Proportion of women and non-binary speakers at MBAC 2024

I’m not at today’s Melbourne Business Analytics Conference (MBAC) since I’m on holiday this week. But that won’t stop me from calculating the proportion of women and non-binary people who are speaking at this event, as I have since its launch in 2017.

The excellent news is that this year is their highest proportion, with 58% of the folks on stage* being woman or non-binary. Great job MBS!

Bar chart titled, “Percentage of female or non-binary speakers and panelists at #MBSAnalytics”. The chart shows the lowest percentage in the first year, 2017, at 31%. Between 2018 and 2023 the percentage ranged from 39% to 51%. The 2024 percentage is 58%.

In case you’re wondering why I track this, that’s because I don’t attend or speak at conferences with 40% or fewer non-male participants. #NoMoreManels

* I don’t include the welcome speech at the start of the day and the practice prize finalists session at the end of the day.

Evolving our data-led storytelling

I work for Transurban, one of the world's leading toll road operators, and part of my job is to help the business do data-led storytelling.

The challenge with telling stories using data is that, when you have a great deal of data, not only are there lots of stories you can tell, there a lots of ways in which you can tell each of those stories.

Here is an example of how one of the stories I was telling evolved over time.

2020, when the world changed

Screenshot of a timeline showing lockdown events from March to July 2020.

This story starts in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and cities around the world went into lockdown. For a business like ours that only makes money when people travel on our toll roads, this was a concern.

We could tell from the drop in traffic on our roads how much things had changed, but looking at only toll road data doesn’t tell you the whole story. We didn’t know what was happening on non-toll roads and on public transport, for example. And we didn’t know how concerned people were about travelling both now and in the near future.

So we asked.

We worked with Nature, a market research agency, to conduct an online survey of a thousand random people across each of the cities in which we operate (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Washington DC, and Montreal).

Screenshot of a report cover. The report is titled ‘Industry Report - Urban Mobility Trends from COVID-19’ and was published in August 2020 by Transurban.

Evolution 1: Which story are you really trying to tell?

In our survey we asked people about their use of various modes of transport and how much they were using each mode before and during the pandemic, as well as how much they expected to use those modes once pandemic restrictions were lifted.

We could have just shared these results straight-up in our report, but that wouldn’t have been good storytelling. That’s because when you present the numbers in this way, you end up telling two stories:

  1. Which transport modes people are using more than others

  2. How people’s use of those transport modes has changed over time

You can see what I mean when you look at the chart I’ve mocked-up below. What jumps out most is the relative bar-size difference across modes: mainly how much taller the car/motorcycle bars are compared to everything else. What gets lost here is the difference within each mode itself, such as the change in bus usage.

A clustered bar chart showing the pre-pandemic, current, and post-restrictions (expected) use of the following transport modes: car/motorcycle, train/subway, tram/light rail, bus, bicycle.

The more important story at the time, in the context of pandemic restrictions, was the change in usage of each mode of transport, and so that’s what our chart needed to focus on.  

After experimenting with a few different chart types, the charts below are what we put in the report. These charts let you tell a story that goes like this: “In Melbourne there was an 84% drop in train usage. And even after restrictions are lifted, people expect their use of trains will be 19% lower than pre-pandemic levels.”

Screenshot of a series of bar charts for Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, GWA, and Montreal collectively titled: ‘How daily users of transport expect their use will change (% change)’. Figure 11 shows this change for train/subway and figure 12 shows this for bus.

Lesson 1: First figure out which story you’re trying to tell, then use a chart that tells this specific story best.

Evolution 2: Simplifying your story

The next storytelling evolution happened just six months later in our second report. We realised people didn’t care about the detailed, mode-by-mode numbers, so we grouped the all transport modes into ‘public transport’ and ‘private vehicles’.

Also, by this time lots of other organisations had shared their own road traffic and public transport usage data, so we didn’t have to tell the whole story anymore. Instead we simplified our story to focus just on people’s expectations of future transport mode usage, as shown in the charts below.

Screenshot of a series of bar charts for Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane collectively titled: ‘How daily transport users expect use will change post-pandemic’. The charts are grouped under the public transport and private vehicles subheadings.

Lesson 2: Avoid the temptation of sharing all the data you’ve collected; instead find the simplest version of the story that will get your point across.

Evolution 3: Telling a more nuanced story as the situation develops

A further six months later, when we collected the data for our third report, the situation was different again: despite various configurations of partial and full lockdowns, people still needed to move around and we had the numbers to show how they were accomplishing that.

Basically, we realised that the daily transport mode use numbers weren’t telling the whole story. People had drastically cut down on their daily travel, yes, but their ‘few times a week’ travel had started to pick up. So we began sharing both the daily and few-times-a-week data in our report, with the chart covering the latter shown below.

Screenshot of a series of bar charts for Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. The charts are grouped under the public transport and private vehicles subheadings. Descriptive text below the charts explains that these charts are for regular (ie ‘few times a week’) use of transport modes.

Lesson 3: When you can no longer tell your story with a single metric, figure out which additional metrics you can add to tell a more nuanced version of your story.

Evolution 4: Telling additional stories when the focus changes

When it came to round four of our report, lockdowns had started to lift and the big new story was about ‘return to work’: businesses wanted all their employees to come back to the office, but employees didn’t want to return to the pre-pandemic daily grind.

So we collected and shared data about people’s ability and uptake of flexible work and whether or not they’d be willing to change employers if their flexible working needs weren’t met. (This was in addition to all our earlier transport mode use charts, of course.)

Two complex pie charts, one for Australia and one for North America, under the collective title: ‘Figure 8: Willingness to change employers if flexible working preferences were not catered for’.

Lesson 4: When a situation evolves, collect additional data to tell more aspects of your story.

Evolution 5: Painting a more complete picture using multiple data points

By the time our fifth report rolled around we needed to tell a more complete story of how and why people were moving around our cities.

Lockdowns had been lifted and transport mode usage had started to stabilise. However, active transport (walking, cycling, etc) had become more popular over the pandemic, so we started including those numbers in our charts as well.

A series of bar charts showing daily and regular usage for public transport, private vehicles, and active transport for Melbourne under the title: ‘Figure 2: Transport mode choice now vs expected use in 12 months’.

Meanwhile the flexible work discussion had shifted to how many days people were working from home versus the office, so we started collecting and sharing those numbers.

A bar chart titled: ‘Figure 4: Average number of days people travel to their workplace or place or study (or travel around for their job/study)’.

And instead of talking only about general travel around our cities, we expanded our research to talk specifically about travel for work. Commuters comprise a large proportion of people who move around our cities every day, so it made sense to dig further into this segment’s travel patterns.

A series of bar charts under the collective title: ‘Figure 8: Main mode of transport used to commute to (or travel around for) work/study before and since the COVID-19 pandemic’. There are charts for Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Greater Washington Area, and Montreal.

Lesson 5: Once the main metric you are tracking has stabilised, look at the additional metrics you could report on to tell a more complete story.

Evolution 6: Switching from crisis mode to business as usual

By 2023 travel patterns had started to stabilise, so we switched our research cadence from half-yearly to annual.

