Last week I had the privilege of presenting a 40-minute workshop at FailCon 2010, a fantastic conference about learning from your failures. I’ve done presentations before, but they’ve all been relatively short. I knew this was going to be intense, so I spent a lot of time preparing. I think my presentation went well (and so did others) and I’d like to share what I did to prepare, so that it might help you…and so that I don’t forget next time I have to do another presentation!

(Many of these insights came from a book I fortuitously got for free at the Community Leadership Summit: Scott Berkun’s Confessions of a Public Speaker. The book is a bit haphazard but has some great insights, and my dogears on various pages helped me immensely.)

Here’s what I tried to do (and what I failed at):

1. I Took A Strong Position In The Title

“There’s a Customer Out There With a Bullet For You: Ideas That Kill”. Not only does this catch the eye, but by defining what the presentation was about it helped define what it wasn’t about. Instead of talking about everything I know, I knew what to focus on.

2. I Thought Carefully About My Specific Audience

A fantastic presentation for engineers won’t work well for CEOs and certainly won’t work well for a room full of four-year-olds. I took a look at the attendee list for FailCon and the goal of the conference and determined that my audience would be founders/entrepreneurs and community managers who would want some solid numbers and examples along with the higher-level points. I also knew they’d have a sense of humor and be familiar with the tech industry examples I used (Friendster, Wesabe, Google Wave, etc).

3. I Built My Slides Last

This one was really key for me, and it’s the first time I really did it. It’s incredibly tempting (and encouraged in some circles) to build a beautiful set of slides first. This is wrong. Your story should dictate your slides. I spent a week and a half building the story and then built slides to support it. The downside? Less time to make your slides pretty. The upside? Your story is compelling, not just something pretty to look at.

4. I Made My Specific Points As Concise As Possible

Confessions of a Public Speaker states it best: “A mediocre presentation makes the points clear but muddles or bores people with the arguments. A truly bad presentation never clarifies what the points are.” Before I wrote any paragraphs or (to the last point) designed any slides, I carved out specific points that I wanted to cover and then worked to build the content to support them. Kudos to Rich White, CEO and my boss at UserVoice, for pointing out that my slides should spell out each point as well, so people who may have been distracted by their phone or computer can hop back in the conversation.

5. I Practiced. A Lot.

Your audience is giving you an hour of their time. Just as companies don’t deserve customer feedback, you don’t deserve your audience’s attention. I tried to respect my audience’s attention by practicing. After finally constructing a story I liked and building an outline for it, I practiced it several times (the whole 35 minutes through) in front of a webcam, cleaning up my performance and trying to cut out “uh” and “um” from my vocabulary. I practiced my presentation for friends and colleagues, and I changed it based on their feedback. Like any performer should, I practiced. Most people leave out this step because they’re scared (I know I was). Don’t skip it.

6. I Knew The Likely Counterarguments From An Intelligent, Expert Audience

I’ll admit, I didn’t do this as well as I would have liked to. I presented this to friends and colleagues and got some idea of what questions people might have, but I should have asked them to be more aggressive. I definitely got hit with some questions that made me pause. It’s not because my points weren’t valid, it’s just because thinking critically on the fly in front of a bunch of people is hard. Next time I’ll work harder on this.

7. I Got Familiar with the Space

I scoped out the workshop room early in the day and showed up extra early for my workshop to get my setup perfect, walk the stage area a bit, and grok the room. It helped immensely not having to take in these details for the first time right when I went up to present. The nervousness I’ve felt stepping up to the mic at previous events was totally absent.

8. I Set The Pace

People like to know what to expect. I told people what we were covering so they knew when we were reaching the end, and I kept people updated about how much was left. I didn’t call out the specific time I was going to spend on each section (as the book recommends), but I think that was ok – perhaps if it were a longer presentation I would do that.

9. I Asked For Feedback

I failed pretty good on this front, which is especially embarrassing because my workshop was about getting feedback! I meant to print out feedback forms but got too busy, so I had to resort to asking a few folks afterwards about what they thought. Next time I want to make sure I get this right, because most folks will say “it was great” if you ask them in person. That’s sweet, but it isn’t useful feedback.

10. I Tried To Be Likable

I tried to keep a quick pace, be funny, move around when I could, and talk directly to people. I won’t claim that I was a Johnny Carson, but I think I kept things from being dry – which is key when people have a million electronic distractions in the palm of their hands.

11. I Kept People Engaged

To the last point – I spoke to the audience, asked them some questions, and offered free books to those who asked questions during Q&A. People want to be part of what’s going on, not a total observer.

