Presentation Summit 2023: Conversation with Nolan Haims

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Loading...

    Nolan Haims has 20 years of experience in the fields of visual communications and presentation, having created every type of presentation from Fortune 500 CEO keynotes to TED talks to multi-million-dollar agency pitches. As Vice President and Director of Presentation for Edelman, the world’s largest PR firm, he created and ran a department dedicated to raising the agency’s bar on visual communication and created winning pitches worth millions. He trains organizations to think visually, speaks at national conferences, and is a co-host of the long-running Presentation Podcast. As one of only 40 Microsoft PowerPoint MVPs in the world, he works with and advises the software development team. He runs his own visual communications consultancy in Montclair, NJ. He is the author of The Better Deck Deck.

In this conversation, Nolan talks about his participation at the upcoming Presentation Summit 2023, being held on location in Monterey, CA this year from October 15 to 18, 2023, and virtually from November 5 to 8, 2023.

Indezine.com is the official media partner for the Presentation Summit.

Geetesh: Nolan, you are delivering two sessions at the Presentation Summit: Charting Secrets and Look Over There! Can you tell us more about each of your sessions individually, and how attending these sessions will benefit attendees?

Nolan: Look Over There! will be my return to the Presentation Summit keynote stage. This is a talk that I have been thinking about for quite some time as it will be my attempt to merge my current profession of presentation design with my former one of professional magician. In what I hope will be a rather unique hour, I’ll bring the audience into the world of sleight-of-hand and discuss principles, techniques, and even some secrets of magic and how these can be harnessed and used to create, design, and give presentations. If nothing else, I can guarantee you’ll be entertained!

And in Charting Secrets, I’ll be going over a number of techniques, tricks, and tips for creating effective and visually pleasing charts in presentation. Often, data visualization on slides requires a slightly different approach than other mediums, and then we all know that creating them in PowerPoint can require jumping some technical hoops to format things the way we want. If you’ve ever struggled with charting in PowerPoint or want to discover some new approaches, this is definitely the session for you.

Geetesh: This year, you are heading the Business Round Table session again. What are the types of discussions held in these roundtables? Can you share some guidelines on how one can prepare to get the most from this session?

Nolan: I have been hosting this late night gathering for a number of years, and it is my favorite event of the conference. After all the day’s sessions are done, we gather in Conference Central and pull up chairs and couches to have a free-ranging and frank group conversation about the business of presentation design.

This is a very casual and friendly gathering, but we do encourage everyone—no matter their experience or situation—to feel comfortable sharing with the group questions, challenges, and frustrations about working in the presentation business. I can guarantee that anyone that does, will find a sympathetic ear and most likely, valuable advice from others who have been or are in the exact same situation. Similarly, we encourage everyone to bring with them a generous attitude for sharing what they know and have learned and even some secrets to running a business, dealing with clients, managing employees, and creating great design.

Every year I personally walk away with a notebook filled with tips and ideas for running my own business better and more successfully.

Geetesh: Other than your involvement with the Presentation Summit, you are also one of the hosts of the popular Presentation Podcast. Do tell us more about this podcast.

Nolan: Twice a month, I have the great pleasure of having informative, enlightening, and enjoyable conversations about the world of presentation design with two dear friends—my co-hosts, Sandy Johnson and Troy Chollar (who also produces the show). We are in our 8^th year now, and I don’t think any of us thought that we would still have new things to say about presentation after all this time, or that we would have an audience that wanted to keep listening. But apparently we were wrong! Other similar podcasts have come and gone, but we have managed to keep things fresh by keeping listeners up to date on software and technology developments, industry news, and the realities of running a presentation design business. And we have been able to host all sorts of guests from all areas of presentation—from writers to designers to agency owners and even people from the PowerPoint development team at Microsoft.

We realize that a podcast on presentation is a niche one, but I think that makes our connections with our listeners that we hear from all the stronger as we are able to serve as a go-to source for everything that’s happening in the world of slides. If anyone hasn’t listened yet, definitely give us a listen through wherever you get your podcasts, and check out Presentation Podcast for show notes and our entire archive.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.