I have invested quite a lot of my own money in making this video. Many thanks to the guys at HOPR who produced it for me. I hope it starts discussions and helps me attract talent and investment capital. I hope conference organizers will see it and ask me to come speak to their audiences. I hope everyone working in this area will use it to convince their investors that this is going to be big.

Once, Google was just two guys and an algorithm. Once, Myspace ruled. Once, Microsoft made things people wanted. Once, big software was the solution to big problems. Now things are different. This is what I think is the next big thing. Put on your headphones, click the HD in the lower right corner, watch the video, then help spread the word.

Thank you. (Please follow me on Twitter.)

• Steven Jobs
• William Campbell
• Arthur Levinson
• Andrea Jung
• Ronald Sugar
• Al Gore

Dear Apple Board,

First, I want to wish Steve the best of health and that he soon returns to running the company he started with his friend Woz back in 1976. Steve has so much passion for Apple products, employees, and customers that he has lead the company long after he could have gone off and done other things. He clearly loves what he does and would like to continue for many years. I sincerely hope he does.

The board, of course, has a duty to consider the scenario in which he either wants to retire or is forced to. As Steve is the chairman, I’m sure he would be the first to say that succession, eventually, is important and that the company should continue to thrive long after he leaves day-to-day operations. The question is – how to best achieve that?

Apple needs leadership. Although there are many highly qualified managers in the company, no one inside has the forward-looking vision, gut feel, nerves of steel, and showmanship style that Steve has. What has worked well is the partnership between visionary Steve and legendary manager Tim Cook – the yin/yang that makes Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world. I think it’s important that Apple have a visionary leader, someone who can take the company forward into the uncertain future with confidence. I hope Tim Cook won’t threaten to leave if he doesn’t become the next CEO – I think that would be the beginning of a long slide downhill for Apple. Tim is a necessary but not sufficient part of the leadership team. To move forward, Apple needs to continue delivering the magic.

No matter whom you consider, you must understand one important thing: Apple’s current business model, as profitable as it is today, will not last. Apple’s customers are in the tens of millions, but Apple’s customers are also fairly affluent and can afford the best hardware. In the next ten years, that group of people will get smaller, not larger. The future of media, entertainment, productivity, and business tools is in the cloud, with more value at a much lower price point. We are truly at the very beginning of learning what cloud computing can do for all of us. Even Google, whose culture is rooted in the cloud, has a long way to go to take advantage of it. The future of information – and everything Apple does is in the information space – is in connected ecosystems that work together and raise the level of productivity hundreds of times from where we are today. As brilliant as people at Apple are, they are still stuck in the “push” model of distributing apps, content, and data. And that model won’t survive to the middle of this century.

Apple needs to build the personal data locker in the cloud and give people the freedom they have always asked for. I won’t go into the details here, because I’ve described it elsewhere, but the personal data locker is the one thing that can and will crush Apple ten years from now if the company doesn’t see it coming. Some people think there isn’t that much more Apple can do to innovate and expand, but they are wrong. By embracing the “pull” model and building ecosystems, Apple will have a chance to serve humanity and expand its markets to billions of customers around the world. By separating data from apps, Apple can give people power like they can only dream of today. Apple can give teams the collaborative software they need to solve big problems. Apple can turn software from a “lobster trap” model into an open ecosystem of services that make everyone both a producer and a consumer, with much less waste.

Apple has a chance to lead the way into the cloud-based model of the future. But the company must start soon. Ten years from now, the fancy hardware and the beautiful stores won’t be nearly as profitable as they are today. If you’re worried a tiny bit about Android, you haven’t seen anything yet. No matter how cool Apple products are, no matter how many new patents they file, the hardware that drives our lives is going to become ubiquitous and cheap. Smart phones will eventually be replaced by dumb phones that are millions of times more powerful than what Apple offers today. Apple should be ahead of this curve, not behind it.

Board members, I have written a road map to this future. I ask that you read it. I’ll be happy to send a copy to every board member. If one person on the board will contact me and offer to help, I’ll send the books immediately. Or I’ll see that they get the book as an e-book to read on their iPads.

Readers – please tell your friends: if they know an Apple board member, send them the link to this page. I think each Apple board member should read my book before thinking about who might have the vision, the drive, and the passion to lead Apple forward.

Steve – get well soon.

