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.