaker, trainer and self-described “visualization and graphics geek”.  Mike joins Mikey to chat about how he got into such a niche business, his “M&M” approach, visual storytelling through data and, of course, how AI is shaping the design landscape.  In Mike’s realization t...

After exploring WHAT Visual Storytelling is with Creative Director Allie Wilson in Episode #166, we thought it’d be useful to establish exactly HOW to achieve successful Visual Storytelling. What are the “rules” to implement in each of your slides? In this episode, Molly sources data directly from presentation designers of GhostRanch to inform several clear “rules” for visual storytelling—keeping...

We finally got around to talking about who some refer to as the “father of storytelling”—and the 3 Act Structure—the one and only Aristotle. In this “Book Club”-esque episode, Mikey and Molly read “Poetics”—an exploration of genre and the elements that make a great story all that it is.  Film buffs and students of storytelling have been examining it for years and we’re here to make our own Present...

Social scientist Christopher Cummings takes the TED stage with his talk “The dark magic of communication: how we manipulate others” to show us that communication is like magic—and magic can be used for good or evil. ( Dun dun dunnnnnn!) What kind of “dark magic” could we be talking about? As a social scientist and health/risk communicator, part of Christopher’s job is assessing risk and just how d...

B2B folks everywhere: You’ve probably heard of “visual storytelling” and how important it can be for your brand and for your presentations.  However, like many a buzzword, we’ve seen the phrase thrown around so much, we fear its true meaning is often confused with a focus on style, rather than substance. Visual storytelling goes beyond decoration, embellishment and off-brand AI imagery. True visua...

experience of all varieties (we’re talking Oracle, Q2 and more).  The throughline of her work? Communication is everything—and she joins the pod to share her perspective on how these soft skills (like presentations!) have evolved and shifted with the growth of product management in general.  From establishing clear and consistent messaging to selling a vision, April doles out many a word of wisdom...

At this point in our storytelling journey, Mikey and Molly have learned a lot about the “science” of storytelling and why our brains click so well with remembering (and being moved by) narrative.  However, journalist, author and teacher Will Storr’s 2018 TED Talk “The Science of Storytelling” presents something we haven’t heard yet.  From understanding how our eyes are constantly evaluating for ch...