Presentation Thinking™

On its surface, The Tragedy is a story we all know well—a sad and dark string of events that ultimately lead to a hero’s doom. (Debbie downer, I know). But for Christopher Booker’s book 7 Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories , it follows another clear plot pattern that is well worth studying. From Romeo and Juliet to Bonnie and Clyde , tragedies tell us about a hero/heroine’s run with temptations, gre...

Todd Henry is an “arms dealer for the creative revolution.” And if that branded phrase of his doesn’t strike a creative chord somewhere deep inside you, well, keep moving. An international speaker, we’ve had the privilege of hearing from Todd on both big and small stages. For this episode, he joins Presentation Thinking to chat about translating creative concepts into slides for the stage. Author...

If you think you know the “Comedy” plot structure from Christopher Booker’s The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories as the “SuperBad” movie or Jim Carrey’s slapstick—you’re not wrong. But you don’t have the full picture. This plot structure has undergone an evolution throughout history starting with Aristophanes’ “Old Comedy” in ancient Greece to an introduction of lovers facing ridiculous obst...

“Voyage and Return” clocks in as the FOURTH plot of Christopher Booker’s The 7 Basic Plots book, bringing you a few all-time classic stories. While Booker walks us through the commonalities in Alice and Wonderland, Wizard of Oz & Peter Pan, Mikey and Molly applied the plot to some PIXAR favorites—Toy Story and UP! The idea of embarking on our own ambling journey is one of the most relatable pl...

Everyone enjoys a good sense of humor. But have you ever wondered what it might do for your career? Or better yet, your next presentation?? Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas are students of silliness. Having researched and taught on the subject at Stanford, their book, Humor, Seriously gets straight to the heart of the funny bone. They walk us through the anatomy of funny, the psychology behind it...

As we continue with Christopher Booker’s The 7 Basic Plots book, “The Quest” is his third “story shape”, lending itself to some of the most epic stories of all time. Homer’s Odyssey , Moby Dick, Lord of the Rings (kind of). We all cheer when the hero sets out to get the prize, destroy the ring, achieve the dream—but what are the lessons learned along the way? What are the patterns we can implement...

This summer, a particularly special gathering for the remotely-dispersed GhostRanch team called “ StoryCamp ” was created to level up our collective presentation storytelling. There was minimal structure but maximum learning with workshops, deep dives and, obviously, karaoke. It provided both much needed in-person time (hugs!) AND a reminder for GhostRanch’s values & mission. It’s something we...

When your presentation client’s content is detail-heavy and your design is full of different animations, fonts, etc.—it can be a lot to keep track of. After many years in the biz getting decks “client-ready”, there’s one Quality Assurance (QA) framework that Mikey and team have found provides consistent and dependable results…and that’s MTN FACES . What’s this, you ask? An acronym, of course! M -...

Richard Goring has long-since been a #PrezThinking icon of ours. Director (and co-founder) of BrightCarbon , a trailblazing company in the Presentation design space, he’s passionate about animations, eLearning tools, webinars & consuming other podcasts and presentation paraphernalia (just like us!). But we’ll let the prolific presenter speak for himself. A fun conversation with tips for presen...

#2 of Christopher Booker’s The 7 Basic Plots is the tried and true Story Shape: "Rags To Riches." From Cinderella to The Sandlot , we love cheering for the underdog moving up in the world. But WHY and HOW is this Story Shape so effective? How can we channel Remy the Ratatouille rat in your own life?? Mikey and Molly discuss all this Bippity Boppity Boo.

Can all stories be categorized into 7 different plots? That’s what English journalist & writer Christopher Booker spent 34 years researching for his mega-book, The 7 Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories . In honor of GhostRanch’s 7th birthday (August 2nd!), we’re excited to dive into the first plot of this 7-part series, “Overcoming the Monster.” In a Disney context, an “Overcoming the Monster” st...

Phil Charron, Executive Vice President of Think Company , is a presentation pioneer. From helping put on PowerPoint presentations when physical slides still had to be switched manually to joining the UX design world as it was being invented, Phil truly has a holistic view of the evolution of presentations and design. What was it like to see PowerPoint change the landscape of presentations? What’s...

Andy Raskin is a strategic storytelling evangelist. For Mikey and Molly, his work was a gateway into the thriving ecosystem that is Presentation Thinking. From his in-person appearances to an online article gone viral, he emphasizes that your story IS your strategy—and it’s important to leverage it. Learn along with us how to use your story and invite people to join in your journey.

