Are you talking to me?

You and I have probably seen hundreds of live presentations. From the high level CEO address to the most intimate team project presentation on PowerPoint or Keynote, to the creative director's take on the new show in pre-production. To this day, I am still amazed how small details can make a big difference in your next presentation and improve the power of your message. One of my great mentor in this area is Garr Reynolds from Presentation Zen.

For example, when we are regularly looking at the screen (to read the content of the slide or just to have a reference of where we are in our presentation) as oppose to connecting with the audience, we undermine both the message and the audience. When you show care for what's on your screen more then your public, it feels like a dead conversation between a screen and a human being; therefore you exclude us, the audience. Moreover, when you have a difficult message to put across, you lose your audience in a very short time. So here is my personal take on helping your message to stick.

Abandon bad animation, bad clip art and bad graph. The world doesn't need more pie charts, it's needs more connections! Unless it is really well done, outdated or poorly designed visuals distract your audience and seriously undermine your message. Humans, even without any graphic design training are becoming increasingly aware of the power of visual cues. Go for simplicity by exposing less in words and evoking more with simple, well done images and physical visual cues.

To promote a more direct contact with your audience, use a wireless remote presenter like this one to gain full control of the slides you are presenting. It seem obvious, but I still see high level presentations or by marketing agencies where people have no clue of the power and the simplicity of such a tool. When you control your slide's transitions, you no longer have to say to that person at the back of the room that nobody sees "next slide please!". It removes the focus on the slide and puts it back where it belongs, on your message.

Last, whenever possible, find a small table or a stand discreet enough to put your laptop on, in front of you and opposite to your audience. This will be your screen of reference, supporting your message and helping you to keep the focus on your audience as oppose to the screen behind you.

Remember, the slides are supporting you in delivering your message, not the other way around!

Dare in Oregon !

In November 2009, I had the great honor to be named "Quebec young Haitian personality of the year" by the JCCH in a lavish ceremony here in Montreal! It gave me the opportunity to meet some great leaders, to make the front page of the paper version of the business newspaper  Les Affaires, and to have the article on their online blog  about leadership. 

More importantly, the JCCH asked me to give a presentation inspired by their 2009 year's theme: "Dare", ("Osez", in French).  


I don't like to tell people what to do so there was no way I was going to come up with Welby's 10 commandments! Nevertheless, it gave me the opportunity to look back on my professional and personal contributions; and share some observations about what continue to help me grow and dare.

7 observations - not a recipe - to dare!

1. Set your own rules: I know it's obvious, until you realize that the ready-made life that we grow to accept is all about complying and fitting in. I consistently grow, when I remember, that I can be an active agent in setting major rules to run my life that influence everything else. 

2. Baby steps: I found that for me, it worked better and helped me to focus when I chose fewer projects, goals and abandoned multi-tasking. It goes with our anxiety about death, and our fear of suffering to try to get everything we want, think we need, right now, right away. But it usually feeds on itself and the nutrition you will get from such a diet is poor at best.  Whenever I observed myself rushing through life, unable to stop (and trust me the urge to rush is always there!), I always gain a lot of insight when noticing my equal ability to slow down and chew for just a little bit longer.

3. No permission = constructive disobedience: As with setting your own rules (ironically!) resist the urge to ask for permission when you feel your creative fire growing. I've applied this consistently and in the long run never regretted disobeying to rules that didn't fit in order to create something better. The world needs that courage from you... and you need it too!

4. Accepting your differences: Because I traveled around the world, connecting with  a variety of cultures; and because I work in a field where, as a person with black skin, I tend to stand out, I could have decided to foster a mentality of victim-hood. It would have been easy to see one of my differences from most of my peers as a vulnerability. The truth is that we all have aspects of who we are that makes us unique expression of the world's subtle and obvious creativity. For most of those unique traits, there is something profound in not only accepting and embracing who you are, particularly what makes you different, but actually make it a strength.

5. A mindset of service and of giving allows you to transcend fear and pain. I didn't invent this, but it's been a fundamental drive, guiding the accomplishments (small and bigger) that I am the most proud of. 

6. Everything you want to create, always happen in your head first, but then you must get it out of your head and on a piece of paper. Curisouly, if then you just let your idea sit there and don't do anything about it, 2 things can happen. Either it will go back in your head and create clusters, or it will go visit someone else and you will see its concrete manifestation while you are eating ice cream on a hot summer day...

7. Listen, pay attention, observe... and start again. Your mindset then is about learning from people, events, situation, conflicts, bad news, your body, etc. It boost empathy for yourself and from that energy, you realize you have nothing to loose, you are here to learn and to give. 

 I look at this and it looks all too obvious. Still, it made and continue to make a major difference in my daily contribution. At least when I remember I can always observe, remain objective and open  to my experience of being human. 

I concluded by telling the story of a Stu Rassmusen who proved that to dare is a way to live your life with authenticity, against all odds.

