Pivoting and Experimentation

As any experienced entrepreneur can tell you, it is not uncommon for the 'original' idea to be vastly different from the idea that is commercialized.  The popular term for this kind of shift is called 'pivoting' and it is often seen by investors as the mark of a 'good' (subjective, to be sure) entrepreneur.  The idea is simple; a start-up comes into the market with a new idea, tries to make it work, learns something from the experience, and then makes a decision about whether to pursue the original idea, make slight changes, or go in a new direction altogether.  This strategy works within corporate cultures as well, and in the scientific community the approach is usually called 'experimentation'.  In this regard, SlideStacks is no different from any other start-up out there trying to 'disrupt' (another popular, if not overused, start-up term) a particular market.

Based on my experience with boring, time-wasting meeting, the original idea for SlideStacks was to improve the way that slide-based presentations were delivered to a decision-making audience.  At first, my intention was to simply build a PowerPoint plugin that gave presenters new navigation tools, but over time the idea morphed into building a more fully-featured web-based presentation solution (pivot #1).  With some minor tweaks along the way, that's what we built, what we brought to the Rice Business Plan Competition last month, and what our beta testers have been using for several weeks now.  However, after combining the Rice experience with real user feedback, it became clear that we needed to take another look at how we are positioning SlideStacks as a solution.

After several weeks of reflection, we now believe that our next minor 'pivot' is to create a more intelligent way to measure and analyze the effectiveness of presentations and shared materials.  We are making this shift because we believe that by collecting and presenting more extensive data, our customers can gain greater insights into the needs and thoughts of their audience which in turn will inform future presentations and improve the way we communicate with an audience.  To some degree, our decision to focus more heavily on metrics is simply an extension of what we already have in SlideStacks (slide view reporting) which is why I put the word 'pivot' in quotes.  The reason this is a 'pivot' at all is because this decision means we are trying to extend the utility of the product to a different use-case (document sharing) and potentially attract new and different customer segments (corporations).

To be candid, we don't know exactly how this decision will turn out.  That's why we are planning to experiment with new features and see how our user base and potential customers react.  If it works out well, great news for us.  If we fail, hopefully we learned something useful and then we can 'pivot' again.  Although it can be stressful at times, the culture of experimentation is part of what makes being an entrepreneur exciting and fun.  Stay tuned for updates.

~Marc

Getting Started with SlideStacks

New users are signing up for SlideStacks every day, so it seemed appropriate for us to create our first piece of documentation.  To get a more detailed look at how to use SlideStacks, check out our newly minted Getting Started Guide

Let us know if something is missing or confusing.  Praise is also accepted :)

Happy Friday,

Marc

Don't Suck at Meetings

We at SlideStacks tend to agree with a lot of what's on this info graphic:

http://blog.salescrunch.com/dont-suck-at-meetings/

Nice work SalesCrunch.

SlideStacks and the Rice Business Plan Competition

Hello everyone!

I've just returned from Houston, Texas where my company, SlideStacks, has been competing in the Rice Business Plan Competition.  The past three days have been an absolutely incredible, so I wanted to take this chance to highlight the experience.  So much has happened over the past few days that it was difficult to put it all into words.  As such, you're in for a long email notated with headers so you can skip around if you so choose..

By way of background, the Rice Business Plan Competition is the largest graduate business plan competition in the world with nearly $1.3M in prizes and investments at stake.  Over 400 teams applied this year, of which 42 were selected to compete in front of 250 Venture Capital investors from around the country.  In short, this is a impeccably well run event, with lots of time for networking, interaction with the other participants, and plenty of money at stake.

Here's how the competition works:  The competing businesses are grouped into seven tracks (IT, Life Sciences, Clean/Green Energy, etc) with the top two teams advancing to the semi-final round.  SlideStacks was placed in the IT track, and we went through several stages: Practice Round, Elevator Pitch, and Presentation, with the latter event determining whether we would go to the semi-finals or to the 'Shark Tank' round.  In between the pitches, there were numerous opportunities for networking (including company showcases and cocktail hours).  Here are some of the highlights and lowlights from the weekend:

Practice Round (Thursday):  Could have gone better....