And because things had started to get back to “normal”, we moved to reporting transport mode usage year-on-year instead of comparing everything to pre-pandemic levels.

A series of bar charts showing daily and regular usage for public transport, private vehicles, and active transport for Melbourne under the title: ‘Figure 1: Transport mode choice now vs expected use in 12 months (comparing survey results from July 2022 and July 2023)’.

We added more nuance to our ‘days working from the office’ story by showing how this varies by occupation.

A bar chart titled: ‘Figure 4: Average number of days people travel to their workplace or place (or travel around for their job) by occupation’.

We talked about how much people expected their office-working days to change in the coming twelve months.

A stacked bar chart titled: ‘Figure 5: Expected change in the number of days people travel to their workplace (or travel around for their job) over the next 12 months’.

And we showed why people expected to increase the number of days they travelled to their workplace in the near future.

A series of bar charts for Australia, Greater Washington Area, and Montreal titled: ‘Figure 7: Reasons people expect to increase the number of days they travel to their workplace’.

Lesson 6: Once the obvious driver of change has been accounted for or eliminated (pandemic lockdowns, in our case), figure out the other reasons why people are doing what they’re doing.

Evolution 7: Changing focus when the time is right

It’s now 2024 and travel patterns have properly stabilised, and so the discussion about transport mode choice and working-from-home is pretty much over.

The new travel and commuting patterns that have been established are unlikely to change as quickly and drastically as they did during the pandemic.

So instead of transport mode usage being our headline story, this year we’re talking more about congestion and what people are doing to avoid peak-hour travel.

A stacked bar chart titled: ‘Figure 22: Frequency of rush hour avoidance’.

We’ve also moved our focus to a bunch of other urban mobility topics, such as road safety, sustainability, and road user charging. Road safety and sustainability even got their own mini-reports starting in 2022.

The biggest topic these days, however, is people’s concern about the rising cost of living and their ability to manage their expenses. We started sharing data about this two years ago and we now devote a whole section in our report to it.

A series of bar charts for 2024, 2023, and 2022 titled: ‘Figure 9: Concern about household expenses - Australia’.

Lesson 7: Know when it’s time to move on from your once-primary metric to other metrics that are now more important and immediate.

Sharing this data with stakeholders

The storytelling evolution I’ve been talking about didn’t just happen with what we were saying, but also with how we were saying it.

You’ll have noticed from the screenshots above that the charts in our reports evolved over the years, and that’s one part of it.

The other part is how we’ve constantly tweaked and updated the Transurban insights hub, which is where all this data is shared online.

So don’t forget that evolution happens in all aspects of storytelling.

Screenshot of a website titled ‘Insights hub’ with the subheading “Explore our data”.

Overall lessons in story evolution

Aside from the individual story-evolution lessons I’ve shared along the way, I’ve learned two overall lessons from doing seven rounds of this research now.

First, keep your research focus as narrow as possible. Conducting research like this is expensive and time consuming, so only ask the questions that will help tell your story.

My team does this by creating a draft outline or structure of our report before we finalise the list of questions we’re going to ask in our survey. This is where most of the story evolution happens. If we realise there is a gap in our story, we add questions to fill that gap. If a question we asked last time didn’t give us useful data, we tweak it to get to the nuance that will be valuable. If we realise we’re asking questions in the survey that don’t help tell our story, we remove them from the questionnaire.

Second, engage early with your stakeholders and then keep them updated of your progress. If you want to tell a comprehensive story, you need diversity of thought in your planning process. People will suggest angles to your story that wouldn’t have occurred to you, so make sure you capture everyone’s unique perspectives.

My team does this by sharing our initial report outline and draft questionnaire with key stakeholders. We then meet with groups of those stakeholders to get their individual and collective feedback. This is where the rest of the story evolution happens. Our survey questionnaires end up being much more thorough and much more nuanced after we’ve gone through this comprehensive internal engagement process.

Screenshot of a website showing two boxes, one titled ‘Urban mobility trends reports’ and other titled ‘Insights reports’. The boxes have links to reports from August 2020 to August 2024.

We’ve come a long way

It’s a rare opportunity to be able to conduct and then share this type of longitudinal research publicly with your stakeholders. And this is doubly rare in the corporate communications space.

I’m very grateful to have had this opportunity. It’s been hard work, but it’s also been the most fun I’ve had with research, data analytics, and data-led storytelling.

Here’s to many more years of findings insights and then using them to inform, educate, and make good business decisions.

Younger people have their own information gathering patterns

New research commissioned by Forbes Advisor tells us that 24% of younger people use social media instead of traditional search engines to find things online. Other recent studies, including some that aren’t US-focused like that one, have said the same. Google even flagged this trend two years ago.

While this latest research tells us a lot about what is happening, it doesn’t dive into why this is happening. So here’s my two cents on the matter.

I think there are three trends at play here.

1. Each new generation breaks from the information gathering patterns of previous generations

When some people read the headline ‘Is Social Media The New Google? Gen Z Turn To Google 25% Less Than Gen X When Searching’ their first thought is that the younger generations are “doing it wrong”.

I disagree. I think all generations break from the information patterns created or established by older generations. This is particularly true on the internet, where things change very quickly.

I’ve been on the internet for a very long time so I’ve seen the same hand-wringing about (then) youngsters doing things wrong when people started getting most of their news and information from:

  • blogs instead of newspapers,

  • then social media instead of blogs,

  • then micro-blogs (like Twitter) instead of more established social media (like Facebook),

  • then news aggregators (like Apple/Google News) instead of official news media apps or websites,

  • then closed networks (like WhatsApp and Discord) instead of more open ones (like YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit), and

  • now TikTok instead of YouTube or search engines.

This has happened before. And it will happen again whenever a new, hot technology is ready to be embraced by the next generation.

2. The commercialisation of the web

Other than Wikipedia, the majority of news and information gathering sites on the web are commercial in nature. As a result, many of them will:

  • use clickbait headlines,

  • publish junk articles,

  • run low quality ads,

  • host poorly disguised sponsored content, and

  • not keep their editorial arm separate from their advertising arm (if those two arms were ever separate in the first place).

Young people see this and they don’t trust the organisations that do it.

There is also So Much Crap out there. Do some research about, say, which air fryer to buy and you’ll have to wade through a dozen highly SEO-optimised and commercialised best-of lists. And by ‘commercialised’ I mean the list-makers will have taken ad money from brands for inclusion or a higher ranking in those lists.

It’s no wonder people are turning towards first-hand knowledge sharing and more personal recommendations from real people on platforms like TikTok.

And yes, many of those TikTokkers won’t declare their biases or sponsor lists, so if you focus too narrowly on just what one group has to say, you’ll end up in an information bubble. But, hey, at least it’ll be a bubble of your own peers and the people you relate to :) But more on breaking out of information bubbles in a minute.

3. The enshittification of Google

Google used to be a great search engine, but it let its advertising arm bully its search arm into jamming more and more ads and sponsored content into the search results, making its crown jewel far less useful than it used to be.