Some other things that helped:

1) My bosses Rich and Scott from UserVoice helped usher people into the room and keep them entertained before I came on. This was invaluable.

2) Cass, the fantastic orchestrator of FailCon, gave me a shoutout in the main room right before my workshop. She’s my hero for this and many other reasons.

3) The fact that the session opposite mine wasn’t very interesting (sorry, that’s just what I heard). Some days you’re lucky.

So thanks to everyone who helped personally or just came out to watch. You can find my presentation on SlideShare if you’re interested. I hope this post helps you put on a great presentation, and if you have any personal tricks, please add them below!

Photos courtesy of Scott Rutherford.

Street Spirit is an independent Bay Area “publication of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) that reports extensively on homelessness, poverty, economic inequality, welfare issues, human rights issues and the struggle for social justice”. AFSC generously pays for this publication to be printed and then hands it out to homeless people to sell to support themselves. It’s a great idea, and I want to be clear that this post is not a criticism of AFSC’s goals – it’s an admirable organization, and I only want it to succeed.

The problem: people are not especially altruistic.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is an essential concept for anyone dealing with humans as part of their job. It’s quite simple: we have different levels of needs, and it’s hard to focus on the higher levels (example: creativity) when we don’t have the lower levels taken care of (example: breathing).

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Giving a homeless person money is arguably part of the “Esteem” level. While one might suggest that it’s self-actualization, I posit that most people like to advertise when they are donating to someone. While some morality is involved, a great deal of our motivation is gaining respect of others.

However, more important to humans than Esteem is Safety. This doesn’t just mean physical safety – it also includes financial security. And dealing with the homeless exposes our brains to the possibility that we too could, potentially, end up with no money and no home.

So the Safety requirement of our brain is fighting with the Esteem part of our brain…and most of the time, we just look down and walk by that homeless guy with the Street Spirit.

Part of the problem with Street Spirit currently is that it’s full of political articles about the homeless. While, again, it’s admirable that the AFSC wants to help inform us, this is again triggering the Safety-fearing part of our brain. Not only do we have to confront the potentiality of homelessness when buying Street Spirit, but we also have to read about it? No thanks. 99% of people I know who buy Street Spirit don’t ever read any of it.

The solution: make this a product that we want to buy. Appeal to both our need to seem like a good person AND our personal desire for entertainment.

Make Street Spirit an all-comics newspaper and the homeless will make a lot more money.

We all love comics. Pretend all you want, but anyone who reads a paper is just waiting until they have read enough of the real content to feel justified in reading the funny pages. The opportunity here is this: nobody reads newspapers anymore, but they still want to read the funnies.

Seriously. Find some independent comic strip artists (or see if you can’t get some big-name webcomic artists to contribute) and try this just once. I guarantee you’ll see a huge increase in sales. We get our Esteem, the homeless get some cash, and the world is a slightly better place.

If you’re not familiar, follow the link. I won’t claim any superiority here: I absolutely and completely thought this was real, and spread the story. It was clever and well-done, and the creators deserve credit. However, this is a terrible thing for people in the social media space.

Cheapo executives are now going to re-focus on the notion that if you hire the right people and post on Twitter enough, something is guaranteed to be viral.

I’ve been in this position before: “create something viral, Evan, and keep it cheap”. The problem is that you can’t fully predict what will become viral. Sure, there’s more and more science around virality that can increase your chances, but at the end of the day there is still too much chaos to be able to really predict what will go viral (one article states “Mind-opening and emotionally rich articles are more likely to make the most emailed list, as are more practically useful, surprising, and positive articles.” Wait, so you mean GOOD articles?). You can post at 11am, include pretty girls, make sure to make it lo-fi, etc…but you can’t guarantee a hit. Much like a musical hit, it’s part talent and part randomness (or part huge-amounts-of-money, at which point you can’t really call it viral).

Don’t point out Old Spice Guy – I think (thankfully) that most executives saw that there was both a great deal of effort put into this campaign as well as a staggering of the different parts – they were ready for the character not to catch on and to nix the YouTube campaign.

But White-board Girl is the epitome of cheap & viral: written on napkins, shot with a cheap camera, not promoted by celebrities. I wouldn’t be surprised if within minutes of the announcement that she was fake that executives were emailing their underlings saying “do this”.

Am I suggesting that viral content isn’t something we should strive for? Absolutely not. But viral content is fire, fire, fail, fail, aim, aim, fire, fire, fail, MAYBE win. Don’t bet on anything more than that.

Buzz is people talking about you.

Buzz can be positive or negative. Buzz is momentum. Buzz is what it sounds like – a bunch of voices talking about your product.