Meant to simulate the real pitch experience on Friday, each team had the chance to go through a practice round in front of judges.  In this session, we delivered our well rehearsed presentation that we had been working on for two weeks to 50 investors and VCs.  Well, delivered is probably a nice way to say it.  We were supposed to deliver a well rehearsed presentation, but instead, 3 sentences into the story I drew a complete blank.  It was a classic freeze; I was totally at a loss for words (for the first time in my adult life!) and I stood there in silence for what seemed like an eternity.  It actually took one of the judges to prod me on.  He said: 'just tell us your story'.  So we did. We actually recovered reasonably well, had a productive Q&A session, and got some really valuable feedback that we would use to improve our 'real' pitch the next day.  However, despite the recovery, this was a rough start to the competition and the experience let us know we had a long way to go to impress the judges.

Elevator Pitch (Thursday Evening):  Speaking in front of a huge crowd!

After the conclusion of the Practice Round, it was time for the Elevator Pitch Competition.  Just like it sounds, each teams was supposed to pretend that we had 60 seconds in an elevator with Warren Buffet to pitch our business and get a second meeting.  The event was held in a large auditorium with balcony seating.  With a standing room only crowd, my best guess is that there were 500 people in the house.  The environment made things a bit nerve-racking.  Although I generally believe that I'm a good public speaker, after my stumble earlier in the day, some doubts were creeping in.  After waiting 33 patient minutes for the rest of the teams to go, it was finally my turn.  I took a deep breath, stepped up to the plate, and let it rip.  I think I did well, but not well enough to win.  I was able to convey my message clearly and concisely using a structure I learned from a b-school professor.  All in all, it was a good effort, and it gave me some confidence for Day 2.

The Real Pitch (Friday Morning): 2 steps forward,  1 step back...

On Thursday night, Cosme (my teammate) and I spent several hours working through the feedback from the practice round.  We came to the conclusion that our attempt to do a rigid, rehearsed presentation was not giving us the opportunity to connect with the audience and show off the features and benefits of SlideStacks.  Therefore, we decided then to skip some of the theatrics and move very quickly to the question and answer session.  The format for the presentation was 15 minutes of uninterrupted presentation followed by 20 minutes of Q&A, but our strategy was to instead use 4-5 minutes of presentation, and 30 minutes of Q&A.  We knew this was a risky approach (most teams use the entire 15 minutes to present), but we truly believed this was our best opportunity to sell ourselves, and the business.

The presentation went almost exactly as we planned.  We did a quick explanation of the business and then invited questions from the 60+ people in the audience.  Fortunately, the judges were willing to engage us in conversation, so we're we able to cover a lot of material and address their concerns.  The 35 minutes went extremely fast, and when we walked out of the room, I was pretty happy.  Independent of the judges reaction, I felt we represented ourselves and the company well, which is all you can ask for in an environment like this.

A few hours later, we got the feedback from the judges, and predictably, the results were mixed.  On the one hand, most judges loved that we took a risk during the presentation, telling us that it was brave to let audience questions determine the content for the meeting and that we handled it very well.  Additionally, they praised our sales ability; they loved how we were able to engage the crowd, think on our feet, and provide a little bit of entertainment in contrast to some of the other teams who presented with a traditional structure.  However, despite the fact that the judges seemed to like us as entrepreneurs and sales guys, they still had a competition to judge, and we made it difficult for them to fill out their judging forms (sidebar: one guy literally said 'you guys are great, but I don't know how to fill out this form!')

The summary feedback point was this:  there is a difference between a sales pitch (what we did) and a VC pitch (what they wanted).  The judges expressed a need to go through their checklist (management team, problem/solution, market size, strategy, exit opportunities, etc.) as a means to compare us to other companies and our unstructured approach made that challenging.  We received a comment that if we had done a better job of hitting those critical VC points, we might have been able to make it through to the semi-final round.  Disappointed with the result but encouraged by some of the feedback, Cosme and I went back to the drawing board one last time, looking for a middle ground between our 1st and 2nd presentation that we would use during the Shark Tank Round the next morning.

The Shark Tank (Saturday Morning): Moving in the right direction....