Google also isn’t doing as good a job as it used to against the sheer volume of low quality content the web is now filled with. The irony, of course, is that by making it super easy for anyone to host automated Google Ads on their website, Google itself enabled (and continues to enable) the existence of all this junk web content. Now if Google wants to make lots of money through its Ads business, it has to keep directing people to the crappy websites on which its own ads are running.

The end result is that Google makes tonnes of money while we get low quality search results. So it makes sense why people (especially younger people) are trusting big tech companies less and less over time.

Word of mouth always wins

Given those three trends, you can see why a good proportion of younger people the trust results and recommendations they get from their peers and influencers more than what they get from other sources. And since more of their peers and influencers are currently on TikTok, that’s where they’re going to find the information they seek.

(Even the older generations that primarily use Google for their search needs understand the power of personal, word-of-mouth recommendations. That’s why so many of them include the search parameter “site:reddit.com” in their queries because they know they’ll get much more trustworthy and far less commercially-biased results from forums like Reddit.)

Will this trend away from search engines continue? Where will we go from here? I don’t know. But what I do know is that (a) nothing ever dies completely and (b) patterns are cyclical. Take radio, for example. It didn’t die off when television was introduced. Younger people listen to a lot less radio than older people do, of course, but it still has a place in our information ecosystem. And over the years parts of it have even made a comeback in the form of podcasts, which a good proportion of younger people do listen to.

So while youngsters might continue to move away from large, generic search engines like Google for their information gathering needs, it’s not like those search engines will ever go away. The balance will shift, the flow of advertising money will adjust, and a new equilibrium will be reached.

You can’t do any of this without good media literacy

The one thing that will never change is the need for continuously-updated media literacy for all generations. Without that you won’t know if what you’re reading or learning about is accurate – or at least accurate enough for your purposes.

Fortunately, it’s not that difficult to look a little wider and find a whole range of voices on a particular topic. And if you’re online for long enough and you’re even halfway decent at spotting patterns, you’ll learn about people’s biases (commercial or otherwise) relatively quickly. There was even a meme on Tumblr about this a few years ago that went something like: “me, sitting on my Casper Mattress, eating my Hello Fresh meal, using NordVPN to connect to my Better Help therapy session” :)

Media literacy goes a long way in helping people form an informed opinion (or at least a slightly less uninformed one) on how much to trust each of their information sources. Basically, it doesn’t matter where we get our information from, as long as we all keep our ‘bullshit meter’ plugged into our information gathering chain.

Responding to bad faith comments on social media

There are five main ways to respond to bad faith comments on social media. Depending on the situation you’re in, you’ll need to take one or more of these approaches:

  1. Ignore

  2. Engage

  3. Argue

  4. Smack down

  5. Peel away

Why am I writing about this now?

Over the last few weeks I’ve seen a bunch of people do a less than impressive job at handling bad faith comments on multiple social networks.

I’ve been participating in (and later managing) online communities for over twenty-five years now. So I figured I should share this list of tried-and-tested approaches because less experienced folks might find it useful.

1. Ignore

You can’t ignore bad faith comments, especially in smaller communities and especially if it’s the first comment on a post. If you do, you risk people thinking the commenter’s assertions are the majority view. So you have to publicly challenge what they’ve said, and ideally as quickly as possible.

The only time you ignore bad faith comments is when the bad faith commenter goes on and on, and you know that all they’re trying to do is waste your time. So, if you can’t block or ban them, you have to ignore them.

(Don’t feel that when you’re ignoring bad faith comments you’re taking a passive approach to the situation, by the way. The whole point of bad faith comments is to muddy the waters of the discussion and to waste people’s time. By ignoring their repeated comments, you’re actively not doing what the bad faith commenter wants you to do. This is a good thing!)

2. Engage

If you earnestly engage in bad-faith comments, then the bad-faith commenter has ‘won’. That’s because their whole point was to waste your time.

That said, your first response should probably be an earnest reply. This is just to verify the bad-faithedness of the original comment. Sometimes people aren’t good at expressing themselves online. If you start by responding openly you can check if they meant well but spoke poorly.

3. Argue

You only argue with bad-faith commenters if you have the time and if you enjoy doing so. Trolls and shit-posters live for this kind of thing. (Absurdist shitposting on bad faith comments is probably my favourite approach.)

4. Smack down

If done right, a smack-down response will end the conversation from your end. Any subsequent reply from the original commenter will just make them look worse.

It is important, though, that you stop responding after you’ve delivered you smack down. You have dropped the mic; you should not pick it up again.

Also, a smack down doesn’t have to be an angry or antagonistic retort. You can be funny, wry, sarcastic, indignant, or something else entirely. You just have to say something that will make any subsequent replies from the bad faith commenter look whiny and slightly desperate for attention.

A word of warning though: smack downs do tend to make bad faith commenters angry, so be prepared for them to lash out or worse. People have been doxxed when trying to smack down bad faith commenters online.

Woman typing on a MacBook

Photo by Daniel Thomas on Unsplash

5. Peel away

The ‘peel away’ approach takes time and finesse but is fun. You basically keep asking the bad faith commenter to explain why they’re saying what they’re saying. Once you’ve peeled off enough layers, the absurdity of their argument becomes apparent to everyone.

(This is also a good approach for when people make sexist and racist jokes. You can always respond to those with “wait, why is that funny?” and take it from there.)

This is not the easiest approach to take though. It takes time and it has the potential to go off the rails. So maybe leave it for seasoned community members and managers to execute.

Pomeranian working on an iPad

Photo by Cookie the Pom on Unsplash

Which approach do I take?

My first response is usually an earnest one, especially if this is first time I’m hearing from someone who I don’t know.

Then, based in the response to that — and on how much time I want to dedicate to this discussion — I either go the smack-down or the peel-away route.

After that I ignore all further responses from the bad faith commenter.

I do continue to respond to other comments on the post, by the way. And I have had cases in which a bad faith commenter has chased me around the rest of the comment thread trying to get me to engage with them again. Fortunately, I’ve been doing this for a long time and I find it super easy to ignore people like that :)

Do you have a preferred approach?

What do you think of my list? Those might be the fine mains approaches, but there are several others. What’s worked for you in the past?

And what’s the first thing you do when you see a bad faith comment?

Let me know.

Melbourne Business Analytics Conference 2022

Almost 1,000 people attended the 2022 Melbourne Business Analytics Conference today, which is really cool. And almost all of those who registered turned up, which is even cooler.

Photo of a very large auditorium that’s almost completely full, with people sitting on many rising rows of chairs. In front of the audience is a stage and a massive, cinema-size projector screen.

One of my favourite things about this conference is the breadth of attendees. You can tell that from how people are dressed: they’re wearing everything from jeans, t-shirts, casual dresses, and denim jackets all the way to formal dresses, formal pants, blouses/dress shirts, and suits.

Importantly, you can’t tell by what people are wearing whether they’re a CEO, middle manager, or specialist data analyst.