Dear Sergey, Larry, and Eric,

I’m concerned, as I’m sure you are, about the impact Facebook is having on the web in general and on Google in particular. Facebook is sucking in not just people, but companies at an alarming rate. More and more companies are making their primary presence at Facebook.com, so they can tailor the visitors’ experience to their profiles and know more about them as prospects. Soon, you’ll be able to buy anything right inside of Facebook. It’s like we are at day 29 of a 30 day algae doubling rate – one more day and the pond will be covered.

Facebook’s plan is clear. Facebook will soon go from nice-to-have to need-to-have. This plan – to be more relevant and useful – is helping them hire a lot of sharp people who believe in that mission. All the Android apps and all the free wifi at 30,000 feet won’t stop the black hole from sucking in more of your best talent. It’s like this: Facebook is trying to get everyone to land and live on planet Facebook, and you’re trying to get people to enjoy the entire universe by making space travel easier. That puts us on the same side. That, presumably, is why you have an “Open Web Advocate” on your staff. You want the web to win. You don’t want everyone to disappear into an alternate reality approved by Facebook’s marketing department.

You can’t continue to raise salaries across the board and throw money at key employees to prevent them from leaving. What you need to do, if I may say so, is give Google employees a mission to believe in. Google needs to become more relevant, and quickly. In the screenshot below, I’m watching nursery rhymes with my 2-year-old son on Youtube, and Google is monetizing this experience by showing me ads for technical jobs, HP & Windows 7, and Optimum phone service.

Let’s not laugh at Facebook until we can correct this, okay?

Fortunately, Google has already laid the foundation necessary to compete with the Facebook juggernaut. The first phase of Google innovation was in search. From web search to video search to enterprise search, Google has become the leader. The second phase was applications. For the last ten years, Google has been providing cloud-based versions of familiar desktop apps, from word processing to spreadsheets to telephone apps. I can’t blame you for using new technology to recreate the old tools – that’s what always happens first. But Chrome OS is really an important new development, the beginning of the third phase. In the third phase, we stop recreating our old ways of working and start building connected productivity ecosystems. This is the subject of my book and this blog, so I won’t go on about it here. But to sum up – everything Google has done to date has emphasized the push model, rather than pull. In this third phase, Google has a chance to give people the tools to pull information, products, and services to them. I have a vision video that presents these concepts visually and will be happy to show it to you.

Seen from the pull perspective, Android and Chrome OS should merge. As more and more people think of their devices as just different ways to see and use their world of online information, the distinction will dissolve.

Google can beat Facebook by jumpstarting the Open Web. Google can lead this development in two critical areas: 1) personal data management and 2) separating data from apps. These are the two defining aspects of 21st century productivity. If Google doesn’t do it, someone else will. Remember, Google was a little struggling company once, but Sergey and Larry managed to find something people really wanted. It worked well back then, but now people want more. The power shift of the 21st century is not to use the cloud to re-create our desktop tools but to build data-driven ecosystems that take us far beyond what we could have done without the power of the cloud.

The good news is that Google is perhaps the biggest and most important cloud-based company. Google’s experimental, mash-up, fail-fast culture will help you pivot from phase 2 to phase 3, which is where Google regains momentum. Google now has a chance to become really useful by giving people data lockers and data ecosystems that bring us all into the 21st century. Google can team up with all the other closed social networks against Facebook, or Google can embrace and promote the open web. I know certain people inside Google are already familiar with the term “personal data locker” and have read my book. In fact, I tried to get Eric a copy of my personal data locker white paper five years ago, but even our mutual friends said he wouldn’t make time to read it. That’s okay. I’ve been busy fleshing it out – writing books, blogging,  tweeting, giving speeches, making connections, and helping influence the Open Web movement. The personal data locker is the cloud-based computer of the 21st century. Microsoft has a significant effort underway in this area. Other big companies are building their own versions, and several start-ups have either launched or will launch soon. I have a list of them, in case you’re interested. And I think you’ll want to see that video.

When we start getting the data out of the apps, we’ll be building ecosystems. Today’s apps trap data inside them, and that doesn’t scale well. It’s time to realize that data is more important than apps, and that by putting data in the center (in people’s data lockers), we build an ecosystem of services that come and perform tasks or manipulate data. I’ll be talking more about this next year, but this separation is the foundation for building the 21st century web.

