David Warlick recently posted about his new presentation style, which I’ve seen in action. He even talked about it at the presentation.
“Instead of presenting today with a PowerPoint, I will be following this trail of folders and show you actual artifacts and files…” — more or less a paraphrase of what he said, anyhow. What we saw was not unlike what he shows us at his website, a snake-like trail of files and folders.
Here’s what I do and don’t like about this approach.
- The files and folder approach looks messy. I don’t want to see anyone fumbling around on their laptop and wonder how their mother ever taught them to be so messy with their files (of course, the other interpretation for type-B personalities would be: “he could make even more interesting shapes with those folders!”).
- You are not stuck to one linear pathway in your presentation. I imagine for as much as someone like Warlick speaks, he likes to keep things as fresh as possible by mixing things up. This benefits him. Sometimes, his content doesn’t require a specific sequence. This benefits no one, but is fine either way.
- He still can’t divorce himself of “slides.” He still used a lot of slides, for instance, to put up concepts, to show his name, etc., and if it wasn’t a slide, it was a big JPEG that, well gosh, looked like a slide to us.
- You’re more free to do demonstrations. If you’re not stuck in a PPT, you feel more free to jump into a browser, launch an application, or show off some work
- He doesn’t use one of Leopard’s better features: or OS X Tiger for that matter, Smart Folders!. He doesn’t have to make these folders, if he was tagging, he’d always have them at the ready.
- He could also try a file browsing tool such as Leap. I’ve begun using it to organize and tag my files, and it’s great!
- The files and folder approach doesn’t lend itself to nice handouts. I’m sorry, but good handouts take patience, care, and planning to produce so that they are both beautiful and usable. The handout for many of Warlick’s presentations would be sufficient, yes, with a nicely rendered mind-map with some links to sites that are new to people. I’d recommend Omni Graffle, it’s my favorite, and it looks among the best. Better yet, hire someone with graphic design expertise (or at least sensibility) to do the handouts. Better yet, I think his idea already in use for years is that of a wiki handout. I am not sure how many people contribute, but the concept of having it online is… nifty.
I like that people are breaking the mold and trying different ways to present information using their laptops. This is good. But I think this approach ultimately pales in comparison to a well-crafted set of slides. Simplicity on the screen, dynamism on the stage (you). That’s an equation that gets a good message across well and looks classy, to boot.