Bud Commercial: “Bad Math”

Filibuster – Cablevision iO commercial

A Comedian’s Perspective on Improving PowerPoint

I put together a few tips on engaging with your audience in your powerpoint presentation… republished from the McCombs alumni newsletter:

• Do your homework: Reach out to a handful of people before your presentation and ask what is the most important question on this topic that they would like answered. Not only will your material be more relevant, but you’ve let a few audience members know their opinion counts. It will have a positive influence on the energy in the room.

• Less is more. One executive I’ve worked with, let’s call him “Charlie,” used to introduce cluttered slides with the useless disclaimer, “I know not everyone in the room can read this….” He failed to discern subtle nonverbal cues from audience members like squinting—or exiting.   The most influential slides I’ve seen deliver their message with only three to five words. It allows for an easy-to-read slide and keeps the focus on you. I never use a font smaller than 30-point, unless I’m presenting to a very small group or negotiating with my wife.

• A picture is worth a thousand words. Although my English literature professor assured me this ratio doesn’t apply for a midterm essay, it holds true for PowerPoint. Since our minds absorb visual information faster, it’s a much more powerful way to convey your point. Impress your audience with a classic from Corbis.com, ShutterStock.com or even Flickr.com. My friend Charlie made the exchange and still had a few words left over.

• Tell stories. Everyone loves a good story. Use client examples, or find a relevant reference through WSJ.com, NYTimes.com or an industry trade publication. Simplify the tale with the narrative formula: a) problem, b) solution, c) results. For a good story, those are the only elements you need. And possibly a dragon.

• Schedule 20 minutes, and finish early. People love to get time back.

And finally, the most important rule bears repeating: always avoid redundancy.

Interview in American Entertainment Magazine

Here’s my interview on keeping the comedy clean at corporate events, and a little background on how I got started.

Seamus McManus: Beekeeper; Father of Cloud Computing

Our new smarter planet animation on cloud computing:

NPR: social media gets the job done at work

NPR’s Marketplace reporter Devin Dwyer joined us when we produced one of our smarter planet animations. Thanks to David Meerman Scott for introducing me to Devin.

And here’s the finished product:

Marketing’s Fifth P

Congrats to our director/editor of this trilogy, Scott Teems, who won his second film festival (2 for 2) on Saturday night.  View the full series at this link.

Episode 2, World Wide Rave

From SXSW-winning director Scott Teems…a little video we did with David Meerman Scott to help promote his new book.  Episode 1 is here.

THAT EVENING SUN wins SXSW!

THAT EVENING SUN, the feature film written and directed by my comedy filmmaking partner Scott Teems won its first awards yesterday, as reported by Variety. Its premier at SXSW in Austin this week earned it both the Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast and the Narrative Audience Award.  And the fun is just beginning, if film critic Eric Childress is on target:

Over the years we’ve seen some actors get that one big role late in their careers. Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond, Paul Newman in Nobody’s Fool, Richard Farnsworth in The Straight Story, Peter O’Toole in Venus and James Cromwell in Babe, Oscar nominees one and all. And some may consider Hal Holbrook’s nominated turn in Sean Penn’s Into the Wild to be that role for him. Certainly the best thing in that film, but director Scott Teems has gone a step further and done for Holbrook what Thomas McCarthy did for Richard Jenkins last year in The Visitor – given one of our great character actors a chance to shine in a lead role. And shine Holbrook does in That Evening Sun.

I trust there will be a meaty role for me in the sequel, as Holbrook’s tax accountant.

World Wide Rave, episode 1

Yesterday I had the chance to speak at New York University on how to produce comedy videos, as part of David Meerman Scott’s book launch of World Wide Rave.  We premiered the first episode of the video series Scott Teems and I produced to promote the book.