“The Wow Factor”

August 11, 2010 by Pearl 

In the article “Best Formula for Selling Yourself,” Frances Cole Jones, author of The Wow Factor: The 33 Things You Must (and Must Not) Do to Guarantee Your Edge in Today’s Business World highlighted three proven techniques to close a sale⎯whether to sell an idea, a product, or yourself as a candidate for a job.
The [...]

The Rhino

August 4, 2010 by Pearl 

In a prior blog, you read about the analogy of an elephant to presentations. Now, let’s take a look at another similar example to illustrate the importance of integration in presentations.
In a recent Bayer’s commercial for women’s birth control pills, six blind-folded women described a rhino by touch. One woman said it was a pillar, [...]

Sarah Says “No!”

July 14, 2010 by Pearl 

Last Thursday, Sarah Palin and her political action committee, Sarah PAC, released its first campaign video of the year. According to a Yahoo! News article, the ad includes a vocal track of a speech Palin delivered in Washington in May, touting the rise of “mama grizzlies” and conservative women.
Palin’s main message in the ad was [...]

Less Is More Choice IV

June 9, 2010 by Pearl 

In a prior blog, you read about how Less is More when it comes to store-front displays through one of Professor Sheena Iyengar’s experiments, and how the same principle relates to presentations. Now let’s take a look at another one of Ms. Iyengar’s experiments to see how this concept also applies to toy selection.
In her [...]

Continuing with the Flow

April 30, 2010 by Pearl 

In Monday’s blog, you read about the captivating effect of flow in Honda’s commercial “Cog”, and how it applied in presentations. Today, let’s look into another example of the same effective use of flow in two popular music videos by rock band, OK Go.
The Rube Goldberg-influenced music video, “This Too Shall Pass”, begins when one [...]

Honda and Flow

April 26, 2010 by Pearl 

Honda’s commercial “Cog,” is a two-minute long masterpiece created by Wieden+Kennedy, an international advertising firm. The production of the commercial required an astounding 606 takes and took 3 months to complete, including the engineering design of the sequence.
The total cost of the commercial was 6 million dollars. Yet, no computer graphic or digital manipulations were [...]

Less is More Choice III: iPhone Apps

April 5, 2010 by Pearl 

At the beginning of this mini-blog series, you read about how the Less is More principle affects store-front product displays, and how it relates to presentations. Now let’s take a look at how this concept applies to the tech world.
There are more than 150,000 applications and counting available to iPhone users today. How many [...]

Less is More Choice II

March 24, 2010 by Pearl 

In a prior blog, you read about how the Less is More approach applies to store-front product placement, and how it also relates to presentations. Now let’s take a look at how this concept applies to a popular chain of grocery stores.
Established in 1958 as a small chain of convenience stores, Trader Joe’s has expanded [...]

Death by PowerPoint

March 5, 2010 by Pearl 

This Dilbert cartoon has been making the rounds on all the presentation blogs, so here it is for our readers. The reason for its popularity is, sadly, it is so true.

Hi, I’m from Gen-Y II

January 11, 2010 by Pearl 

Teenagers and young adults are constantly caught in a whirlwind of socializing via mobile phones, instant messages, online video games and social-networking websites. In my previous blog, you read about the decline of nonverbal communication among Gen-Y today.
Further on this subject, Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal suggests that “there are a host of [...]