From the category archives:

presentation/design

Ignite Boulder 2

by brianlburns on 15 January 2009

in presentation/design, videos

I had a chance to present at the latest Ignite Boulder event, which was held over at CU, and put on by Andrew Hyde. The idea behind Ignite is to give a presentation you’d normally take 90 minutes to get through, and do it in 5. It’s 20 slides, auto-advancing every 15 seconds, no matter what you’re doing, or what else is going on (I had a dog walk through mine). It’s all crazy, for sure, but it’s also entertaining and a ton of fun. No surprise, I presented about copywriting for startups - how to do it, and how to do it well. That’s my passion, and even though I took a goofy path to get to my point, I think I brought some disruption and provided some value.

igniteboulder2-1

This post serves as my (terribly late) review of the night - my three big impressions from being a part of it:

1. it was a blast. really. we had a great crowd, we had free beer, and everyone was into the presentations. there was great energy in the room, and it made it that much more fun to get up and talk.

2. it was a great place to make connections. that’s partly because I presented, and thus, got to meet people who came up to say hi. but it’s also because it was a packed room of like-minded people, who were primed to chat. I met a lot of new friends, got a lot of new cards, and followed a whole bunch of new people.

3. it made me a better writer. yep. I didn’t expect this one. but somewhere along the way, whether it was compiling 5-minutes of what was absolutely vital to success in my profession, whether it was the act of presenting this material out loud (and owning it like I never had before), or whether it was engaging with the audience around my passion, I came to a new understanding of exactly what I do. since then, I’ve not only been inspired to do more work, but had the inspiration to do better work.

For an event like that, to not only be entertaining and to give out free beer, but to change the way I see my profession and give me some contacts to move that profession forward, is very cool. I highly suggest you attend the next one if you’re in town, and I highly suggest you get up on that stage at some point.

Here’s an HD video of my presentation from the event… you can see an extended one with text from my slides here, and you can see the presentations from all the other awesome presenters here.

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Presentation

by brianlburns on 26 October 2008

in presentation/design

Some say that presentation is everything. As a writer, working on substance more than looks, I disagree; I think that when it comes to startup websites and startup blogs, there’s a lot to be said for content. But I will concede this: I think writing is helped along by presentation. I see that in my own copywriting work - if a site has a smooth, simple, and well-planned layout, my job is so much easier to do, and to do well. If a site doesn’t have a clear design, it’s hard to form a clear message. Simple as that.

I don’t think it’s just me, either. Take a recent example, my buddy Andrew Hyde. He’s somewhat of a startup celebrity… he’s done some good stuff within the community, and has developed a good following for it. He runs a blog at http://andrewhyde.net, and just launched a new design with it. The old one was alright, but it was a generic template, and frankly, it had a scattered feel - lots of information, not a lot of space. Andrew’s writing reflected it too… he was kinda all-over-the-place (I even hassled him about it in this podcast). The new design, though, is great. And Andrew’s writing has followed along - it’s more refined, more purposeful, and more exciting now. In fact, I think his is one of the best “new” blogs anywhere on the web.

Of course, Andrew has a lot to do with that. But I don’t think there’s any doubt it has a lot to do with the design change too. Simple lesson, then, that I don’t think Andrew would argue with: Better design=Better writing. Remember that.

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