Sunday, July 10, 2011

Presentations and Digital Stories

There are some interesting similarities and contrasts between Garr Reynolds approach to presentations and Bernajean Porter's take on digital storytelling. Both emphasize the importance of using images to help tell the story and both spend a considerable amount of time discussing how to obtain, manipulate, edit and position images for greatest impact. This is an interesting approach since traditionally, both presentations and stories relied much more heavily on words than images - the printed or spoken word in stories and the much maligned bullet-point lists so often found in presentations.
Prezi fits nicely into this new way of telling stories because of it's very visual, non-linear approach to presentations - although the zooming nature of Prezi can fly in the face of the simpler, zen-like style advocated by Reynolds. I have seen some Prezis that overdo the zooming to the point beyond distraction to bordering on seasickness.
The other element both authors emphasize is the spoken narrative. Both talk about the importance of delivering the narrative in a natural way, as opposed to reading a script. Reynolds focuses more on the "naturalness" when presenting live while Porter describes how a digital storyteller can use their vocal performance tools (pauses, inflection, etc.) to help tell their story.
The combination of high-quality, carefully selected images combined with a well-planned, purposefully created narrative and tempered with restraint, simplicity and creative design makes for powerful communication instruments in the form of more engaging presentations and entertaining digital stories.

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