Let's hear your voice!

I notice that when people get a little bit of seniority into an organization, they start to feel too busy (or too important!) or both to leave a greeting message on their voice-mail themselves. Traditionally, it was a sign of high status to have your secretary leave a message in your name, stating "hi, you have reached the voice-mail of xyz Director of abc, this person is not available now, but leave a message...". I think it's just not a good idea anymore (and probably never was) and here's why:

• It suggest that you delegate a lot of irrelevant/low purpose tasks  to your staff
• It sends the message that you don't know how to operate your voice-mail
• It shows that you neglect how important your own voice is, in establishing meaningful connection
• Frankly... we want to hear your voice and get an impression of who you are!

Making up the information

In larger organizations (and in smaller one too!), information between departments can be hard to get (red tape, gridlock, poor collaborative culture). We just have a natural tendency to hold on to information while we are working on the projects we are starting and developing.One way that can work to be an agent of change in your organization, is just to make up part of the information to the people you need the information from. In essence, when you need to have some information to move your contribution forward, you can share what you know and fill the gap with information that's as plausible as you can come up with, or that you know in absolutely false. Most of the time, the people concerned with your note will react by presenting the real and updated information.

Can they feel your story?

I am sitting in a nice Montreal café close to home and it just happen that the new owner is discussing, on a nearby table, with a graphic designer about the design of a new logo for his beloved shop and what his vision for the café’s growth is.

You can feel and hear in every word, every gesture, and every modulation of his tone how passionate he is about what he is creating. You feel that his café is more than a way to make money but a way for him to touch, to move, to make art with the people who are visiting his café and you feel it is authentic. You sense that what drives him is not about being average. A logo, a brand strategy, a marketing plan, a presence on social/traditional media, yes it all matter…

But what matters much more is for us to find meaningful ways that will connect our customers, our fans, our ideal audience to that space of passion, of generosity that drives every great project and organization. While I was listening to this owner talking about what he wants to create, I could not help but wanting to participate.

The most needed ressource in Haiti right now

According to this report, tens of thousand of people are at risk of dying in Haiti because the country is facing a perfect storm of calamities. Key transit roads have been destroyed or severely damaged, the State infrastructure of the country, mostly concentrated in Port-au-Prince literally collapsed, the only airport is overwhelmed by the need; in addition, the densely populated area (3 million people approx.) makes the challenge of helping by providing basic food, water and shelter, an immense project.

What is also mentioned in most of the reports I read in the past few days is how fear of  violence from looting by criminal groups and from the exhausted population in need, is making the process of delivering food even slower. After all, it would be counterproductive to send aid workers in situations where the risk of random violence complicates an already dangerous work context.

Considering the reports and the expertise of the aid workers, I would like to argue that although it is undeniable that what the Haitian population urgently need right now is water, food, shelter and basic security, there is something as important that's never really mentioned  in such catastrophic situations. I would argue that Haitian needs empowerment and that one way to do this would be to involve elements of the population in the effort. Nowhere did I read that aid organizations are planning to use what I would call "natural leadership" within the Haitian population. 

I can imagine that as part of the efforts, a number of individuals are named responsible for a group of people, accountable to them while supporting the aid workers in their efforts to help the population. Even in such a dire situation, there are already some leaders, known and unknown ready to rise to the challenge despite the terrible condition and help the fellow countrymen. My message is simple, aid workers have a crucial role to play in the next 72 hours; and a powerful message to send to the Haitian population would be to identify, name and hire a number of local individuals to help accelerate the effort. I think that such initiative could open new field of intervention in catastrophic natural disaster and impact on the need for social innovation, even in such desperate situation.

Haitians, like any other human beings, are proud and resilient. Right now, a number of local individuals, who are on the ground and suffering with the rest of the population, who have or don't have any formal education, who can or can't read, who are from the right or the left, are ready to rise to the challenge and help the aid workers and help people around them. For too long, the Haitian population has been told what to do, has been told to wait for their turn. This is an opportunity to send a bold message and connect Haitians to their higher collective destiny.

Knifes and bagels

I love bagels and Montreal is fortunate enough to have one of the best place on earth to buy them. Ever since I am a teenager, I develop a passion for finding and using the best tool possible to complete my favorite tasks, and I fond out that there was nothing better than a knife bread to halve a bagel... That is until today, because I couldn't find the knife bread (or perhaps I was too lazy to look for it in the dishwasher!), I decided to use a fish knife and discovered that it was doing an even better job than my usual tool!

It's an obvious lesson, but one worth reminding ourselves. The tools we use to create the most impact in the world are not always the ones we think of. Perhaps, we tend to use the same set of tactics, convinced of their effectiveness and comforted by experts and label validating that these are the best tools to face that particular challenges. There is real value lying under experimenting using unorthodox approaches and tactics to solve problems we usually tackle the same way, time after time.