The Shark Tank round was not nearly as hostile as its title suggests.  Although to some degree, this was a consolation round, we saw it as another opportunity to improve how we pitch to investors.  The structure of the pitch was to have a 25 minute combined presentation and Q&A - a format that suited Team SlideStacks very well.  Therefore, our strategy this time was to give a 5-7 minute 'checklist' presentation and then get to the Q&A.  This worked really well.  The judges were very engaged, asked some great questions, and actually gave us some really cool ideas for where we might want to take the product.  The 25 minutes went by extremely quickly, and looking back, it was actually fun!  Some of the judges in the room had seen our pitch before (either in the practice round or the 1st round), and one of them felt compelled to tell the other judges in the room how impressed he was at our improvement in just two days.  That was a HUGE compliment.  Of course we entered this competition to win some money and maybe find an investor, but deep down, we also wanted to get better, and there is no question that we accomplished that goal.  In terms of tangible results, later that night, we learned that we finished 3rd in our heat, which meant we finished in the middle of the pack for the overall competition.  Not great, but certainly not bad either considering only 10% of applicants even made it to the competition.

The Company Showcase: 

Throughout the event, there were two scheduled times for all 42 competing companies to set up a booth and speak with judges in an unstructured format.  These sessions were really great because we had the chance to connect with people one-on-one and tell them about our product.  Although I mildly regret not having posters, handout, or signage to help us stand out in the room, the ability to demo our product on an iPad and our laptops was a big hit.  Something we've learned to be true over the past few weeks is that people tend to 'get' SlideStacks a lot better when they can see it in person.  As a result, during these networking sessions we were exchanging business cards left and right and many folks asked if they could sign up and give it a try (which, of course, they can definitely do!).

Summary Thoughts: Incredible Learning Experience

It's really difficult to describe how great of an experience The Rice Business Plan Competition was for SlideStacks and me personally.  Objectively speaking, this was the biggest and arguably best graduate business plan competition in the country and it was simply a privilege to be a part of it. However, the most impressive thing that I observed (beyond some of the amazing companies that were competing) was the willingness and interest from the judges to give us feedback and coaching.  All of the judges were tough, but fair, and had a sincere interest in helping us succeed.  Whether it was brainstorming ways to grow the business, thinking up new features, or introducing us to other contacts that might be interested in using SlideStacks, the entire community was incredibly warm and supportive making the experience just that more valuable and memorable.  

To reiterate something I mentioned earlier, SlideStacks entered the competition knowing that we were perhaps over-matched by some of the other companies, but in the end we walked away Saturday night significantly better than when we walked in on Thursday morning.  I can't think of many other experiences in my life that were as professionally transformational as what we just went through and for that, I'm thankful for the opportunity we were given.

Sourcing Creativity

In 2007, Prof. William Duggan from the Colombia Business School in New York wrote an excellent book called Strategic Intuition that shed some light on how we form creative thoughts, specifically, those 'aha' moments that we often encounter at random times (in the shower, while driving to work, etc).  Duggan describes these moments as 'flashes of insight', something I think we've all experienced at some point in our lives.  For example, recall a time when you were faced with a work related problem but no matter how long you stared at your computer, the answer just wouldn't come.  Perhaps frustrated, you decide to take a walk, go home for the day, do something else, and then, all of a sudden it hits you: the solution.  Somehow, while you were distracted with another task, your brain was able to sift through all of the information and construct a clear solution.  These flashes of insight are called 'strategic intuition' because they provide an action plan (strategy) to solve a problem.  But where exactly did this solution come from?

To answer this question, Duggan draws from a wide variety of fields to illustrate how creative ideas are really just new combinations of old ideas.  Take Duggan's example of Google:  The founders of Google did not intentionally set out to create an internet search engine; rather, they were doing academic research at Stanford when they combined their knowledge of computer science, the citation ranking system used by academics, and a feature they saw on the Lycos search engine to create the first version of Google.  Similarly, while Steve Jobs (and Apple) may have perfected the graphical user interface, he certainly did not create it.  Rather, it was a fortunate visit to Xerox Parc that sparked his imagination to create a new, user friendly operating system for personal computers.  In both cases, the revolutionary ideas were nothing more than new (and better) combinations of old ideas.  

