Presentation Thinking™

We know that presentations are used across all kinds of industries but did you know they’re important in the medical world as well?? General surgery resident physician TJ Schaid joins the ‘cast to discuss his experience presenting research at various conferences around the world throughout his residency. Turns out, these medical presentations can play a big part of any surgeon’s journey! From pres...

Marisa Renee Lee is a speaker, an entrepreneur, an author and “grief advocate.”  Having lost her mom to breast cancer and struggled with infertility, Lee has alchemized her experiences into a NYT Bestselling book, Grief is Love: Living with Loss. Marisa joins us to share how she presents and speaks on such vulnerable topics, how grief can show up at work and how you can support colleagues experien...

Marcus Andrews knows how to craft a good narrative. In fact, we’d argue he heavily contributed to developing the concept of Narrative Design when working in product marketing at HubSpot.  Now as a Narrative Designer at Pendo, he joins us for a conversation around crafting a memorable narrative, what frameworks to use (or not) and how to create your own category. We exchange presentation experience...

Presentation Nation, by our 110th episode, you may well be aware that we worship at the stage of presentations.  And as Mikey Mioduski, co-host of the pod and founder of GhostRanch Communications, has started to speak at more and more events, we feel it only right to dissect the ins and outs of his preparation, execution and how many laughs he got while speaking. His latest speaker appearance was...

If you’re a presenter, you might have noticed that the conference speaker circuit is a male-dominated space.  With Women Talk Design , founders Danielle Barnes and Christina Wodtke set about to change that. Originally starting as a directory for women and non-binary presenters to find and learn from one another, Women Talk Design now offers a wide range of resources, workshops and most recently—a...

Personal experiences can power professional growth.  No one may know this better than Harvey Lee, a product marketer, speaker, former Rock n Roll roadie and now author of Backstage Pass: A Business Book that’s Far From Conventional.   We had the pleasure of chatting with Harvey about his book and how his background in the music industry helped later propel him into the world of product marketing. ...

Many Coloradans are familiar with the New Belgium Brewery founding story—where Jeff Lebesch and Kim Jordan return from a life-changing bike trip across Belgium inspired to create their own Belgian style beers for the masses.  In addition to their famous “Fat Tire” ale, New Belgium also created new categories and precedents among brewery business. They have been innovating in sustainable brewing pr...

Micah Kohne has some of the most well-rounded marketing skills around.  A web designer extraordinaire with a graphic design background, Micah has also dabbled in marketing, sales and co-founded his own business, Hype Legal , for “solutions-driven legal marketing.” Their speciality is building websites for lawyers, so Micah has also presented at various legal conferences—where a little graphic desi...

Actor, producer and Harvard grad Yara Shahidi presents a familiar story in a new way with her 2023 TED Talk, “Let Curiosity Lead” . We’ve all heard about the importance of re-discovering our child-like curiosity and wonder. Shahidi puts a fresh spin on that story with her personal journey of juggling both her Harvard education and acting career (she’s the star of Black-ish and Grown-ish) as equall...

Mikey and I read April Dunford’s latest book, Sales Pitch: How to Craft a Story to Stand Out and Win, and to no surprise to anyone familiar with her work—it was hilarious, accessible and whip-smart insightful. Dunford offers a fresh perspective on applying narrative to sales and flips the current advice on its head emphasizing that buying can actually be harder than selling .  One of the biggest t...

When Narrative Strategist and film nerd Asha Alaji-Sharif started to think about the Best and Worst films of 2023, she noticed a pattern.  What common factors make for a memorable movie? And can those factors be applied to brand storytelling as well?  That’s what we explore in this episode with “The Good Story Checklist”. How does The Little Mermaid remake create the perfect character development...

In September of 2013, Diana Nyad became the first person to swim unassisted in open water across the Florida Straits from Cuba to Florida. It was an epic feat, and one she returned to at age sixty after a failed attempt in her 20s.  A few months later, she gives an aptly titled TED Talk called “Never, ever give up” . Her story is one on never giving up, facing the odds and beating the ego. Nyad’s...

Entrepreneurs and startups everywhere love following Shark Tank —the reality show where passionate pitchers bring their product to a group of wealthy “sharks”—well-known Venture Capitalists—in hopes of investment funds and expert business guidance.  Continuing from Episode 69 , we break down another great round of pitches from 2023, “ 3 Biggest deals Season 14 ”. Oogiebear had all of the sharks fi...

For our hundredth episode of Presentation Thinking AKA the Storyteller’s Study Club AKA Pitchin’ Ain’t Easy, we’re reflecting on our ~metaphorical~ hero’s journey thus far.  We’ve learned so much about storytelling, presenting, speaking, product marketing, design and, of course, podcasting throughout the last two years.  From meeting fellow presentation nerds online to growing our audience over 3x...

Tis the season for SKOs (Sales KickOffs)!  After years in various roles in B2B marketing most recently the Director of Product Marketing at RingCentral, Ashima calls herself a “Product Storyteller.”  We discuss her path into product marketing management and the necessary elements needed for SKOs to really be a success. In fact, she even wrote a blog about it— "6 Tips & Tricks to Survive (...

“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...