Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences

Chapter 5. Create Meaningful Content

Everything and the Kitchen Sink

It's now time to collect and create information. Resist the temptation during this initial phase to sit down with presentation software; it's not quite time for that yet.

This chapter covers various idea-generation techniques. It's rare that the first, most obvious idea generated is the best one. Tenaciously generate ideas along a theme until you've exhausted all possibilities. Usually, the truly clever ideas appear in the third or fourth round of idea generation.

You will use divergent thinking—the mental process that allows idea creation to move in any direction you can imagine. Divergent thinking enables new, original content to emerge. This is a messy phase, so suspend neatness and allow yourself to stay unstructured—you'll be scouting for new ideas and mining existing ones. Broadening the amount of possibilities creates unexpected outcomes, so explore every solution and suspend judgment.

Generate as Many Ideas as Possible:

• Idea collection: While you can avoid starting from scratch by collecting presentations from peers, that's not the only type of information out there; and regurgitating someone else's slides is not the best way to connect with your audience. Collect readily available ideas—but more importantly, purposefully mine for inspiration from all other relevant resources.

  When panning for gold, prospectors scoop up a pan full of dirt and swish it around until the heavier and more valuable gold settles to ...