For our 25th “Quarter Century” episode, we brought in the reason our Presentation Thinking pod has stayed consistent—our brilliant editor, Will Kommor . Will is an audio and editing guru, and has a lot to share about what he’s learned from Presentation Thinking, the podcasting process, and being a media editor in general. We also think that improv and podcasting might be more alike than you think…...

Wadsworth Williams and the Nspire team are leading the charge in developing more efficient and comfortable nasal cannulas (tubes that help deliver oxygen) for babies. A low-cost commodity with potential for huge impact, Wadsworth has so much to say about innovation in the pediatric space, how to focus a pitch per audience while also sticking to their core mission—putting the patient first. Receivi...

Zuri Fertility founders Blair Matthews and Giuliana Zaccardelli are on a mission to help couples everywhere who are struggling with infertility. Voted the “Audience Favorite” of the VentureCat 2022 Startup competition, they join the 'cast to chat about how they met, mistakes they’ve made & the real-life experiences that have fueled their real-life solution—an app that helps people connect with...

Inside InfernoGuard’s winning pitch and one founder’s plan to prevent wildfires. Kevin Kaspar joins Presentation Thinking to discuss his founder journey for InfernoGuard—a device that detects and reports wildfire conditions to first responders and land-owners before they get out of control. We are lucky enough to be connected to the Northwestern University startup competition called VentureCat —ev...

Georgia O’Keeffe was a badass artist and desert legend. Dare we say…the Shakespeare of the Southwest?! Writers aren’t the only ones that tell stories — there is much to be learned from the art world and Georgia’s impact on it. In our Presentation Thinking journey, we want to understand & learn from storytellers of ALL varieties to better understand what about their work and the way they presen...

Look Ma, we did a webinar! We dipped our toes into the world of webinars a few weeks ago and, thanks to the creative and strategic genius of GhostRanch Creative Director Dave Sheets, it went even better than we imagined! We zero-ed in on a hyper-specific topic— Cover Slides . What to put on them, how to cater to your audience and why it matters more than you think. None of us had any experience in...

If you’ve ever seen the first few minutes of the PIXAR movie UP! , you’re very aware that stories have the capacity to move you to tears. PIXAR animator Matthew Luhn might be the one to blame for this. Having worked on a few classics such as Toy Story, Ratatouille & The Incredibles , Luhn shares in a 2017 TED Talk what it is that makes stories like this so successful—and how we can we apply th...

Part 3, the closing chapter, of our Made to Stick book report/breakdown/book club is HERE. Frodo is ready to destroy the ring and we’re ready to discuss the “E” and “S” in Chip & Dan Heath’s “SUCCESs” checklist for a sticky story—Emotions and Stories. These components are so central to storytelling that many examples often go hand-in-hand. It’s a bit of a “Chicken or the Egg” debate: What come...

Dear listeners, welcome back to Book Club. We’re making our way through Chip & Dan Heath’s Made to Stick — a book dissecting all the factors that make certain messages and stories STICK. And there’s a lot of unpack! So, not unlike other greats such as JRR Tolkien or the makers of Die Hard, we’ve split this into multiple parts. (Listen to Part 1 on “Simplicity” HERE !) Part 2 covers “Unexpected...

[Disclaimer: This is not a Nancy Duarte interview. One day it will be.] Ever wonder what the SHAPE of a story looks like? Our “Patron Saint of Stories” Nancy Duarte AKA CEO/Founder of Duarte, Inc. has done the research to show us just that. In her first viral ~2008 TED Talk , Duarte shows off her analysis of several Communication Greats (ahem, Steve Jobs, MLK…) to prove there’s a science—an ebb an...

This week we're working through a hyper-specific Pitch Problem and there was no better man to chat to than our Technical Director at GRC, Mr. Steve Sheets. Efficiency-obsessed, he wants you to have an easier time editing your decks. He wants you to befriend the Notes tool in PowerPoint. And he wants you to have something more than a file link to share for the inevitable "Will these slides be share...

Breece Justice is one of our top-notch Presentation Designers on the GhostRanch Communications team. When a client recently entrusted her with the task of traveling to an in-person conference to ensure their high stakes keynotes went according to plan, we couldn’t wait to hear the #PresentationThinking deets. Taking slides from a virtual setting to the stage comes with its own set of design and st...