Storytelling to make your presentations memorable: Voyage and Return

We arrive to the last of our 7 plots; we have reviewed the different types of stories that have been used to create books, movies and more across time: The Quest, Rebirth, Overcoming the Monster, Tragedy, Comedy, Rags to Riches, and now Voyage and Return. The purpose of these posts is to enrich the messages we try to covey when we are giving a presentation. Storytelling has been proven to be the most effective way for people to remember facts and to be interested in the development of a plot. Our aim is to make your presentations interesting and memorable.

Voyage and Return is a very common plot in children’s stories and holds a deep meaning behind it. It is the plot behind Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz. It portrays the main character who embarks in a magical journey full of adventures, when she returns home nothing has changed except for herself. It is a story of maturing and development.

It is an excellent story to use when you want to talk about the development of a project. You have your plan to follow, your Yellow Brick Road; sometimes you have outside help, a guide, a White Rabbit to follow; bugs and other problems along the way, your very own “lions and tigers and bears”; in the end once you return home you are a new person or company, this project has changed you and you can offer much more.

This story is very powerful, we all have the notion of the transformation meaning behind Voyage and Return, how would you use it?

Until next time,

Byron Stanford for Project Presentation.

Tuesday, 27 July 2010 15:15 Written by Byron Stanford 1 Comment

Storytelling to make your presentations memorable: Comedy

Out of all the plots you could use to give your presentations, Comedy is probably the most familiar to you. Comedy is routed in everyday occurrences that are misunderstood or just go wrong. This is the style stand-up comedians use. If you think about it, comedians tell stories for hours and people sit, listen and enjoy the show. There are many things we can learn from stand-up comedy; the most obvious being that it is almost always routed in everyday things, waking up to make toast, driving your car… and then something unexpected happens! Another thing that comedians always do is bring back the big joke at the end, so if you’re using a funny element in your presentation and then dig into something more serious, you can always end on a high note by bringing back the joke at the end. It lightens the mood and leaves the audience wanting more.

Imagine incorporating these elements, which have been proven to work, in your presentations. You could start by talking of something they all know about, picking up a client call, for example, and then oh my God it’s Oprah on the phone! Including these unexpected and funny elements can go a long way to keeping your audience interested in your talk. Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Until next time,

Byron Stanford for Project Presentation.

Tuesday, 20 July 2010 10:49 Written by Byron Stanford 0 Comments

Storytelling to make your presentations memorable: Rags to Riches

By now I believe we’re all pretty convinced that telling a story is the best way to convey your message in a presentation, but sometimes it’s not that easy to find the story to tell, that’s why we have put together this series of posts with the 7 different all-time types of stories.

Rags to Riches is a very common plot and one that everyone likes since it portrays a normal character that everyone can relate to, and elevates him/her to a happily-ever-after life. This is the story behind Aladdin or Cinderella. It is the ultimate success story; the hero starts with nothing and ends up having success, money and fame.

Applied to presentations it is the inspirational story of how a company is created, how the hero goes from serving others, living on the streets to becoming the princess or sultan. These are the stories behind Facebook, Twitter or even Google; a small endeavor that turns into a huge multimillion success. It is the story of how you went from zero to hero.

Until next time,

Byron Stanford for Project Presentation.

Monday, 12 July 2010 14:54 Written by Byron Stanford 1 Comment

Storytelling to make your presentations memorable: Rebirth

Storytelling is the oldest form of presentation; storytellers would stand in the middle of squares to tell their stories to anyone who wanted to hear them. Nowadays we have changed the way we give presentations, in came power point and out went the stories. We have substituted the core of presentations, the story, for visuals that most often than not hinder communication. Don’t get me wrong, visuals are great, if you can use them to compliment your story, but visuals that only represent data and don’t tell a story are as interesting as a pet rock.

We’ve already talked about 3 of the 7 basic plots for stories, The Quest, Overcoming the Monster and Tragedy. Today it’s Rebirth, rebirth is a more optimistic view of Tragedy, it has a very similar plot, in which the villain spirals down into evil, but in the eleventh hour redeems himself. Examples of this type of story are A Christmas Carol, or the role of Darth Vader in Star Wars. Another, less tragic, version of Rebirth would be the story of the Phoenix, a bird that is reborn from its own ashes.

The symbolism behind the phoenix is so strong that most presentations that portray the comeback of a product or company will use it. It gives the audience an image of greatness beyond death or failure. Your project might have failed, but pitch it with a good rebirth story and people will believe that it is new, fresh and powerful.

Can you come up with other ways to use Rebirth in presentations?

Until next time,

Byron Stanford for Project Presentation.

Wednesday, 07 July 2010 10:40 Written by Byron Stanford 0 Comments

Storytelling to make your presentations memorable: Tragedy

We continue our study of different story types to try to understand what is so compelling about how stories are told and how to apply the fundamentals of storytelling to presentations. Our next story type is Tragedy, and it’s only natural since it is the opposite of Overcoming the Monster; it’s the tale of the villain spiraling down into evil.

The transformation into villain is something that happens throughout the tale, and when the villain is defeated in the end, the audience is satisfied. The power behind this story is that even though as an audience you may have come to like this antihero, who is the main character of the plot, in the end you feel it is only just that this evil comes to an end. Examples of this are abundant, from Shakespeare’s Mac Beth to The Godfather’s family, the Corleones.

There is a great example of how this type of story was used for a presentation: In 2005 lawyer Mark Lanier, representing Carol Ernst, sued Merck pharmaceuticals for the death of the plaintiff’s husband after taking one of the pharmaceutical’s pain killers. Lanier enlisted the help of Cliff Atkinson, author of Beyond Bullet Points, to prepare the opening speech. This type of case is hardly ever won, but with Atkinson’s extraordinary way of depicting the giant Merck as negligent, the jury was compelled to find Merck guilty and fined them for $253 million, $1 million per slide used in the presentation.

Here is a great example of the power behind a story well told and how presentations can be used in many ways. Now, I’m not saying you should go out to try to bring down Toys ‘R’ Us because the clown toy you got for Christmas when you were 7 scared the life out of you… but you get the point.

Until next time,

Byron Stanford for Project Presentation.