Buzz can definitely be good – people want to be in the loop, and if everyone is talking about something, they want to know about it too.

Buzz can be bad – people can be saying bad things about your product, or buzzing about the buzz-creating campaign itself, not your product. Buzz guarantees conversation, but not what kind.

Advocacy is people who like you talking about you.

Advocacy is people who care about your product talking about it to other people. Actively, without a campaign urging them to.

Advocacy is always good (but not always easy to get). Advocacy may not be as loud as Buzz (though it can be), but it’s far more effective.

Ways to get Buzz:

• Do something outrageous
• Do something controversial
• Give away a lot of money/prizes
• Get someone well-known to talk about your product

Ways to get Advocacy:

• Build a fantastic product
• Show your customers the same respect and support you’d like them to show you
• Establish relationships: between you and your customers and between customers (people desire validation from others when they like something)
• Give away something of only of value to your community (so only those that actually like you already get involved)
• Do something generous for your community

There’s a great slide in this ESSENTIAL deck that says “whether someone can be influenced is as important as the strength of the influencer.” In other words, for all the talk of influencers on the web, it depends on whether the people they’re exerting influence on can actually be influenced. And as the research in the aforementioned deck (and a million other places online) says, people are most influenced by their closest friends. Advocacy (one-to-one, personal) vs Buzz (many-to-many, impersonal).

So the question is not whether prizes are bad or not – the question is whether you’re trying to create Buzz or Advocacy. They seem similar, but they are in fact very different beasts.

Do you agree? What are your examples of successfully getting Buzz or Advocacy?

Photo courtesty of David Blaikie.

But this time, Apple really screwed up.

Not in building or designing the phone, mind you. I get it – lots of phones have this issue, it’s only affecting a small percentage of people, the media has clearly blown it out of proportion because it’s a juicy story.

But Apple finally got bit in the ass by their “we make the news” policy. And they’re crying about it.

In the press conference this morning, Steve Jobs admitted that they knew about the iPhone4 reception issue before releasing the phone. Again, I understand – all products have flaws, and I don’t really think there is anything wrong about not highlighting them. People can make their own decision based on reviews.

But Steve Jobs specifically told us that this wasn’t an issue. He told us that we were holding the phone wrong. He lied so he wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences. That’s just wrong.

My #1 rule for fostering a loyal community: be honest with them as much as you possibly can.

People value honesty incredibly highly – I’ve had to deliver devastating news to customers before, and taking the time to tell them the whole truth of the issue often results in a surprising response: gratefulness. Yes, people often respond to bad news positively if you’re actually honest. There’s so much dishonesty in the world (especially the corporate world) that people are just relieved to know what’s going on. Ever had a mysterious ailment? If you’re anything like me, what’s worse than being sick or hurt is not knowing what it is or how bad it is. We, as humans, want the truth.

Apple could have saved money and face by being honest, at least once the initial reports came out.

Had they noticed the buzz in the first week they could have simply announced (hell, via Twitter if they had an account): “Yes, we’re aware of this. Yes, it’s a problem. Most phones have it, it should only affect a small percentage of calls and people.” You know what? Most people probably would have been fine with that. And if they weren’t? Offer free bumper cases to people who came in and requested them. It’d still save a lot more money than shipping them out to people (many of whom probably haven’t experienced this issue, but will ask for a case because of all the hoopla).

In short: even Apple’s might can be damaged by dishonesty. I’m impressed that Apple is actually admitting the truth and listening for once. I hope they keep it up (and their stockholders should too).

Photo courtesy of mkuma443.

One of those projects has been evaluating the possibility of starting a UserVoice developer blog to supplement the existing UserVoice blog. Not being a developer, I decided to do a little comparison of some developer blogs to see if there were any trends. As I asked folks for suggestions on Twitter, I figured I’d pay it forward and post the results here.

Hope this is somehow useful for others out there.

Disclaimer: This is by no means exhaustive, accurate, or up to date. This is simply my interpretation on a specific date of a selection of sites provided to me by folks. Try not to read into it too much, really.

[The G2 Android Phone] is much more usable as a device. And we can thank one thing for that, as well as for much of its much improved design: The removal of the physical keyboard. – From HTC Killed the Physical Keyboard. Smart Move.

(I happen to love my G1, TechCrunch. As does everyone I know who has one.)

The argument against physical keyboards seems to be that they waste space, which strikes me as incredibly odd. From an interface perspective, a keyboard that slides under the screen doesn’t waste space. From a bulkiness perspective: really? Why do you need/want a phone with the thickness and weight of a granola bar? I like sleekness too, but you may want to have your doctor check you for osteoporosis if you really find the G1 too heavy to handle.