As I read this book, I couldn't help but think about how SlideStacks came to be.  Although I spent over 6 years working in the software industry, had given hundreds of presentations to a wide variety of audiences, it wasn't until my boss suggested that rather than just delivering my slide deck start to finish, I should instead engage my audience in conversation to see which topics they wanted to discuss.  I struggled with this ambiguity because traditional slideware made it difficult to bounce around the slides in a non-linear fashion.  That's when it hit me.  I immediately wrote the following question on a Post-It Note: what if there was a way to display slides based on the flow of an unpredictable conversation?  I spent the subsequent weeks answering that question, but everything started from that single flash of insight when I unconsciously combined my experience of user interface design, delivering presentations, and my boss' suggestion of conversation-based slide delivery to create a new idea: SlideStacks.  I did not intentionally set out to create an online presentation software, but when the idea struck, the path to creating the product was so vivid that I immediately jumped on the opportunity.

~Marc

PowerPoint Humor

Hello readers!  I'm just getting back from vacation and will get back on the blogging trail this week.  In the meantime, I stumbled across this little piece of PowerPoint humor that I thought I'd share: http://thetangential.com/2011/12/14/power-point-marriage-proposal-for-the-modern-businessman/

~Marc

Meetings at Microsoft

A mentor of mine recently shared an interesting excerpt from an interview with Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft.  I thought it was worth sharing because I think Ballmer does a good job describing not only the perspective of the presenter, but also the decision making audience.  Needless to say, I think he would appreciate the approach we've taken with SlideStacks :).  Enjoy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/business/17corner.html?_r=1 

Q. What’s it like to be in a meeting run by Steve Ballmer?

A. I’ve changed that, really in the last couple years. The mode of Microsoft meetings used to be: You come with something we haven’t seen in a slide deck or presentation. You deliver the presentation. You probably take what I will call “the long and winding road.” You take the listener through your path of discovery and exploration, and you arrive at a conclusion.

That’s kind of the way I used to like to do it, and the way Bill [Gates] used to kind of like to do it. And it seemed like the best way to do it, because if you went to the conclusion first, you’d get: “What about this? Have you thought about this?” So people naturally tried to tell you all the things that supported the decision, and then tell you the decision.

I decided that’s not what I want to do anymore. I don’t think it’s productive. I don’t think it’s efficient. I get impatient. So most meetings nowadays, you send me the materials and I read them in advance. And I can come in and say: “I’ve got the following four questions. Please don’t present the deck.” That lets us go, whether they’ve organized it that way or not, to the recommendation. And if I have questions about the long and winding road and the data and the supporting evidence, I can ask them. But it gives us greater focus.

Rice Business Plan Competition

Last night, the +SlideStacks team received some exciting news: we were selected to be one of 40 participating teams (out of 400+ applicants) in the 2012 Rice University Business Plan Competition!  This is the world's largest and richest graduate level business plan competition and has over $1.3M in prizes at stake.  We are honored to have been selected and are very much looking forward to the opportunity to share our vision of better presentations to a large audience in April.


Congrats to the team - we put in a lot of work to get here and have plenty of hard work ahead of us to take the next step.

Making an Impact with Adaptive Communication

In the March issue of the Harvard Business Review, Stacey Childress contributes an article titled 'Rethinking School' that discusses the failure of US education to keep up with the progress of other countries over the past 40 years.  However, despite the United State's dip in form, the author optimistically touts advances in adaptive learning technologies that have generated improvements in educational achievement for elementary school students in New York.  Ms. Childress describes the School of One's strategy of adaptive learning as tailoring educational content to the exact needs of each student using a combination of software of personal attention.  The preliminary results are very positive, with students in adaptive learning environments performing better than 98% of their traditionally taught peers. The logic is simple: technology-based and personalized lesson plans free teachers "from the demands of large-group instruction, a single teacher can tailor his or her efforts to the individual needs of dozens of students."  Although the idea of using software might suggest that the value of a teacher becomes smaller, the pilot programs find just the opposite.  By using software to cover more rote topics (such as arithmetic), teachers are then free to work with students on more advanced and dynamic skills such as critical thinking and problem solving. 