One thing: the future that wins won’t be business as usual. The only thing that can beat Facebook is if all the people building web sites have an incentive to stay on the web and use its power, not collapse into Facebook. It won’t be about gathering behavior and keyword data on people and using it to help advertisers target them better. It won’t be about keeping the customer out of the loop. Shifting from push to pull is hard. If you want to beat Facebook, you’ll have to empower people to collect and use their own data for themselves, even if that means not sharing it with Google’s advertisers. But it’s okay, you’ll still be able to make lots of money from them by helping them do just that.

And so will everyone else. If Google embraces the open web and personal data, thousands of startups will get funded and the data-driven ecosystems will really emerge. This is one way to catalyze the movement. I would welcome the opportunity to get it going, and Google can be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. At the same time, it would give Google employees a mission they can believe in.

Guys, I honestly think I have what you need. It’s in my book, and it’s in all these blog posts. The open web is the solution, data is the secret weapon, and the data locker is the Facebook killer. Let’s talk soon.

Happy new year. I hope 2011 is the year of personal data and the open web, not Facebook assimilation and capitulation.

I’m starting to get upset. I want to yell “FREEDOM!” at the top of my lungs, hoping someone in the mainstream press will hear.

Do you remember the movie Braveheart? It’s the story of William Wallace, who gave his life as a symbol for freedom against opressive rulers. It was a moving story, because Wallace served as a catalyst for doing the right thing against the few in power who would try to “own” the public. Today, we are in a similar situation.

I recently learned that vitaminwater.com resolves to Facebook.com/vitaminwater. This is categorically bad for the Web, a virtual canary in the coal mine. Forget the fact that Vitamin Water is a useless product that destroys the environment with throw-away bottles. It’s a sign of serious slippage that they have just thrown in the towel and gone to Facebook, because on Facebook they can better identify their visitors, and it’s easier for people to sign up and participate. Don’t take this lightly. If things go much more in this direction, all the innovation and productivity increases will be brought to us by Facebook’s marketing department. Or not.

Those of us in the Open Web movement have no one to blame but ourselves. It’s not the fault of the consumer, and you certainly can’t blame Facebook, nor can you expect journalists to ask hard questions – it’s simply our fault for not giving people a better choice. There are a few voices shouting from a few rooftops, but we’re too fragmented to get critical mass. Like any successful movement, this one needs a rough framework, a reason to work together, a catalyst, and a lot of luck. At the moment, we’re making progress on all of these, but not enough. We’re losing ground every day.

The shift I’m talking about qualifies for exactly what John Hagel and John Seely Brown talk about in their book, “The Power of Pull,” and what I talk about in my book, “Pull.” Put them together and you have a roadmap to ideas and business models that will scale forward into the 21st century. I’d love to apply Hagel and Seely Brown’s principles to what I’m doing, but it’s not going to be easy. The industry I’m trying to switch from push to pull isn’t a vertical one – it’s the platform we use every day to do everything we need and want to do. My goal is no less than to replace all our computers and tablets with radically cheaper screens that use the Web natively. This is not only much better for rich people who today have half a dozen Apple products, it’s the platform for the 5 billion people on the planet who can’t afford Apple products. No one wants the next version of a huge operating system running on a hard disk. People want to use their information, interact with others, conduct business, create markets, learn, communicate, find their way around, and watch live sporting events on cheap devices that are everywhere in their lives, and I want to help them do it. I want to help catalyze the platform for the 21st century. It’s a huge, disruptive shift, and the established players aren’t going to go lightly. I’m certain it will come. It’s just a matter of when. My goal is to start the company that leads an entire wave of consumers and startups onto the open web.

