Presentation Thinking™

“We do” believe that presentations are all around us—and Molly’s recent experience being an officiant for her brother’s wedding emphasized this. From creating a throughline with the ceremony story, catering to the audience and keeping the delivery well-paced, the foundations of good presenting all came up throughout this process in helping two people get married.  Ceremonies of matrimony have take...

Niro Sivanathan is an organizational psychologist that wants to help your messaging convert clearer, faster and stronger.  With his 2019 TED Talk, The Counterintuitive way to be more persuasive , Niro goes through several exercises that demonstrate how the “dilution effect” shows up in decision-making and risk-assessment across several types of scenarios. Mikey and Molly dive into his well-paced d...

Video production and livestreaming are essential parts of any modern event these days—be it a marketing conference, promotional event or university graduation.  Phil Platt is a Business Development Manager at UK-based production company First Sight Media and he’s a jack of all trades in the digital production world. With a background in film and cinema technology, Phil is a creative visual storyte...

GhostRanch hosted its third annual StoryCamp this past July, reaching new heights in Park City, Utah. StoryCamp is our annual in-person gathering where we hear from experts, learn from each other to level-up our storytelling skills and just spend nice quality time together.  This year’s theme was “More than just a pretty slide” —referring to the idea that presentation design encompasses so much mo...

Asha Alaji-Sharif is a designer by day and filmmaker by night—or dawn, if she’s getting up early to get a sunrise drone shot.  With several film projects already under her belt, the Atlanta-based creative’s latest is The Four Noble Truths , a film about her brother-in-law, Maeta, with sziocphrenia. It premiered at Voices with Impact Film Festival , a festival focused on mental health and lifting u...

Andrea Tomingas has a talent for telling one story, many different ways. From being a presentation designer at Hulu to co-founding a business, Andrea offers a unique perspective on presentations.  Having co-founded Duck Brigade over ten years ago, Andrea knows the importance of communicating a company story well, in a short amount of time.  Duck Brigade specializes in UX design, landing pages, log...

Art Novak is a copywriter, ad guy, author, teacher and an overall presentation design pioneer.  We feel lucky to know Art via his teaching days at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) because both Mikey and Allie Wilson, Creative Director at GhostRanch, had the privilege of being in his classroom.  Before recording, Art claimed he had a “problematic background” starting most of his presentati...

Tom Fishburne didn’t go to Harvard Business School to become a comic. But his ability to transform his life experiences into relatable illustrated comics was something that both helped him through college and later his marketing career.  In his 2018 TED Talk , Tom shares his experiences and highlights the power of laughing at ourselves—especially at work. Importantly, he says that comedy and humor...

Michelle Siracusa puts new meaning to the phrase “your voice is your power”. Michelle is a performer and vocal coach blending psychology with performance fundamentals to help folks be their most compelling when they speak.  From finessing tone, creating emphasis and adapting emotion per the audience you’re speaking to, vocal delivery can truly transform a presentation or talk.  Mikey and Molly wor...

Phil Waknell from Ideas on Stage is a brilliant presenter.  In his 2020 TED Talk “The 3 Magic Ingredients of Amazing Presentations” he shares his insider process into making presentations more than just information dumps. Phil actually illustrates how to make presentation “magic”! Many presenters tote their “Top 5 tricks” or “3 Things you MUST do before presenting…” but Phil Waknell takes his conc...

Lorenzo Thione is a serial entrepreneur. Having founded a handful of companies, he’s now a Co-Founder and Investor at Gaingels , a Venture Capital firm that’s focused on showing that representation and diversity in Venture Capital leads to world class returns.  He estimates he’s seen thousands of pitches in his lifetime and has (more than) a thing or two to share about the structure, the storytell...

Jessica Malnik is a marketer on-the-go. With a background in journalism, Jessica harnessed her writing skills to start her own business copywriting and has established herself as a thought leader in the marketing and content strategy space—all while working remotely.  Jessica also produces her own podcast about leading a team remotely, is a regular on the conference circuit and is starting to spea...

Do you know what your brain looks like on storytelling?  Karen Eber does! A leadership consultant on a mission to help others effectively tell their stories, Eber’s 2020 TED Talk, “How your brain responds to stories—and why they’re crucial for leaders” , dives into the neuroscience behind storytelling.  Karen proves that when used well, data can help emphasize and illustrate your points—not oversh...