I want to make a very clear statement here to phone manufacturers: I heart physical keyboards.  In fact, I refuse to buy a phone without one.

I’m not saying they’re for everyone – I’m sure soft keyboards are just fine for some people.  But there are several reasons physical keyboards are a smart choice:

1) Some people, including myself, have big fingers.  It’s really hard to hit those tiny soft keyboard buttons, and I spend WAY too much time fixing spelling errors than actually writing. Wasting time = bad.

2) Physical feedback always wins. While the slight force feedback and click noises of a soft keyboard are a nice touch, they don’t help me feel find my way around.  I learned to type on a computer keyboard with actual keys, and that’s how I’m used to typing.  Not to mention, the snap of sliding the screen back to get to the keyboard is just straight-up enjoyable.

3) Fast writers. My brain is usually slightly ahead of my fingers even on a computer, and using a soft keyboard makes it impossible for me to communicate my thoughts in any form of real-time.

4) There’s a reason that soft keyboards come with automatic spelling correction and word completion – because they are hard to use. iPhone users may be used to taking 5 minutes to write “hey I’m drown at the zebra, do you witch to come buy?”, but I find those messages obnoxious to read and embarassing to send.

5) The two aren’t mutually exclusive! You can have a physical keyboard and still provide a soft keyboard.  If you’re a TechCrunch writer and you hate physical keyboards, you can simply NEVER OPEN IT.  Magic.  Everyone is happy.

So please, phone manufacturers: don’t stop making physical keyboards.  Please don’t.  Because if you do, I won’t buy your phone (or recommend them to my friends).  And you wouldn’t want that, right?

Photo 1 Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alwayshere/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
Photo 2 Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomsun/ / CC BY 2.0

Today Twitter rolled out a massively re-designed homepage.  For such an incredibly successful young service, this is a major change.  And their design shows where Twitter – and possibly the social web – are headed.

Let’s dive into the details:

1. Twitter’s new focus is on searching and discovering what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.  It’s about DISCOVERY, not publishing or chatting.

2. Search is first and foremost.  The search box almost has the same prominence as the signup button.  Twitter obviously feels this is the killer feature that will, in the end, drive more adoption.

3. Trending topics are now on the homepage.  Twitter knows they’re going to draw people in with relevant, current content, not quotes from the New York times about how nifty Twitter is.

4. Trending topics fall into three categories (minute, day, and week) but this is very downplayed.  To the first-time visitor, this is content, plain and simple…while they can pay attention and discover this granularity, it’s not shoved in their face – no need to overwhelm potential new users.

5. The very small text above the signup button says “Join the conversation”.  Conversation has been stressed and established – now they gently encourage you to join in.

6. I don’t know if this was a feature before, but Twitter is now surfacing this as a tip: you can do location-based searches. Your discovery can now be local.

I’ll resist further analysis than this for now:

I think this reinforces the thought that the killer new social app isn’t microblogging: it’s discovery, serendipity, and eventually participation.  And I’m excited.

I’ll skip what would be about four paragraphs here and just say: Dollhouse has captured my heart. Like all Whedon shows it snuck up on me. When the inevitable and depressing debate over a second season began, I was not hopeful. Thankfully, Fox apparently wised up somewhat and paid attention to the number of Dollhouse viewers on Hulu (which is where I watched the entirety of the season, save the first episode). The show was renewed, and all of us Whedonites breathed a sigh of relief.

Except we all know that the fight isn’t over.

Rumor has it that Whedon has been asked to cut costs on the second season of Dollhouse, and I’m sure that Fox will be less forgiving in regards to the total number of TV viewers this season.  Perhaps, then, this is why they have rushed the Dollhouse: Season One DVD set out the door.

Fox may be still wising up to the fact that online TV programming is going to be the next big thing, as evidenced by The Simpsons making more money per thousand viewers on Hulu than on TV. But they have for some time paid attention to DVD sales, resurrecting Family Guy and even Firefly (in the form of Serenity) based on successful DVD sales.

So the path is clear: those of us who want to see Dollhouse continue and grow into the brilliant series it is promising to become need to buy the Dollhouse: Season One DVD. Consider it an investment – by buying this DVD you get at least one more season of Whedon-brilliance, with fewer commercials and available anytime you want via Hulu.

Let’s prove to them that we don’t need a TV to watch, love, and save a good show.

I’m not joking, not really.  While this is only speaking from my personal experience and conversations with others, I suspect that most piracy is not for profit.  People grab their favorite clips and post them online because they think that they are hilarious and need to be shared with the world.

In the last few years the struggle between studios and privacy has been one of threats, inaction, and bitching.