This Movement Needs a Framework
We have a legal framework evolving at places like Creative Commons, Data Portability, the Open Rights Group, and the Open Web Foundation. That’s great. We have standards evolving at W3C, OASIS, ISO, and OpenGroup. But we still don’t have an architecture for the personal data locker, and we need one. What I mean is that all startups working on some aspect of personal data should be working on a part of the overall end solution – similar to different countries working to build the International Space Station, bit by bit. The W3C Incubator Group just published their report on standards for the Open Social Web – it’s great they are putting more effort into this area. But we need a commercial framework as well. The best thing we have so far is PersonalDataEcosystem.org, a dedicated group of people from the identity and VRM worlds. They are on the right track, but they need help. For starters, we need a framework for how all the pieces are going to fit together. This may be unprecedented, but I think it’s necessary. It’s as though The Emperor and Darth Vader are building their own space station, and the people of the world are behind in building theirs. Put simply: we aren’t working together enough. We don’t have the traction we need to build what Hagel and Seely Brown call a “shaping strategy,” much less a “shaping platform.” The framework for the personal data locker must show how we will:

• manage our identities
• manage our belongings
• manage vendors
• establish a universal timeline
• manage location and life log data
• manage personal data (finance, health care, career, etc)
• manage  security and permissions
• connect to friends and colleagues
• form groups
• send messages
• link data
• protect privacy
• build interoperability into everything
• add services on an ad-hoc basis

If we were to choose a name for this effort, today we’d have to call it the Setback Foundation. But 2011 is going to be different. In 2011, there will be an uprising. I will lead the charge if I have to, but I’m sure many more will join, because this movement doesn’t need a leader. It needs an explainer. At the moment, The Personal Data Ecosystem is the best vehicle we have. Let’s give them our attention, our time, our energy. And, most important, let’s get the word out that they exist. Please tweet and blog to anyone you can reach. Tell them it’s important. Tell them if they want to live free, they need to help us build that future.

As I already mentioned, quite a few people are working on the framework for a personal data ecosystem, so we can have a common blueprint to build to. This is important, because in the 21st century you don’t go it alone, and you don’t trap people’s data inside your application. We need a way to store our data in our data lockers and then let the services assemble and work for us on demand. Already, thousands of people are working on building aspects of this, even as we’re still dreaming up the specs. If all the investors are waiting for a core company to emerge and then follow later, it might be too little too late.

When I talk with venture capitalists, they say they are already investing in the semantic web. Then they tell me about their projects, and I don’t spend time correcting them, I simply urge them to read my book. Most venture capitalists are investing in metadata aggregation and sense-making, not in the semantic web. As Dan Connolly of the W3C says, “The operative term in ’semantic web’ is ‘web.’” Almost all VC-backed projects don’t pass my semantic-web acid test. In fact, I haven’t heard of a single one. If VCs want to get into the semantic web, they should be talking with Martin Hepp at GoodRelations or any of the companies working with the Science Commons project, or with companies working on leveraging XBRL. If investors want to understand the world of personal data and the early investment opportunities, they should come to my investor/entrepreneur day at IIW this spring.

My goal is to help connect venture capitalists and angel investors with investment opportunities in the coming wave of personal data management. Perhaps by getting everyone in the same room at the same time, I can help everyone working toward these common goals and slingshot the movement before Faceborg takes over the planet.

The event will be a loosely structured day for investors and entrepreneurs. This will be an extra day at the end of the next IIW workshop, which will be held in Mountain View, California, probably on May 4th or 5th. There will be sessions on things like:

• the standards framework and the roadmap to the personal data ecosystem
• principles and progress of the open web
• What the W3C has in store for personal data
• the economics of linked data
• marketing issues for consumer adoption
• the phone as a window to the personal data locker
• progress in various verticals
• near-term investment opportunities
• entrepreneur-driven pitches and sessions

I’ll have more details early in the year. But for now, if you are reading these words, I want you to help get the attention of people in the press and key investors/catalysts. If you know any of the people below, or if you can suggest more people for me to reach out to, please connect us. If you are on this list or can help, I’m asking you to step forward and help me make this a kick-off event for the personal open web. This isn’t a complete list, but I’d like most of the following people to attend …

• Mark Andreesen
• Ron Conway
• John Doerr
• Tim Draper
• Esther Dyson
• Roger Ehrenright
• Brad Feld
• Andy Fillat
• Chris Fralic
• Paul Graham
• Bill Gurley
• Rob Hayes
• Danny Hillis
• Ben Horowitz
• Joi Ito
• Bill Joy
• Rohit Khare
• Josh Kopelman
• Mark Kvamme
• Om Malik
• Mike Maples
• David Marquardt
• Dave McClure
• Mary Meeker
• Chris Messina
• Alan Meckler
• Mike Moritz
• Tim O’Reilly
• Adeo Ressi
• Roy Sardina
• Mark Suster
• Ann Winblad
• Stephen Wolfram
• Yossi Vardi

In addition, if you’re an entrepreneur looking for money or partners to help build the personal data ecosystem, please contact me as well. I want it to be an important event for everyone who attends. My email is david@thepowerofpull.com

I’m not going to cover everything, but I want to make three important points about public speaking: 1) people don’t remember anything you say, 2) people get bored quickly if you don’t give them enough to do, 3) don’t illustrate the analogy, illustrate with examples. I’ll cover each of these in a blog post. Here’s the first of three.