So what does this have to do with online presentation software?  A lot.

The SlideStacks strategy for creating more effective communication between a presenter in the audience is very similar to the adaptive learning techniques being used in these New York schools.  With SlideStacks, we make it easy for presenters to customize each presentation to the exact needs of the audience -sort of like a personalized curriculum for an individual student.  The personalization of content creates deeper audience understanding and connection to the materials, therefore fostering a more memorable and impactful presentation experience.  This strategy is in contrast to a common approach to presentations in which presenters deliver their message the same way to everyone, regardless of who is in the audience.

In short, adaptive learning has the potential to change the way our children learn in school.  Adaptive communication has the potential to change the way we communicate in business.  

Marc Siegel

Founder/CEO of SlideStacks

www.slidestacks.com

Development Update

Yesterday we received the first build of +SlideStacks! The team is in the process of testing things out and so far, everything looks GREAT. 


What does this mean for you? 


Well, it means we are inching closer to making SlideStacks available for beta testing. Stayed tuned for more information and look for a blog post in the near future with some screen shots of the soon-to-be greatest slide delivery software on the market!


~Marc


P.S. If you haven't done so already, sign-up to be a beta tester today: www.slidestacks.com

The Sales Trailer

Generally speaking, we entrepreneurs are enthusiastic when we tell people about our business.  It's easy to get excited about the details, the strategy, the features, etc. and perhaps unknowingly, we can end up talking too much to someone who just might not be that interested in what we have to say.  To combat this tendency, Craig Wortmann and his team at SalesEngine developed a useful and intuitive tool called the 'Sales Trailer' to not only focus the speaker, but also qualify the audience.  As defined on SalesEngine.com:

A “Sales Trailer” is to a business what a movie trailer is to a movie. It’s the concise but descriptive statement that answers the question you get 1,000 times a day; “What do you do?” The Sales Trailer does not answer all of the questions about your business, on purpose. It is meant to draw prospects into a well-structured conversation.

In other words, a well designed sales trailer is a teaser that induces the audience to say: What does that mean?  With this question, the audience is indicating that they want to learn more about your business, at which point you can proceed to the next step of the conversation.  To the contrary, if the audience does not respond enthusiastically to your trailer, there are basically two explanations: 1) your sales trailer needs to be tweaked or 2) the audience is simply not interested in hearing more.  If it turns out to be the latter, that's OK!  You've just qualified the audience/customer, which is valuable insight for any entrepreneur and can save you from wasting time talking to an uninterested audience.  Beyond selling, the Sales Trailer approach is also effective in a presentation setting; rather than talk in detail about every topic, try using a 'teaser' to introduce the topic and see how the audience responds.  If the audience wants to learn more, they'll ask, and time can be spent more efficiently by diving deep into only the topics that are of the most importance to the audience.

Writing a sales trailer is difficult and requires many iterations.  In fact, here at SlideStacks, after working with Craig, we've been through at least a dozen different versions that have been tweaked based on audience response.  In our trailer, we try to explain 1) what the product does and 2) what makes it unique, all without going into too much detail that might distract the audience.  For those who are curious, here's the Sales Trailer that is currently in the rotation:

SlideStacks is an online slide delivery software that transforms presentations into conversations.

The Sales Trailer is one of many helpful tools that the SalesEngine team have crafted.  To learn more visit their website: www.salesengine.com.

To all the readers and entrepreneurs out there, what's your Sales Trailer?

~Marc

Why ceding control to the audience can make you look good

One of the greatest challenges that a presenter faces is feeling comfortable ceding control to the audience.  After all, it's typical to invest hours building the perfect slide deck only to find that the audience wants to take the conversation in a different direction. When this happens, it can be frustrating. Perhaps you feel like you wasted time preparing materials (you didn't, people will still read your materials) or that the audience doesn't appreciate your knowledge about the subject (they do, otherwise they wouldn't be meeting with you).