You can spot the students and fresh uni grads though. They’re so young and fresh-faced! Also, some of the junior managers stand out — with their sport coats/jumpers and cool but comfy shoes :)

Only 2-3 folks at this year’s conference were wearing ties with their suits, by the way. I think that shows just how much more comfortably people want to dress these days, now that we’ve all had a taste of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Benefit of registering early

One of the benefits of registering early for this conference is that I got a copy of ‘Decisions over Decimals’ by Christopher Frank, Paul Magnone, and Oded Netzer, which I’m really looking forward to reading.

(Professor Netzer was one of the speakers at the conference.)

Photo from the point of view of a seated person looking down at their lap. The photographer is holding a bright yellow hardback book in their hand titled ‘Decisions Over Decimals’. In the photo you can also see a Melbourne Business Analytics Conference badge that they are wearing on a lanyard around their neck.

Proportion of women on the stage

One of my rules for speaking at (and now even attending) conferences is that at least 40% of the people on the stage should be women or non-binary folks. And I track this number at all the conferences I attend.

Since I’ve attended every single Melbourne Business Analytics Conference since 2017, I have the data on how they’ve managed to improve – and, since then, maintain — a decent gender split in their speakers and panellists.

This year, for example, 43% of their speakers were going to be women. But, due to a couple of last-minute cancellations, that dropped to 40% — which is still acceptable. Good job MBS!

Columns chart titled “% female speaker, panellists at #MBAC22”. The chart shows five columns with values above them. The 2017 bar has a value of 31%; 2018 has 39%; 2019 has 51%; 2021 has 42%; and 2022 has 40%.

Create consistently good web and social media content, part 7

Contents (tl;dr)

  1. Keep it easy

  2. Keep it short

  3. Use photos and videos

  4. Use numbers

  5. Share emotion

  6. Post quickly

  7. Give people a reason to care < you are here

7. Give people a reason to care

You can follow all the advice I’ve given in parts 1-6 of this series and still not have a successful post if you audience doesn’t care about what you’re saying to them.

Don’t post content that isn’t cool, interesting, or useful to your audience

Your audience won’t engage with your content if they can’t tell what’s in it for them.

Good content is at least one of these things: cool, interesting, or useful.

Importantly, this isn’t what you find cool, interesting, or useful, it’s what you audience finds cool, interesting, or useful.

Here are few ways in which you can achieve this.

Use a better photo

We wanted to publish a post about a bunch of engineering students who visited one of our tunnels during a routine maintenance closure.

Civil #Engineering students from @UQ_EAIT get a behind-the-scenes tour during a tunnel closure on Legacy Way in Brisbane. #maintenance #UQ #partnership @UQ_News

We were sent several photos to choose from. This one didn’t match the story we were trying to tell:

Photo of four people wearing orange high visibility vests and white hard hats. They are standing in an interior space with white panels on the wall in the background. Three of the people are facing a fourth, who is talking to them.

While this one did:

Photo of five people wearing orange high visibility vests and white hard hats. They are standing inside a long underground road tunnel that continues around a curve. They are all looking up, above the white wall panels that run the length of the tunnel.

The second photo works better because it’s a wide shot. And, as we learned in part 3 of this series (‘use photos and videos’), you should use wide shots when you’re trying to show context or the space that the subjects of your photo are in. Showing the tunnel is important to the story we’re trying to tell here, so the wide shot is the one to go with. Basically, that second photo is both cool (people walking in a tunnel almost no one gets to walk through) and interesting (engineering students get an idea of what they’ll experience).

Show stuff people don’t normally see

People don’t normally get to see things from the point of view of a ground handler at an airport. So, when they do, it’s cool.

Last night flight NZ288 arrived safely in New Zealand, carrying critical medical supplies. Thank you to our cargo teams and partners for keeping our country safe and stocked up during this challenging time

Photo of two airport ground handlers offloading cargo from an Air New Zealand aircraft at night. The cargo is a big pile of white, wrapped boxes that is being held together by a net.

People also rarely get to see what happens behind the scenes at major infrastructure projects. So, for those who are into engineering, this photo is both interesting and potentially cool.

Five of the new 630kW ventilation fans which will keep the air moving through the #NorthConnex tunnels when they open in 2020. #BigFans

Photo of two people wearing orange high visibility vests and white hard hats. They are standing in a huge underground space with five massive silver coloured fans along one side. Each fan is about the height of three adult humans.

Give people a reason to care

Sometimes the best way to tell a bigger story is by focusing on something small.

Here is the first of two posts published by Boral during National Road Safety Week a couple of years ago.

As part of our #RoadSafetyWeek activities, Boral drivers and representatives from the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator attended a breakfast at our Logistics Depot in Wacol, Queensland to discuss the importance of road safety, safe on road practises and the responsibility we share as road users.

Photo of three dozen people wearing yellow or orange high visibility vests. They are standing in three long lines inside a massive warehouse facility. Behind them are two large yellow trucks, one a cement truck and one a liquified gas transport truck. The name ‘Boral’ is written in large, green, all-capital letters around the barrel of the cement truck. The people are all looking up towards the photographer, who is standing on a railing high above the warehouse floor.

The post has a decent photo: a wide shot that shows the scale of their equipment and the warehouse they’re standing in. But do you care about what they’ve written in the text? It’s nice that they had that breakfast in which they talked about road safety, of course, but that’s not particularly cool, interesting, or useful to me.

Compare that to this second post.

“Safety is paramount in this job, not only for me but for everyone on the road. I have a young family so I want to ensure that I am safe on the road so that I can go home to them. The training that we receive at Boral creates safe driving habits, which I am grateful for.” Peter, Boral Driver

Photo of a man, evidently a truck driver, wearing blue pants with a reflective strip and an orange-and-blue long sleeved shirt. He has one hand on his hip and has placed his other hand possessively on the large yellow truck next to him. The truck is pulling two large containers. The containers are painted yellow and green, and they have the company name ‘Boral’ written on them in large, all-capital letters. The man is smiling at the photographer.

That post also has a good photo, and this time they manage to show the scale of their equipment with a narrow shot. But, because they’ve made it personal, this post works better than the first one. If you’re a driver who shares the road with truckers, they you would appreciate that they get training on safe driving habits. Because this post makes road safety personal, it’s much more interesting than the first one.

Tell people something useful, but do it quickly

In part 2 of this series (‘keep it short’) I talked about how three of the videos we posted easily outperformed the others. Those three videos not only conveyed useful information, they did so in a very short amount of time. In fact, the longest was just sixteen seconds.

Also, we showed the audience a striking, dramatic, or unusual scene within the first three seconds of each video (as shown in the screenshots below). This caught our audience’s eye and got them to watch the videos most of the way through.

Three square-cropped screenshots of videos. The first screenshot, captioned ‘Tunnel safety’, shows an SUV driving through a tunnel with bright sparks flying out from one of its rear tyres. The second screenshot, captioned ‘Incident response’, shows the point-of-view of a motorcycle rider speeding along a congested road. There is a ‘fast forward’ icon above the video, suggesting it has been spend-up. The third screenshot, captioned ‘Road safety’, shows the close-circuit camera view of an eight-lane highway (four lanes each way, with a cement divider between them). There are cars and trucks driving up and down this highway.