Principle #1: People don’t remember a single word you say
The general rule in speaking is that people can’t remember more than three principles, so lay out your three most important points and drive them home. I respectfully disagree. I don’t think people can remember even one principle if you say what it is and explain it, or if you show slides of text and read them. You could show a single slide with your three points, talk about them, and no one would have a clue what you said the next day. This is the same with television, by the way – audiences remember what they see, not what they hear. Here is what people actually remember.

• They remember what they see. If you have a compelling slide that really means something, audience members will probably remember it. A great example is a competitive map. You can talk about the competition or your market in general, but if you can plot the landscape on two meaningful axes, people will get a visual sense of how things lay out. Or you could have brilliant animation, as Hans Rosling features in his talks. In general, 2×2 matrices that really mean something can be quite effective, because they are simple enough to understand. Trying to do too much in a single slide or trying to force the facts into a matrix or analogy when they should be displayed another way assures that people will forget it.
• They remember what they visualize. If you can tell a story well, you don’t need any slides. Garrison Keillor told all his stories sitting on a stool in front of an audience and broadcasting on the radio, and his stories were visual and memorable (I can still see the woman in the red dress walking into the Lutheran church, and it never even happened). In this captivating TED talk, Rory Sutherland takes us to several places and situations that I remember vividly, even though he used almost no slides and spent most of his time telling stories. The stories were wonderful, and the general message stays with me still.
• They remember what you do. One of the most memorable things you can do is something unexpected. Ten years ago in my keynote I used to borrow an audience member’s watch, take it on stage, and smash it to pieces with a sledge hammer. At the end of the talk, of course, I gave it back in perfect condition. Not only did it hold people’s attention until the end of the talk (no one wanted to leave in the middle before finding out how this situation would resolve (and it held one particular audience member’s attention more than others)), it was also the single thing people remembered more than 6 months later. If you sing or dance or use a prop to drive your point home, they will remember it if it’s appropriate and well performed. In my current talk, I illustrate the principle of pull by asking for a volunteer and “sending” that person a copy of my book by putting it into an envelope and having the audience pass it from hand to hand. This is something they will remember, and it artfully illustrates the concept of pull, because I instruct the person to move during the pass, and the audience has to react and follow the volunteer to collectively “deliver” the book. Another excellent prop is a wet human brain if you can hold it in your hands and talk about having a stroke.
• They remember who you are. They really won’t remember a word you said, but they will have a sense of who you are and how you project yourself. If you’re different or interesting in some way, they will remember that. As an example, Wade Davis, a storyteller and modern-day shaman, speaks passionately and eloquently about indigenous people around the globe. He uses such big words and fancy academic language that no one can really understand what he’s talking about. But we remember him. We remember how we felt in his presence. We were intoxicated, even though we understood practically nothing of it. And we remember wanting more. (Don’t try that at home.)
• One good analogy can really drive your point home. If you remember Geoff Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm,” you may well remember his graphic and the concept of the chasm – the gap between early adopters and early majority. This is an excellent analogy that served Moore well for many years (until he invented the tornado and the bowling alley and lost his audience). Too many analogies or inappropriate analogies and your audience won’t remember any of them. If you’re not good with analogies, stay away from them – too many people think they are above average drivers and above average analogy makers, and they just end up getting in more wrecks than they would if they kept things simple.
• They remember how they felt. If you tell stories, if you paint pictures with words, if you tell some jokes in the middle and jerk a few tears in closing, they will remember that you were in control and you communicated. They remember that they wanted to know more after you were done, and that they would love to have lunch with you and pick your brain. If people feel this way, you’ve done the job. Don’t screw it up by going too long, trying to do too much, or taking too many mini speeches disguised as questions.

