The Power of Images

I know that at times, we have repeated this over and over, but a Power Point presentation is not the place for a wall of text.

Text belongs in a handout.

Your audience did not come to a presentation to read.

They came to listen to you. They came to hear an interesting story; they came to hear you make connections and give them ideas; they came to hear the passion in your voice; they did not come to read.

They can read at home.

Consider how information is conveyed in this graphic. It is effective because conveys a lot of information in a short amount of time, and, frankly, it is just more interesting than a wall of text.

Look over each and every slide in your presentation. Is there a way to graphically represent the information?

For those of you that want to see more information conveyed visually try ChartPorn.org

What Can Trainers Learn From Mixed Martial Arts?

Bettering yourself at anything requires the imagination to find inspiration in unlikely places. As a fan of the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, I have come to appreciate the level of preparation that these athletes and trainers put into a 5 round fight. The type of preparation trainers and instructional designers feel when spending weeks to build a 30 minute WBT.

Georges St. Pierre is a French-Canadian fighter out of Greg Jackson’s camp that embodies the brutal arts better than anyone. His pre and post fight interviews are the embodiment of calm; calm that can only come from intense preparation both on the physical and mental side.

A sublime example of this preparation was a 2009 fight against arguably the one of the top pound for pound fighters at welterweight BJ Penn. After a one-sided victory St. Pierre gave a post-fight synopsis that sounded like a biology lesson. It was evident that his training involved a physiological assessment of his opponent. But the man behind the fighter was the voice of the “trainer,” Greg Jackson. In most fights you hear the din of three or four corner men shouting orders. Jackson rarely interjects during a round and if he does it is the perfect instruction.

In-between rounds when an exhausted fighter gets his brief moment from the onslaught of dangerous exchanges Jackson really shines. He usually starts by telling his fighter to focus on breathing then allows the fighter to make his statement about how the fight is going. If Jackson disagrees it is with a direct statement either in agreement or sharp contrast but always calm.

The fundamentals of fight preparation clearly arc into both instructor-led training and online training. Trainers in the instructional design world may not have to worry about defending against submissions but we have to know how to find a balance between psychology, science and instinct. If we all devote time to immersing ourselves in disciplines on the periphery we will be better at everything. When St. Pierre was asked by a sports writer if he was worried about his opponent the night before his title defense, St. Pierre calmly responded, “I train to fight an army, why would I be worried about one man.” Badass.

ILT Masterpiece Theater: The Golden Banana

While in a college marketing course several years ago I was witness to forty-five minutes of engaging, funny, relevant and interactive content all from a single PPT slide with the picture of a golden banana. This forty-five minute fruited-slide benchmark is my own personal instructor led-training equivalent of Michael Jordan's Game 5 performance against the Jazz. Except the instructor didn't have the flu...he also didn't have a Scottie Pippen so we'll call it even.

That night in Service Marketing 302 our instructor R. Hornfisher introduced the power of graphical simplicity backed by well constructed content. He used the Golden Banana to springboard into a brilliantly articulated lesson on the power of rewarding your employees and customers. The greatest lesson I learned that evening was not about service marketing it was about the power of content and simplicity.

Instructional Designers/Developers of the world, I challenge you to take the time to consider the Golden Banana or use the term as proper noun used to describe the perfect simplicity of graphics backed with a talented trainer. Or better yet implement an annual award ceremony where you hand out Golden Bananas to your designer, developer or trainer who exhibit the spirit of the GB.

Disclaimer: Under no circumstances should the Golden Banana phrase or likeness be allowed to mutate into anything resembling a phallic joke...no matter how hilarious or obvious.