So, don’t just try to be useful, try to be quick about it too.

Show stuff that’s just cool

Sometimes you don’t need to have a particularly interesting or useful message to share. Sometimes all you need is a cool photo.

Hope you’re not scared of heights! Grate photo from one of our engineers from inside the Burnley Tunnel’s air supply shaft. #50mUnderground #RegularInspection #LongWayDown #WorkingFromHeights

Photo of a tall, vertical maintenance shaft below someone’s feet, as seen through a large industrial grate. All you can see of the photographer are the cuffs of their blue work pants and their brown, steel-toed work boots. Running vertically down the length of the shaft (below the photographers feet) are several pipes and cables.

Though, if you can add a message to your photo, it’ll make your post even cooler. (And like I said in part 2 of this series, before-and-after photos tend to perform better than average.)

Around 900,000m3 and counting – NorthConnex is closing in on its goal to put 1 million m3 of spoil into Hornsby Quarry

Collage of two photos, both showing a large mining quarry with trees and brush growing along its sides. The photo on the left is labelled ‘February 2017’ and shows a pool of water at the bottom of the deeply-mined quarry. The photo on the right is labelled ‘August 2018’ and shows the quarry almost completely filled with soil that is lighter coloured than its surroundings.

Give people a reason to care: recap

Let’s recap how you can give people a reason to care about what you’re saying:

  • Only post content your audience will care about: don’t post content that isn’t cool, interesting, or useful to your audience

  • If you have a choice of which photo to use, pick the one that tells the best story

  • As someone who works for a business you probably have access to things other people might not even know exists, so make the most of it: show stuff people don’t normally see

  • To tell a big story sometimes you need to focus on something specific and small: by making things personal you give people a reason to care

  • Share content that makes your audience want to keep coming back for more: tell people something useful (but do it quickly)

  • You don’t have to have a strong message in all your posts: sometimes you can just show stuff that’s cool

To sum it all up

Use these seven principles like a checklist:

  1. Keep it easy

  2. Keep it short

  3. Use photos and videos

  4. Use numbers

  5. Share emotion

  6. Post quickly

  7. Give people a reason to care

And if your post isn’t at least:

  • cool,

  • interesting, or

  • useful

then I don’t think you should post it at all.

Don’t post bad content

The final bit of guidance I have for you is this: bad content is worse than no content.

If your content isn’t cool, interesting, or useful to your audience then it is bad and you should not share it.

If you post too much bad content:

  • your audience will stop following you and

  • the social networks you’re posting this on will stop showing your content to your followers.

But if your content is worth your audience’s time and attention, they’ll keep coming back for more.

Close the loop with analytics

Once you’ve posted your content, you need to see if it’s resonating with your audience. Use digital and social media analytics to see how it’s performing. Then give your audience more of what they like and less of what they don’t like.

Don’t just stop posting stuff that doesn’t resonate widely with your audience, though. There are likely things you need to say that, while not the most engaging, are still important to have said. And sometimes what you say only needs to resonate with a narrow segment of your audience for it to be considered successful.

Go forth and post great content

That all the guidance I have for now.

Let me know if you have any questions. Get in touch:

  • in the comments section below,

  • via this website’s ‘Contact’ page,

  • or DM me on Twitter (@ameel) or LinkedIn (ameelkhan).

Also, let me know if you found this guidance useful and if it helped you improve the reach and engagement on your content.

In the meantime, happy posting!

Create consistently good web and social media content, part 6

6. Post quickly

On social media things happen now.

Post things on the day of the event

People online do engage with events and situations that happened a few days ago, but most of the engagement on social media is live and in the moment.

Here’s a LinkedIn post that someone posted on a Tuesday:

On Saturday I ran a mini design thinking virtual workshop with an amazing group of young people from multicultural backgrounds about how COVID-19 and staying at home is affecting their daily life and connections.

Throughout the workshop, mental health was chosen as the major challenge facing multicultural youth during this period.

<post continues for another couple of paragraphs>

The topic of this post is fine, it’s just that if they’d posted this on Saturday it would likely have had more of an impact.

Compare that to this post from a cabin crew member just a couple of hours after their flight touched down:

Back home from a 23-hour duty, there and back to Delhi with some amazing colleagues. We brought back some very grateful UK citizens who had been stranded for weeks.

I’m so proud of everybody involved in making this and all our other repatriation flights happen, especially my incredible team of customer service managers and cabin crew who are always smiling whatever the challenge 😊

#ba #britishairways #repatriation #proud #cabincrew #teamwork

You can almost feel the emotional high this person is on because they’re posting about it so soon after the event.

Two things happen when you post during or shortly after an event:

  1. The feelings and emotions you had (or are having) tend to get reflected in what you post, which is great

  2. You have a much better chance of being part of the conversation that’s happening about this event right now

Post quickly: recap

Let’s recap why you should post quickly:

  • Things on social media happen in the moment, so don’t miss the opportunity to be a part of that: post things on the day of the event

Next in the series

On to ‘Give people a reason to care’…

Create consistently good web and social media content, part 5

5. Share emotion

If you want your web and social media posts to perform well, they have to sound like they’re a person talking to a another person.

Talk like a person, not like a business

Look at this tweet from Roads Australia:

Our CEO, Michael Kilgariff, visited the @WestGateTunnel site this week. Standing by the ramp site for the Tunnel Boring Machine are Construction Manager - Tunnels Andrew Shepherd, Transurban’s Anita Orr, Michael, and Transurban’s Camden Gilchrist. #Transurban

Photo showing four people wearing orange high visibility vests and white hard hats. They are standing in a line in front of a large dug up area that looks like a construction site with large metal support structures.

That doesn’t read like a person talking to another person. It reads like a company trying to talk to a person. In fact, that text is more like a caption on a photo than a story being told about the visit these people took to that construction site.

Compare this to an almost identical tweet from Infrastructure Partnerships Australia:

Ever seen a tunnel boring machine being constructed? We did, thanks to @TransurbanGroup giving us a backstage pass to its Northern portal dive site for the @WestGateTunnel. This event is part of our new network series #MembereXperience.

Photo showing twelve people wearing orange high visibility vests and white hard hats. They are standing in a group in front of what looks like an industrial area. Behind them are stacks of large shipping containers.

Now that sounds more like a person talking to a person. The photo itself isn’t great, but at least the text tells the story.

Actually, those folks went one better: their tweet included multiple photos so you got a better idea of what the visitors did and saw while they were there.

How do you write posts like this? Pretend you’re telling this story to someone from another business at a networking event. And if the story you’re telling isn’t boring, that level of informal storytelling should also let some of your emotions come through in the text.

All that said, please don’t take and share photos of people standing in a group like in the two big photos above. These types of photos don’t tell the reader anything about the experience the people had at that event or location. And most readers won’t know – and, importantly, won’t care – about who the people in that photo are. Posts with photos like this are almost always bad and you should not share them.

Use hashtags to share emotion

Sometimes it takes the smallest change to make an otherwise good post work better. Here’s an example from WorkSafe Victoria on LinkedIn:

Today is #WorldMentalHealthDay. Most employers already know that mental health in the workplace is important, but the challenge is knowing where to start and what information to rely on.