When you feel this way, take a step back and ask yourself - why are we having this meeting in the first place? Generally the purpose of a meeting is to make a decision, so if you are the presenter, you likely hold some piece of information (data, expertise, etc) that are critical to the audience's ability to make a decision. Now transpose yourself to the viewpoint of the audience, why are you in this meeting? Generalizing again, members of the audience usually have some knowledge about the subject at hand but are looking for additional information from the presenter to make a decision. The nuance is that the audience is often looking for specific pieces of information - financials, features, competition, etc - but often before the meeting, the presenter doesn't know which topics will tip the decision scale. So how do you solve this puzzle other than trying to cover everything in a well prepared monologue?

Simple. Ask the audience what they want to know.

As the presenter, you hold the key, you have the information they need (as well as the information they don't).  Trying being direct and asking the question: "What can I tell about X to help you make your decision?".

Completely giving up control of the meeting might feel awkward at first, but the benefits are clear: important topics are discussed first, unimportant details are left out of the presentation, and the presenter looks like a true expert - a person who can field any question[ . Furthermore, the candor and directness of the meeting will save time, something your audience will appreciate and attribute to your management skills, and make your audience feel more satisfied because their personal concerns were directly addressed.
Of course, not every meeting lends itself to this strategy (group training, for example, might be more of a one-way broadcast of information), but when there are decisions to be made, using questions and conversation to get to the points that matter most can be a winning strategy for both the presenter and the audience.

~Marc

Changing the Game

A while back, a good friend of ours, Jonas Nwuke, sent us an interesting article about entrepreneurs that included this quote.  

"Some entrepreneurs spot and ride the waves of bigger trends, acting as catalysts, pushing the market into previously unforeseen territory. Others execute so well that they creatively destroy old markets as they nurture the new." 

- Sharon Greenstein, December 20th 2011 Digitopoly

There is certainly some truth to what the author is describing here; many business are started because a trend is rising that has not yet reached it's crest.  Entrepreneurs pour in their sweat (and money) to compete against vast armies of competition to build the best widget and hope that their efforts and execution turn them into the surfer that rides the wave to profitability.  But on the other end of that spectrum lies a stable industry waiting to be disrupted, and this is where we believe SlideStacks fits into the mix.  Not only are we paddling to catch the wave of online presentations, but we are also creating ripples in a more stable, 'old market' body of water: delivering presentations with slideware.  

To many of us, presentations feel stale, linear, and predictable.  We sit through endless series of slides while listening to a narrator - sometimes even after we've seen the deck in advance!  The issue is that traditional slideware forces us to go 'start to finish' through the content before we can (finally) get to the portion of the meeting where both sides actually connect and talk about what's in front of us.  This strategy is akin to throwing all of your slides at the wall to see which ones stick with the audience.  In contrast, SlideStacks is encouraging users to feel free to let the discussion bring the most critical issues to the table.  We can then skip the topics of lesser value and instead focus on what's most important to that particular audience while still supporting that conversation tactfully with slides and visuals.


Our goal with SlideStacks is ambitious: we've set out to disrupt the traditional presentations (and group meetings, for that matter) that many us regularly endure by creating more dynamic, efficient, and interesting communication between two parties.   We do this by building a technology that allows presenters to seamlessly place visuals into a dynamic conversation while displaying a greater emphasis on the interaction between the presenter and the audience.   In the coming weeks, we'll begin beta testing, and we hope that you'll join us in a revolution against boring presentations.

~Marc

Development Update

Today the SlideStacks team had a chance to check out the progress of product development and we can happily say that things are really starting to take shape!  A good portion of the core functionality has been completed (new informational website, registration, file upload, creating stacks, organizing slides, etc) and soon Epic River, our development partner, is getting to move on to the broadcast functionality that will allow presenters to share their materials over the web.  After that, we'll move on to a graphic design/user experience clean up phase.  This is really exciting news because it means we are that much closer to bringing SlideStacks to life and into the hands of users!  Thank you for all of your support this far, and stay tuned for more updates and announcements in the coming weeks.

~Marc
www.slidestacks.com

iEmpower

Last week's announcement of Apple's new publishing program iAuthor (for Mac) sparked a lively debate on the internets about the role of technology, specifically tablets, in the classroom.  While I found most of the discussion to be supportive of what many called the 'evolution' of education, I also saw within my own social network a small, but vocal group of people that chose to highlight the negatives, specifically, Apple's power to censor and profit from the creations of others. While I can certainly understand this perspective, my opinion is that Apple has found a new way to empower people to create and share their own personal works of 'art'.  Apple did this with music, then apps, and now with books - the progression makes sense.