This year we’ve seen a dramatic turn from the bitter fighting over video rights online to an embrace of the open nature of the web.  It’s truly amazing, and not something I expected to see happen so fast.  Let’s look at two examples.

Hulu

Hulu is a project that I (and many others) harbored intense skepticism towards during it’s development.  The whole concept of the television studios ganging up to create a rival to YouTube seemed childish, and we all expected them to do a horrible job.

Whatever the intentions, the people who actually built Hulu did an amazing job, and my personal TV watches has almost entirely moved to Hulu.  I’ve heard many others raving about it, including the usually skeptical Michael Arrington.

Why do jaded Web 2.0 users like Hulu?  They’ve done a few things right, and a few more great.

Giving The People What They Want
Hulu could have gone the cowardly way and only offered up lame, old shows that nobody was interested in.  Netflix faced this issue with their “Play Now” option…studios only OK’d stuff that was unlikely to get rented anyway (although their selection continues to improve, and I love watching SeaQuest on Netflix).

Instead, Hulu has provided some of the top shows on television: The Office, The Daily Show, House, The Colbert Report, The Simpsons, 30 Rock, Saturday Night LIfe, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Family Guy (a YouTube favorite, which currently has 88,100 probably illegal results).

Don’t Be Stingy
When you hold all the power, it’s tempting to stingily hand out goods at the slowest rate possible.  Hulu managed to resist this, and their shows often show up the next morning.  It’s hard to beat the experience of waking up on a Wednesday morning and watching The Daily Show from the night before while still in bed.

Hulu does sometimes set experation dates on their shows, but they make this very clear.  I think the average consumer understands that if they want constant access to a whole season they should buy a DVD.

Monetization Is Changing
In a move that is in some ways more innovative than any monetization work YouTube has done, Hulu has started offering the option to watch a full-length trailer or ad (like the Tropic Thunder trailer seen in this image) in exchange for not showing any other ads during the episode.  I assume (and hope) that they’re tracking this and adjusting their advertising appropriately.

Innovation
One of the most innovative features to come out of online video in the last few months didn’t come from YouTube or any of the newer “Web 2.0″ video sites…it came from Hulu.

Being able to select any part of an episode and send/share it as a clip is probably the most obvious and brilliant answer to the multitude of Simpsons clips on YouTube.  And Hulu does it very, very well, making sure to suggest that you might want to watch the rest of the episode after your clip is over.

Monty Python on YouTube

Along with Family Guy clips and embarassing teen confessionals, Monty Python is a common search on YouTube. With over thirty thousand results on YouTube, it’s safe to say that this is money lost for Monty Python, who aren’t exactly actively promoting their old (and brilliant) material.

But, in a move humerously described by John Cleese as “deeply disappointing”, the comedy troupe has started a YouTube channel and is offering high resolution versions of their videos for free. This is a brilliant move for several reasons.

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em
In their introductory video (embedded below), Monty Python jokes that “for three years, you YouTubers have been ripping us off, putting tens of thousands of our videos up on YouTube.” It’s funny, but it’s also true, and probably a bit irritating for them. Yet instead of throwing a tantrum, the Pythons made the smart move to work with the existing trends and technology instead of uslessly flailing against them. In admitting this, they give YouTubers some credit and foster a sense of belonging instead of reluctant surrender.

Transparency In Advertising
A lot of advertising I see online feels like an apology. “Sorry, I had to slip this in to be able to keep doing this for a living”. Worse, they are often purposefully ignored. “Ads? What ads? Oh, how did those slip into my blog?”

Refreshingly, Monty Python has ignored this. They know they have a piracy issue, and they know that online video does not monetize nearly as well as TV.

The solution? Ask.

Monty Python simply asks their raving fans to do them a favor and click their ads. Simple as that. During a the “Ministry of Silly Walks” video I clicked a Bombay Sapphire ad. Would I have done that on a normal video? No. But I did it for Monty Python, and actually discovered a cool recepie widget on the Bombay Sapphire site.

Listen To The Wisdom of the Crowd
Again, instead of taking the stingy path and only putting up the less funny Monty Python skits (if there truly are any), our British friends took a look at the most popular Monty Python videos on YouTube and worked to get those up as the first hi-rez videos on their new channel. They listened, and will likely be rewarded by a number of views.

Is The War Over?

Nah, of course not. Many TV studious (notably ABC) have not gotten involved in Hulu, and many companies still work to try to sue people who are “stealing” their videos instead of working to satisfy these people. Still, it’s impressive to see the progress made this year and encouraging to think that even large companies can wise up and come up with something as smart as Hulu. Next up, the music industry?