Includes history of presentations

1. Presentations as social media
for businesses
A view from behind the scenes at SlideShare
Rashmi Sinha

5. 1981

8. Whitfield Diffie from
Bell Northern
Research who came
up with initial idea
behind PowerPoint

9. Robert Gaskins
recognized the power
of Whitefield’s idea
and created
PowerPoint

12. • Forethought the company behind
PowerPoint acquired by Microsoft, but
remained an (obstinately) independent unit
in Mountain View

13. “From PowerPoint business plan: "Allows the
content-originator to control presentation."
For Gaskins, that had been the point: to get rid
of the intermediaries-graphic designers - and
never mind the consequences. Whenever
colleagues sought to restrict the design
possibilities of the program (to make a design
disaster less likely), Gaskins would overrule
them.”
Ian Parker, New Yorker, 2001

14. Growth in usage and love hate relationship

16. Tufte Critique

17. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000931

18. “Let's face it: most people
give poor talks… We have
had poor talks long before
PowerPoint. We had bullet
points long before
PowerPoint - long before
Don Norman computers. In the old days,
people typed, stenciled or
hand-lettered their slides onto
transparencies, or later, 35
mm. slides. These talks were
also dull and tedious.”

19. David Bryne’s love of PowerPoint
E.E.E.I.: Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information

20. “Although I began by making
fun of the medium, I soon
realized I could actually create
things that were beautiful. I
could bend the program to my
own whim and use it as an
artistic agent…What had I
stumbled upon?”

21. “PowerPoint is a form of
theater. It has [a lot] in
common with Asian theater
and developments in
modern theater. The stage
mechanisms are revealed.
They are not hidden. ...
PowerPoint is like that. It
comes with the laptop and
the podium and the stage.
It’s a type of performance.”
Still, "Sea of Possibilities

22. I began to see PowerPoint
as a metaprogram, one
that organizes and
presents stuff created in
other applications. Initially,
I made presentations
about presentations; I
discovered that I could
attach my photographs,
short videos, scanned
images, and music. "The End of Reason"
Still,

23. http://www.slideshare.net/fatuousplatitudes/gettysburg-address
Original at: http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/

24. HAMLET
Option One: To Be Option Two: Not To Be
PROS PROS
 Nobler in the mind  Sleep
CONS CONS
 Slings Dreams (???)
 Arrows

25. Meet Lolita
• Qualifications • Name as function of situation
 Light of life
 Fire of loins Morning/
One Sock
 Sin Lo Slacks
 Soul
Lolita
School
Lola
• Steps taken by tip of
Dotted
tongue on pronunciation Dolly Line
1. Upper palate (“Lo”) My Arms
2. Transitional (“Lee”)
Dolores
3. Teeth (“Ta”)

29. Doctors, teachers, speakers,
consulting companies, big
companies, artists…

32. Characteristics of medium
• A mashup medium
• For both visuals or text
• Linear, one thought at a time (rather than
flow)
• Landscape (visual heavy)
• Constrained (need to be succinct)
• Recognizes individual creative instinct

33. How sharing on web is different
• User in control of navigation
• Needs to be fast, let people skim through
• Might need elaboration (+audio, video,
notes)

34. Emerging styles
• Visual Essays (use of creative commons
imagery with attribution)
• Lessig style
• Visual Resumes
• Meet Henry (inspiration from each other)
• David Armano creation style: creation on
the web
• Dave McClure style

35. How to get popular
• Make front slide attractive
• Catchy title
• Send it to friends (get a bit.ly URL)
• Have enough text to bring search
• Add video, notes, audio
• Make (or borrow visuals)
• Share on all social networks
• Send a link, not a file

36. Building a presentation
sharing community

39. Nurturing community
• Make it personally useful
• Useful at different levels of participation
• Make experience social
• Embrace community outside Slideshare
• Community through contests, giveways,
newsletter, blog

40. Leave room for play
10/21/2009 40

41. Part III: How businesses share
presentations

57. Businesses use of social media
is growing
• What social spaces?
– FaceBook
– LinkedIn
– Twitter
• What formats?
– Video
– Presentations
– Documents

58. How businesses currently use
presentations
• Lingua franca of corporate America
• Synchronous sharing: Webinars used for
lead generation
• Whitepapers: to share knowledge and for
lead generation
• Everyone can create. Easier than making
website

59. Content on SlideShare
• About 25% business and 25% tech
• 30% self-identify as educational!
• Almost 50% have business intent of some
kind

60. Three quarters of neurons in our brain
that process sensory information are
focused on vision. While most people
in business think they can’t draw (they
can) or that they’re “not visual” (they
Dan Roam are), we can all get better at
author: Back of the napkin,
winner: Best Presentation
discovering, developing, and sharing
Contest new ideas by taking advantage of our
innate “visual thinking” system: our
eyes, our minds-eye, and our ability to
draw simple shapes.

61. “Using visuals isn’t
just a trend in
PowerPoint design;
using pictures to
think, work, and
share is the
dominant business
communication trend
of our time, period.”

63. Social media % helpfulness of social networking sites
such as Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn in
generating leads
growing
rapidly, but
hard to tie it
to business
goals
CitiBank / GFK Roper Small Business Survey Oct 09

64. SlideShare Business Model
• Inspired by what users do
• Core functionality remains free. Business
use costs money
• Rewards good content (not spam)
• Presentations as advertisements!

65. AdShare: Promote content to a
community of professionals

66. Contextual, targeted promotion
• Shown only to people interested in your
topic or on searches for related keywords
• Pay only for clicks

67. LeadShare: Collect customer
leads on presentations
• On your
presentations
• Form shows up
on any slides
• Customize form
• On SlideShare
or on embeds

68. Two way communication
• Viewers can talk back, get in touch
• Cost on a per lead basis: $1 to $22
depending on no of questions and targeting

69. Three takeaways
• Be visual
• Have fun with presentations
• Business communication can inform,
entertain and inspire while serving
business goals

70. Find me:
www.slideshare.net/rashmi
www.twitter.com/rashmi