Yes, I admit, there is a cost to doing business, and the potential for Apple to censor content is not exactly an American value, but the technology they are providing with iAuthor may also give millions of people the ability to tell and share their story using technology in a way that was previous not possible.  For example, think of elementary school teachers who could create interactive lessons, or help their students write a creative story that could be shared and downloaded by friends and family.  Or consider a small business that wants to publish a product manual or other documents via the tablet.  There are so many ways that people can use this tool to build something new or better, and it's because Apple's platform lowers the cost of business by putting technology into the hands of the masses.

By no means am I an Apple fanboy (though I do own an iPhone and iPad), but I do respect and admire how they have chosen to design their products with the 'average' end user in mind.  iAuthor is just the next step in the evolution of usable software, and the intent of products like this are worthy of emulation.

~Marc

Steve Jobs and PowerPoint

Members of the SlideStacks team recently finished reading the Steve Jobs biography in which, on several occasions, Jobs lambastes the use of PowerPoint during meetings.  The Presentation Zen blog recently posted this blog entry (and cute visual, see below) to illustrate Mr. Jobs' disdain for slides.

As Jobs' states, it was his experience that "people would confront a problem by creating a presentation. I wanted them to engage, to hash things out at the table, rather than show a bunch of slides."  In other words, he preferred that people interact and converse, not just produce information for consumption. It was also his view that conversation, argument, and discussion were necessary to deeper understanding.  Although Jobs chooses to bash PowerPoint (not an uncommon opinion), my view is that usually when a presentation falls flat, to use a sports metaphor, it's the golfer, not the clubs, that is to blame.


It's our philosophy here at SlideStacks to put the conversation first in a presentation, but contrary to Mr. Jobs, we don't take the binary view that PowerPoint is bad or that people who use it don't know what they are talking about.  Rather, we believe that there is a time and a place for slides and visuals and that successful integration of conversation and supporting materials requires the presenter to understand the audience and the purpose of the presentation.  We also believe that people who know what they are talking about feel comfortable to go 'off script' to keep the audience engaged, but that PowerPoint makes that improvisation difficult.  This last point is a key reason we are building SlideStacks - we want to empower those that know their stuff (and there are a lot of you out there) to use dialog to connect, inform, and influence your audience with effective and timely use of supporting materials without constraint.

Marc

Selling the Why...

I read a nice article today from Tom Searcy on Inc.com that talked about using the Apple model of sales:  Don't sell the 'what', sell the 'why'.  I think this approach is especially relevant to small businesses and start-ups, but I think all of us can benefit from harnessing the passion behind our work in the selling process.  Searcy refers to a great TED talk about the same thing, so if you have 18 minutes, take a view, it's worth watching.

Marc

Analyzing my email...

Around New Years, many of us look back at the previous year and reflect about what we did and didn't accomplish.  Until now, I had never thought about analyzing my personal email usage but ToutApp makes that possible.  Here are some of the interesting stats from the analysis:

• I received 15,514 emails in 2011
• I responded to only 6% of the emails I received
• I sent 89% fewer emails than I received
• Of the emails I sent, 71% received a reply
• Tuesday is my busiest day of sending emails, February was my busiest month
• The most common email recipients (my inner 'Circles' as they call it) were my immediate family and my close friends at Chicago Booth
• I subscribe to a few different Google Groups and Alerts, which constitute a significant portion of the emails I receive
• Groupon and Living Social send me way too many emails, so did Facebook until I turned off alerts.

Although the above results are fun and interesting, what ToutApp found is not all that surprising. I could have told you that I received way more emails to my personal Gmail account than I send or that advertising based sites like Groupon and Living Social clutter my inbox on a daily basis.  Additionally, this analysis does not include my Chicago Booth email address that would add another 8K emails - most of which did not warrant a reply either.  