McKeever “Mac” Conwell II was meant for the (pitching) stage!  While his career began in coding (“before it was cool” he says), Mac has started multiple businesses and helped shape the Maryland Social Impact Fund—the first fund for women and minorities in the country. Now, as the Founder of RareBreed Ventures , Mac’s perfected the art of storytelling and is passionate about helping others do the s...

Mohamed Danawi is many things—an artist, Founder and Director of IlloZoo , professor at SCAD—but if you were to ask one of his current students, they’d say he’s just “Mo.” SCAD alumni and GhostRanch Creative Director Allie Wilson joins the ‘cast with Mikey and Mohamed for an amazing conversation around art, visual storytelling, design trends and how to be authentic in your art.  Mohamed’s experien...

Porter Gale has a couple of TED Talks and they’re both about looking at everyday human connection as a form of networking.  As Head of Marketing for Virgin America from 2007-2011, Porter traveled a lot for work. On these countless plane rides, she found opportunities of connecting with interesting people and even on occasion people that would affect her work, become her friend or simply inspire he...

Mike Raab is good at starting things.  Executive Director of Northwestern University’s “The Garage” , an entrepreneurial community and startup hub, Mike is known in the startup community for his smart mentorship and mantra, “manufacturing serendipity.”   Mike is also the co-author of Founded: The No B.S. Guide for Student Entrepreneurs . With a background in television and film, Mike’s journey to...

What with Inside Out 2 around the corner (June 14th!), we wanted to bring back a “Presentation Preferred” crowd favorite and RE RELEASE this gem of an episode going through PIXAR’s 22 Rules for Storytelling. This is an episode for: Disney & PIXAR fans, presenters, speakers and anyone feeling stuck in their creative process.  It’s no secret that we love a good PIXAR story on this podcast.  PIXA...

Tom Fowler—CEO, Venture Capitalist expert and startup mentor—is the person you want in your corner. Tom spoke to us about the VC & startup world, creating pitch decks and presentation skills and we loved getting to know his unique breadth of experience in sports performance, investing and even theater (!).  Most importantly, he walks us through—slide-by-slide—his ideal format for the perfect P...

What happens in Vegas…gets directly recorded onto our podcast!  Mikey’s back from Las Vegas to spill the beans on all things Event Tech Live, an annual event for event marketing that brings in all sorts of new ideas and technology for the event industry to continue to be cutting edge.  From learning about prioritizing the attendee experience to humanizing events, we learned that events are their o...

Julie Terberg, Presentation Design expert and the woman who co-wrote THE book on PowerPoint templates (among others), joins the pod! With a background in industrial design and graphics, Julie designed slides pre-PowerPoint on physical slides before becoming an expert in the software. Terberg has developed several online courses, published books on developing PowerPoint templates. appeared at the c...

Paul Graham’s blog post, “Do things that don’t scale”, has largely been heralded as the best advice given for startups—maybe ever? But what can we takeaway from it as presenters?  As the founder of renowned accelerator Y Combinator, people trust Paul and are still talking about this post over ten years later. (A big deal for today’s Age of Information).  Mikey and Molly dive into the many conversa...

Guy Kawasaki is an amazing marketer, creator and thinker. (If you don’t follow him already, do it here !)  His 2005 blog post, The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint , provided advice for startups on how to pitch to VCs—but it blew up because it resonated with presenters of all kinds.  As presentation enthusiasts, it’s about time we checked it out and see what still holds up.  This is a shorter, “micro”...

If you couldn’t already tell from some of our Shark Tank episodes , we love the startup and Venture Capital world.  There’s truly no passion that matches that of a founder on a mission.  Alicia Syrett—a VC herself, author and business leader—knows this and wants YOUR passion to come to fruition. Her short n sweet TED talk at TEDx Fulton Street from 2018 is a perfect guide with simple Do’s and Don’...

What we’ll hear about: How Tamara’s MA and start in publishing set her up to be a standout storyteller and award-winning Product Marketing leader. Tamara’s emphasis on career intentionality and personal positioning. “Write your purpose in pen, but your path in pencil.” The ‘good time’ journal: Notice the activities that give you energy.  Tamara’s path to speaking, including mentorship along the wa...