<link to their website with relevant resources>

Now that post is good, but I think it could be improved significantly by adding a single hashtag:

Today is #WorldMentalHealthDay. Most employers already know that mental health in the workplace is important, but the challenge is knowing where to start and what information to rely on. #TakeCareOfYourPeople

<link to their website with relevant resources>

See how much of a difference adding just a little bit of emotion makes? Try to do that with your posts.

Proficient users of hashtags can tell a whole second story (sometimes a behind-the-scenes anecdote, sometimes even an entire emotional arc) by adding just a couple of hashtags to their posts

Beware the Facebook algorithm

Most social media platforms will use an algorithm to decide which posts to show to which users, and in what sequence. It’s important to remember that these algorithms tend to follow community stereotypes.

For example, the business I work for posted this ad on Facebook about child car seat safety:

Screenshot of a Facebook sponsored post (ie ad) by Transurban. The text of the post reads “Nearly half of us use child car seats incorrectly, according to research by our road safety partner NeuRA - Neuroscience Research Australia. This increases the risk of injury to children by almost three times. Follow this checklist to ensure your child restraint is installed correctly in your car.” Included in this post is a video, the thumbnail of which shows, side-by-side, the correct and incorrect way in which to connect a car seat tether strap to an anchorage point.

Since we’re an infrastructure/engineering/technology business, Facebook’s algorithm decided that it would show this post mostly to men. When I looked at the stats, I found that only 8% of the people Facebook showed this post to were women. This is despite the fact that over 40% of our Facebook page’s followers are women.

We had to work against Facebook’s algorithm to show our post to equal numbers of men and women. To do that we published two identical ad posts: one targeted at just men, one targeted at just women; and then we put twice as much money behind the ad targeted to women. It was only then that our eventual impressions numbers were roughly equal.

So make sure your post is reaching the audience that it will resonate with the most. And remember that you may have to fight algorithms and community stereotypes to achieve this objective.

Share emotion: recap

Let’s recap how you can share emotion in your posts:

  • Write your posts like you’re talking to a colleague at a networking event: talk like a person, not like a business

  • If you can’t add emotion directly, try adding it indirectly: use hashtags to share emotion

  • Make sure your posts are reaching the audiences that it will resonate with the most: beware the Facebook algorithm

Just keep in mind that adding genuine emotion to your posts (and not just a random exclamation marks or emoji here and there) is a skill that will take time and practice to develop.

Next in the series

On to ‘Post quickly’…

Create consistently good web and social media content, part 4

4. Use numbers

While photos and videos help your message stand out, numbers ground your message and make it more relatable.

Numbers make things more real

Take this post of BHP announcing the renewal of a partnership:

BHP Olympic Dam today announced the renewal of its partnership with the Royal Flying Doctor Service Central Operations (serving SA/NT).

BHP’s contribution will help the RFDS to provide its life-saving service to South Australian communities, many of which are in rural and remote areas.

That’s a nice message, but it’s only when they mention a number does the scope of their partnership become more real:

BHP Olympic Dam today announced the renewal of its partnership with the Royal Flying Doctor Service Central Operations (serving SA/NT), worth $300,000 over the next three years.

BHP’s contribution will help the RFDS to provide its life-saving service to South Australian communities, many of which are in rural and remote areas.

Use numbers whenever you can (assuming it’s relevant, of course). Your message will have more weight when you do.

Also, don’t be afraid to use exact numbers. Sometimes being specific with your numbers works better than rounding up or down.

Don’t overwhelm people with numbers, though. Pick your most relevant and most powerful couple of numbers and talk about those.

Numbers help contextualise things

Numbers also help contextualise things. Take this post from my workplace.

We’re extending our incident response motorcycle trial in Qld. Since the trial started on the Gateway and Logan motorways 6 months ago, the team have responded to more than 150 incidents #RoadSafetyWeek #GRSW

Now that’s a good message, and the 150 incidents is a nice number. But adding more numbers –importantly, adding numbers that people understand and can relate to – helps tell the story much better.

We’re extending our incident response motorcycle trial in Qld. Since the trial started on the Gateway and Logan motorways 6 months ago, the team have responded to more than 150 incidents, arriving 2 mins sooner and clearing the incident around 8 mins faster #RoadSafetyWeek #GRSW

I probably have no idea if 150 incidents in six months is low, average, or high, but I do understand what it means for help to arrive two minutes sooner and for traffic blockages to be cleared eight minutes quicker. The new numbers are more relatable, and they help add more context to the story.

Use numbers: recap

Let’s recap how you can use numbers in your stories:

  • Numbers make things more real: they help explain the scope and scale of your story

  • Numbers help contextualise things: relatable numbers make your message easier to understand

  • So, wherever it makes sense, try to add numbers to your story.

Next in the series

On to ‘Share emotion’…

Create consistently good web and social media content, part 3

3. Use photos and videos

Text-only posts are nice, but they’re not particularly eye catching.

Without a photo most corporate posts are just ‘meh’

Take this post we published a few weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic.

The team at our Motorway Control Centre are always there to make sure you have a safe journey home.

During this challenging time our team are always spaced 1.5m apart and working in rostered pairs to make sure we keep everyone safe.

That was a nice message to share, but it was only when you saw the accompanying photo that the post actually become a good one:

Photo of a large control room with high ceilings. The wall at the far end of the room is filled with multiple screens showing status graphics and live CCTV video. The room has several large workstations with sit-stand desks, each with five computer monitors arranged in a semi-circle. There are two people working in the control room and they are at the opposite ends of the room from each other.

Showing is more powerful than telling

You can tell this story…

Mix around 6,000 seedlings, some rays of sunshine and a few drops of water — and you’ll get bush regeneration.

Together with @HornsbyCouncil we’ve been able to bring life back to this section of Beecroft Reserve which runs along the Hills M2 Motorway.

But it’s only when you show that story that it really comes to life:

Photo collage of two photos. The photo on the left shows a dry and brown corridor of land next to a shallow spillway. The photo on the right shows the same corridor now lush with vegetation.

Bonus tip: People love before-and-after shots, the more dramatic the better. If you are creating, building, or changing anything, try to take (and subsequently share) as many before-and-after shots as you can.

Don’t just document, tell a story

Many people take photos just to document what’s going on. Don’t do that.

Use your photos to tell a story about your event or project: share specific details along with your feelings and opinions.

For example, let’s say you attend an in-person conference (remember those from the pre-pandemic days?). The laziest photo you could take at an event like that is something like is (about half of which is just the backs of chairs and people’s heads):

Photo of a large conference room. There are dozens of people seated in chairs facing the stage, and the bottom half of the photo is just the backs of these chairs and the backs of the audience’s heads. On the stage is the speaker, who is standing behind a podium and is talking to the audience. On the wall in front of the audience is a large projector screen showing a slide with the title ‘The Second Curve - planning for an uncertain future’. The rest of the text on the slide is too small to read. [Source: Karen Shuster]

All that photo says is “I attended a conference”.