Next: People Get Bored Quickly

Sudden death for any presenter

and you’re dead before you can open your mouth. People can read much faster than you can talk, and once they see what’s coming they will assume you’re just filling in some details. People in the audience will start checking emails and sending tweets. You absolutely cannot put up slides of text and read them. A friend of mine says that if someone were to find your slide deck and look through it on his own, he should have no idea what you’re talking about. The images should support what you’re talking about. So here’s the big tip: lead with your voice and let the images trail just behind. If you keep their attention by looking at them and getting them to look at you, getting them to focus on you, then your slides should simply illustrate what you are talking about, rather than talking about what they see on the screen. This is where most people fail – they lose the audience’s attention by letting what their eyes see get ahead of the points being made. I’ve often said that if the average person presenting would simply take the very last slide and rotate it around to the front and then give the same talk at the same pace, with each image coming one click later than it was supposed to, he or she would have command of the audience rather than lose it. That’s because the slides would support the talk, not the other way around. Here are some other tips to prevent driving your audience to their laptops:

Ask questions. I like to start with a central question and get them to show hands. This is an audience sound check that tells you how engaged they are. A good question will stay in their minds during the talk and then you can use it to close, bringing your topic back around to keep it in their minds.

Perform. If you’re on stage in front of people, don’t stand in one place repeating the same actions. Act it out. Move. Come toward them, back away. Cover the room. Keep their attention using your body language and eye contact.

Make your voice your primary means of communication. If your voice is monotonic, get a coach and learn to use your voice as an important part of your presentation tool kit. Just being happy will make you sound happy, and your audience will be much more interested in what you have to say.

Demonstrate something. Use a physical demonstration at least once in a 45-minute talk. Get a volunteer to work with you, or bring out some piece of apparatus and show something physical. Hand something out. Do something to engage them physically, or at least make them nervous that you’re going to come to them next.

Be spontaneous. Go off your script, react to their reactions, scare them, do the unexpected. I used to perform with a sledge hammer; if someone’s mobile phone rang during my talk, I would come at them with the hammer raised saying “I’ll get it,” and that would make everyone laugh. Go for laughs if you know you can get them.

Always Be Delivering. This is a mistake many presenters make, especially at TED. You would think 18 minutes would force people to pack as much quality into their talks as possible, but in most cases 9 minutes would have been better. If you’re on stage, you must be delivering. I can’t count how many “social media” experts I’ve seen go onstage and throw up the same Facebook and Twitter figures and give the same overhashed advice. If your content is boring, there’s no way you’ll be able to keep people from doing something else while pretending to listen to you.

Fewer images is usually better. Most people fill their presentations with useless images (I’ll talk about that more next time), just so they can keep turning the page and reading their notes below each screen. Most people are also not graphic designers, so their slides come across as amateur and need explaining. Good designers keep it simple and go for impact. See this talk by Richard Titus and this one by the incomparable Tom Wujec – note how crisp and well done their slides are. These people really put the energy into enhancing their talk visually and focus on the progression of their ideas and maintaining communication with the audience. A good rule is: no more than one slide for every 2 minutes of talking. On the other hand, in my recent talk, I showed over 120 slides in 55 minutes, and my screen changed about every 20 seconds. But this is very difficult to pull off. I have a reason for doing it, and I’ve put over 1,000 hours into my talk, so this is an advanced approach to keynote speaking.

Don’t explain your slides. Let your slides follow behind your voice, illustrating what you have just said. If you are going to present a list of 5 bullet-point items, have each one appear just after you say it.

Present meaningful data meaningfully. If you haven’t read all of Edward Tufte’s books, please do that now, before reading on. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Are you back? Here’s a good example of a slide that will engage your audience:

You can talk about the information in this slide and keep your audience’s attention, because you have an important point to make and you’re showing the data to back it up. On the other hand, the slide below is a terrible example from the same presentation, and this kind of thing is all too common today:

Your visuals must not draw attention away. In 1932, Beatrice Warde wrote a seminal essay on typography called The Crystal Goblet. I highly recommend you read it. The idea is that type should support the message, rather than call attention to itself. Edward Tufte has written a book on this effect for presentations (here’s a summary). Today, many people have discovered Keynote’s and PowerPoint’s ability to wipe, fade, zip, turn, and twist from page to page, and it seems that cool-transition mania is spreading faster than the Fed can print money. Don’t even think of using Prezi or some other cool, whiz-bang presentation tool. Don’t use 3D unless you absolutely need it to make your point!