Perhaps the bigger insight into this report is that I don't think my results are that much different from anyone else.  So what does that mean?  Well, it could mean that there is a lot of noise in our inboxes which might diminish the effectiveness of email communication or email advertising.  This is not to say that email has no value, but rather that email might not be as memorable or have the same impact as a phone call or in-person interaction - things we seem to get fewer of these days.

~Marc

www.slidestacks.com

P.S.  For those of you who want to analyze your email using ToutApp, visit this link.  ToutApp only works with Gmail and requires access to your Contacts.  To revoke this access after the analysis is complete, you'll need to visit your Google dashboard, and then navigate to the Account heading where you can control which sites have access to your Contacts.  Also note that the analysis could take several hours to complete, and in my case, almost two days, so be patient :)

Let's just talk about your business...

There is a famous story that Lou Gerstner, former president of IBM, tells in his book Who Says Elephants Can't Dance: Inside IBM's Historic Turn-around (2002) that illustrates one of the many reasons why we are creating SlideStacks:

One of the first meetings I asked for was a briefing on the state of the (mainframe computer) business.  I remember at least two things about that first meeting with Nick Donofrio who was then running the System/390 business....

At that time, the standard format of any important IBM meeting was a presentation using overhead projectors and graphics that IBMers called 'foils' (projected transparencies).  Nick was on his second foil when I stepped to the table and, as politely as I could in front of his team, switched off the projector.  After a long moment of awkward silence, I simply said: "Let's just talk about your business."

I mention this episode because it had an unintended, but terribly powerful ripple effect.  By that afternoon an email about my hitting the Off button on the overhead projector was crisscrossing the world.  Talk about consternation!  It was as if the President of the United States had banned the use of English at White House meetings.

Even though this story is a little dated (mainframes, anyone?), the obvious moral is that many of us have become too reliant on presentation materials rather than conversation to communicate information.  In my view, the bigger problem is that while many of us are aware of this problem, workplace norms still dictate that we gather in a physical or virtual meeting room and become drones to a presentation.  This is not to say that slides and visuals should be stricken from the workplace, to the contrary visuals certainly have their place and can be extremely effective communication tools when used properly, but rather we should be using supporting documents for exactly that, support.  In other words, we should put the conversation first, find out what the most important topics are to the group, and spend our time in those areas (using documents, slides, and visuals to support and enhance the discussion) to get our points across in a useful and memorable way.


~Marc

Welcome to the SlideStacks Blog!

Happy New Year, and welcome to the SlideStacks blog!

SlideStacks is a Chicago-based start-up company that was founded in the fall of 2011 by me, Marc Siegel, while attending the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  I'm joined on the team by my colleague and trusty CFO, Jacob Jones, and together we are working to reinvent the way visuals are presented to an audience.  It's our belief that by lifting the linear constraint imposed by traditional slideware, we can not only revolutionize how we use technology during a presentation, but also make meetings more fun and enjoyable for both the speaker and the audience.  We're in the early stages of making this vision a reality, and over the next few weeks and months, you can expect a flurry of activity as we bring SlideStacks to the market.  If you're interested in becoming a beta tester, visit www.slidestacks.com and submit your email address.


We'll be using the SlideStacks blog for lots of things: product updates, presentation tips, as well as general technology, entrepreneurial, and business musings, so we encourage you to visit us often and leave comments, thoughts, and ideas.  


While you're at it, please take a moment to follow us on your preferred social network or subscribe to this blog so you can be notified of all updates and announcements:

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Thanks again for taking time to visit the blog, we look forward to sharing SlideStacks with you in the coming weeks.

Marc Siegel

Founder and CEO

SlideStacks

About SlideStacks


Founded in 2011, SlideStacks is a new online presentation software that allows presenters to match visuals an unpredictable conversation.  In contrast to traditional slideware like PowerPoint or Keynote, SlideStacks lets presenters organize their content visually by topic and then provides navigation tools that allow the audience and the conversation to dictate which materials are shown and when during the presentation.  The resulting experience is a more conversational, interactive, and productive transfer of information between two parties.  SlideStacks is currently in product development and we anticipate a release in early 2012.  We are planning an initial launch in early 2012, so sign up to be a beta tester today at www.slidestacks.com.