You photo should say a lot more than that. At the very least it should focus on a subject or it should express an emotion.

Like it could say “the conference was huge”:

Photo of a massive conference room. There are hundreds of people seated in chairs facing the stage, all focused on what the speaker is saying. The speaker is a small figure walking across the stage in the left corner of the photo. [Source: Samuel Periera]

Or “I was a panellist at a talk”:

Close-up photo of a microphone on top on a table, taken from the side of the person who will be speaking into that microphone. In the background, which is out of focus, you can see several dozen audience members facing the speaker, who is evidently a panelist who is seated at the table on the stage. [Source: Ben Rogers]

Or “my talk went really well”:

Photo of a speaker standing with their back to the audience while they take a selfie of themselves with the audience in the background of their photo. [Source: Howard Lake]

Or “the speaker was super engaging”:

Photo of a what appears to be a café in which several people are seated on long tables. All the people are focused on the speaker, who is standing on the opposite side of the room. We can only see the back of the speaker. They are holding a microphone and are gesturing as they speak to the audience. [Source: Cydor]

Or even just “we had a great time”:

Photo of several people seated in the front row of an audience at a talk. They are all dressed professionally and the three closest to the camera are smiling. [Source: Priscilla Du Preez]

Basically, try to figure out what story you want to tell – ie what you see or feel at this event that you want to tell people about – and then take a photo that helps you tell this story.

Match your image with what you’re saying

The type of photo you take needs to match the story you’re trying to tell. So…

Take a wide shot when you want to set the scene or show the scale of your project or event.

Overhead photo of a large event registration space, probably taken from the floor above. Dozens of people are standing around chatting with each other, while some are standing in front of tables to collect their name tags. [Source: Product School]

Take a medium shot when you want to showcase one part of your project or event.

Photo of people in a meeting room. Most people are sitting around a large table with their laptops open in front of them. The far wall that has lots of colourful sticky notes grouped on it. A woman is standing by this wall with her hand raised towards to the sticky notes. Most of the people sitting on the table are looking at her. This appears to be a project planning session. [Source: Leon]

Take a narrow shot when you want to focus on something specific in your story.

Photo of two people seated at a table, both looking at a large computer monitor. The person closest to the camera is using a trackpad and keyboard. [Source: Christina @ wocintechchat.com]

More photo-taking tips

I’ve covered how to take better work-related photos in another series, so check that out for more specific photo-taking advice:

Since I shared this advice with people at work, the quality of photos I’ve received from them has improved drastically. 

Also, if you’re interested, here are a couple of photo editing show-and-tell posts I did on my personal blog that you might also find useful:

Often videos are better than photos

From a communications point of view, photos and videos accomplish different objectives:

  • Photos are good for awareness: they’re easy to understand, and a good photo can almost instantly tell your story.

  • Videos are good for understanding: but only if people watch your video first. Once your video plays, of course, you get the opportunity to tell a more complex or comprehensive story to your audience.

This post about car seat testing, for example, was much more effective with a video than with just a photo:

New research from @neuraustralia has shown a potential safety benefit in using plastic chest clips on child car restraints, reducing the risk of serious injury in a crash #RoadSafety #StaySafe

Watching a video of a crash test is much more effective than just seeing a photo of a car seat strapped onto a crash simulation sled. (We tested this. The video got a lot more engagement.)

Serendipitous videos are even better

Good serendipitous videos from CCTV cameras are always gold. If you use CCTV cameras and have access to video from them, try to mine them for as much content as you can.

Those are some sweet sprinklers in the Burnley Tunnel!

A truck carrying sugar started smoking in the Burnley Tunnel & was quickly spotted by our Traffic Control Room who kicked our deluge system into gear.

Thanks to @MFB_NEWS & @VictoriaPolice for attending to the incident

Always add descriptions to your photos and captions to your videos

Everyone should be able to understand what you’re trying to say.

Add image descriptions or alternative text (alt-text) to your images.

Here are a two useful guides, both of which have good references for additional reading (at the bottom of each page):

Add captions (and, if you can, transcripts) to your videos. There are several automated tools (and even live transcription services) that can do this for you now.

Many videos on the web use open captions (ie text that is burned into the video). But websites like YouTube and Facebook let you upload caption files, so there you can also use closed captions (ie captions that you can turn on and off by clicking the [CC] button).

My recommendation is to add open captions to all your videos. That way you can use the same video on websites and do and don’t support closed captions.

Use photos and videos: recap

Let’s recap how you can tell a better story using photos and videos:

  • Without a photo most corporate posts are just ‘meh’: photos bring a story to life, particularly interesting behind-the-scenes photos that people don’t often get to see

  • Showing is more powerful than telling: you can really drive home your point with a photo

  • Don’t just document, tell a story: share specific details, along with your feelings and opinions

  • Often videos are better than photos: good videos let you explain your story better

  • Serendipitous videos work particularly well: the more unusual or unexpected your video, the more effective it’ll be

  • Always add descriptions to your photos and captions to you videos: everyone should be able to understand what you’re trying to say

Next in the series

On to ‘Use numbers’…

Create consistently good web and social media content, part 2

2. Keep it short

Don’t waste your audience’s time. They will appreciate it if you’re quick and efficient.

No one has time to read blocks of text

You need to keep your content short because:

The shorter you keep you content, the higher the chance it’ll be noticed, skimmed, and actually understood.

Or, to cut a long story short:

Shorter content cuts through.

Hashtags speak (almost) a thousand words

Use hashtags to reduce the amount of text you use.

Here’s a LinkedIn post from Airservices Australia:

We think Air Traffic Controllers have the best job in the world, but don’t take our word for it! We asked some of our staff “What aspect of your role do you enjoy the most?” and this is what they had to say...

#CivilAir #IDATC #AirservicesAustralia #AirTrafficControl #NowRecruiting #aviation #AvGeek

<video in which their air traffic controllers tell us what they love about their jobs>

And here’s how I would’ve rewritten it:

What do we love about OUR jobs, you ask?

#AirTrafficController #BestJobInTheWorld #NowRecruiting #IDATC #aviation #AvGeek

<video in which their air traffic controllers tell us what they love about their jobs>

I got rid of the first sentence (it was small talk) and I front-loaded the post with the most important point (what people like about their jobs). The rest of those two sentences I replaced with two hashtags: #AirTrafficController and #BestJobInTheWorld.  

Get to the point or people will go away

People online are like sharks: they have to keep moving or they die. [1]

  • First sentence isn’t interesting? Skip.

  • Headings don’t make sense? Skip.

  • Big blocks of text? Skip.

  • Have to expand the Instagram post text to figure out what this photo of people standing in a line is about? Skip.

  • Can’t tell in 3 seconds what the video is going to be about? Skip.

  • Need to raise my phone’s volume to watch a video because there are no captions? Skip.

Make your point in under 30 seconds

Getting to your point quickly is particularly important with videos.