People get bored quickly. Engage them. Ask them questions. Get them to work on your (or, even better: their) problem with you. Take them on a journey. Don’t tell them everything. Leave them wanting …

Next: What to Illustrate

We all know meetings are often a waste of time. Asking us to look at pictures like this when you have an important point to make is a waste of our time. (Note to presenters: don’t commit the same mistakes you’re telling your audience to avoid.) With the emergence of cheap stock photography (and easy photo stealing via Google image search), speakers are more often illustrating their analogies. As I said, I’ve spent over 1,000 hours on my talk, and I put a lot of time earlier this year into making killer analogy slides, borrowing heavily from NASA photo archives and spending money at iStockPhoto.com. Here’s an example, which I made back in August to illustrate the phrase “On the semantic web, we are always making apples-to-apples comparisons”:

Pretty cool, huh? I even had the apples falling in, one by one, like on a slot machine. My bad. This is simply a distraction from my main message. After I realized that illustrating the analogies was the enemy, I found more of them in my talk than I thought – I was using them as filler. I had a lot of work to do. Here’s the slide that replaced that one:

And here’s what I said once that slide was up: “On the semantic web, we are always making apples-to-apples comparisons. When our search tools can automatically find the best deal for us, we’ll see whose advertising tricks are most effective and which aren’t so good for customers.” Note that I did not walk the audience through this example. Instead, I used red type to draw the conclusion and challenged the audience to follow visually while listening to me at the same time. Knowing that they have a lot to do, I delivered this sentence slowly, watching them to make sure I still have an open communication channel as they looked at the screen. If I had walked them through this example, they would know that in the future they can be half listening and still stay with me. By saying something else and making them work out the situation on their own, they knew that they had to pay 100% attention or they’d be lost. And they did. In this way, by presenting a lot of challenging material and never reading my slides, I held their attention for 55 minutes, making them want more after I was done.

I didn’t take out all of my analogy slides. For example, I left this one in:

While this was up, I said: “The goal of 20th century marketing was to own the customer. The harder it was for the customer to switch to a competitor or turn off your service, the better.” I use this analogy often, talking about “lobster trap” marketing or “roach motel” thinking, but in this case I did not say those words – I let the image do that while I said something else. The fact that I haven’t illustrated all my analogies makes this one more memorable.

Here’s another one I had to toss into the trash:

That one hurt, because I was quite attached to it and had spent days putting it together, not to mention it featured my photogenic son. I was going to use it for my ending, where I tell the audience we are headed on a journey into new territory and no one knew what was ahead. Then I remembered that visual trumps voice, and that people would remember the slide but not the message, so I deleted it and instead just brought their attention back on me, standing on stage, where I delivered the final message without any illustration. That was much more powerful, because they could feel my passion and my call to action, they were thinking about their own situations while watching me. This kept me in control at the end, when it was important to bring everyone back to reality and the mission ahead, rather than ending on yet another slide.

I ended that talk powerfully, knowing people won’t remember anything I said. But they will remember how they felt, that I closed my argument and that they saw the overall logic come together. That’s all I can hope for – they can get the content again at their leisure by reading my book.

So, if you’re not supposed to illustrate the analogies, what should you show on the screen? Show examples, the way I did with the apples-to-apples point. Show the application of your ideas. Here’s my prescription for a successful talk:

1. Use a few title and organizational slides to present the framework of your narrative.
2. Show examples of your key concepts.
3. Show the minimum necessary charts, graphs, numbers, and data. Summarize it and only show the most important numbers. It’s fine to show heat maps and bell curves, but make sure your graphics emphasize the takeaway message, not the raw data.
4. Show a key slide that starts a story, and then engage the audience with your masterful storytelling abilities.
5. Start with you; end with you. Don’t let the slides take over the show.
6. Be ruthless in editing your talk down. Present just what you need to get the audience on board and no more.

Here’s Dan Phillips doing just that, with about 3 minutes and 10 slides too many, but he does a good job guiding you through his world of ideas. He pulls you in with his stories. You listen to him, because he paints pictures with words while letting the images behind him reinforce the story. Here’s Dan Gilbert doing an even better job. After this, wouldn’t you love to have lunch with Dan Gilbert? I would.