Over 2018 and 2019 we had posted several videos on our Facebook page. When I looked carefully at the stats on these videos, the results were confronting:

  • Only 29% of people who saw a post with a video in it actually watched the video itself

  • Only 6% of those viewers watch beyond 30 seconds of the video

Unfortunately, this is typical of videos posted by businesses on social media. The lessons we learned from these stats were:

  • Really give people a reason to engage with your content (ie watch the video)

  • Don’t expect people to watch more than 30 seconds of most of your videos

  • What we did next was create several new videos of different lengths and on different topics. We then posted these as paid posts on Facebook (ie as Facebook ads). With paid posts you get detailed stats on how your videos performed.

Here’s what the stats on those videos said:

Our analysis told us:

  • Most of our videos (the grey lines in the chart above) didn’t perform well. At most 15% of people watched for more than 3 seconds – which is about the time it takes to scroll to the next post in your feed.

  • A bunch of videos did perform significantly better (the three coloured lines in the chart above). These were shorter; covered more interesting topics; and, importantly, had very striking visuals in the first three seconds.

The lessons we learned:

  • Start your videos strongly (striking visuals, arresting music)

  • Say something engaging incredibly quickly, otherwise people will stop watching

  • Get to your point in less than 30 seconds; ideally in less than 15 seconds

Do you watch movie trailers online? Have you noticed how trailers now begin with what I call a ‘3-second pre-trailer trailer’? That’s the single, dramatic flash – both visual and auditory – that you see before the actual trailer starts. This is to catch people’s interest in the three seconds it takes to scroll by a post on your social media feed.

If movie studios are doing this with their videos, you should take a page out of their book and do the same: make the initial three seconds of your videos incredibly eye catching. Because, if you don’t, people will scroll on by.

(We’re now even better at videos at my workplace, by the way: 90-95% of viewers watch till the end of our top performing videos.)

Keep it short: recap

Let’s recap how you can save your audience’s time:

  • Keep your content incredibly short: no one has time to read blocks of text

  • Use hashtags to summarise your text: hashtags speak (almost) a thousand words

  • People will use any excuse to skip past your content: get to the point or people will go away

  • Start your videos off with a bang and keep them super short: make your point within 30 seconds

Next in the series

On to ‘Use photos and videos’…

Footnotes

[1] Yes, I know that not all sharks have to keep swimming or they die. #NotAllSharks

Create consistently good web and social media content, part 1

This is a seven-part series on how people working for businesses can create consistently good web and social media content.

I’m going to assume you already know the who, where, and why:

  • who your target audiences are;

  • the most appropriate channels (websites, intranets, social networks) to talk to them on; and

  • what your communications objectives are.

Contents (tl;dr)

I’ve organised my guidance into seven checklist items, the first of which I’ll cover in this post:

  1. Keep it easy < you are here

  2. Keep it short

  3. Use photos and videos

  4. Use numbers

  5. Share emotion

  6. Post quickly

  7. Give people a reason to care

1. Keep it easy

Make it easy for your audience to understand and follow your content. They shouldn’t have to figure out what you’re trying to say.

Here are three ways to do that.

1a. Front-load important words

Make your point at the front of your sentence or paragraph. People skim the first few words of sentences and paragraphs, particularly when they’re reading on a screen. If you don’t grab your audience’s attention straight away, they won’t read your post.

Let’s look at an example. Here’s post from a user on LinkedIn:

Months ago when I moved to Toronto, I was being told by recruiters and companies that I wasn’t good…see more

Have you noticed how most social networks don’t display the full text a post, forcing people to click the “…see more” link if they want to keep reading? This makes it even more crucial that you make your point up front – before the ‘fold’, so to speak.

Here’s the expanded view of that post:

Months ago when I moved to Toronto, I was being told by recruiters and companies that I wasn’t good enough for them or that I didn’t have any Ontario experience.

Today, I’m in the Bahamas for our annual conference leading the HR function across 17 countries for an amazing company owned by the largest advertising agency in the world.

Don’t let other people’s insecurities and skewed metrics of success become your reality!

Which part of that post do you think is most important?

I think it’s the last paragraph. If I could rewrite that post, this is what I’d say – with the important bit (which I’ve put in bold) moved to the beginning:

Don’t let other people’s insecurities and skewed metrics of success become your reality! #StoryTime

Months ago when I moved to Toronto, I was being told by recruiters and companies that I wasn’t good enough for them or that I didn’t have any Ontario experience.

Today, I’m in the Bahamas for our annual conference leading the HR function across 17 countries for an amazing company owned by the largest advertising agency in the world.

The entire first sentence fits before the “…see more” text break on LinkedIn and, more importantly, gets immediately to the crux of what the author is trying to say.

And now that the audience knows what the author is trying to say, the #StoryTime hashtag tells them they can expand this post to read a story that exemplifies the point.

1b. No time for small talk

Don’t include small-talk text in your content. Reading that text is almost always a waste of time for your audience.

Small-talk text – sometimes called throat-clearing text – is the text you see at the top of web pages or at the start of blog and social media posts. (Did you notice that I didn’t have any at the start of this post?)

Here’s an example of useless introductory text on a company’s ‘About us’ webpage. Can you guess which Australian company this is from?

Over our long history, our social purpose and commitment to the community has remained the same; to create connections and opportunities that matter to every Australian.

That text could be talking almost any Australian business, right? You learn almost nothing about the business from it, and I think being forced to read it is a waste of time your time.

That text, by the way, is from the Australia Post website.

Compare it to what New Zealand Post have at the top of their ‘About us’ webpage:

We provide customers with the solutions and products to help them communicate and do business.

That’s more useful. But honestly, as far as intro text on ‘About us’ pages is concerned, we can do even better.

You know what the US Postal Service have at the top of their ‘About us’ page? Nothing. Instead of text telling people what they do, they have links and icons showing people what they do.

So don’t waste your reader’s time with needless filler text, just let them get on with what they’re there to do.

1c. Make content skimmable

Help time-poor people skim your content. Why? Because most people don’t carefully read content online, they merely skim it. (At least till they find what they’re looking for; though even then they might not read it carefully.)

Here’s how you can make life easier for people looking at your content:

  • Don’t use big blocks of text: split your text into paragraphs (the shorter the better, in some situations)

  • Use lists whenever you can (bulleted or numbered lists, as required)

  • Use lots of headings

  • Use emphasis (eg colour, bold text) to draw your audience’s eyes to text that’s important

If you want to really take things up a notch: use descriptive headings. The most effective news articles on the web are the ones you can get the gist of just by reading the headline and subheadings.

Here’s an example of how we made content skimmable at my current job. We wanted to take a paper that one of our engineers presented at the Australasian Tunnelling Conference and convert that to a Medium.com article.

This is a paragraph from that conference paper:

The ability to deliver spoil to the Hornsby Quarry provided NorthConnex tunnelling sites more certainty on haulage turnaround times and dramatically reduced the total kilometres travelled for spoil disposal. Beyond the obvious financial benefits of a short haulage route, this helped to reduce the risks associated with haulage delays and enabled more efficient removal of spoil from the tunnelling sites, which mitigated one of the risks linked with delivery of the tunnelling program.

And here’s how we made that skimmable for posting to Medium.com:

Beyond the obvious financial benefits of a short haulage route, the advantages of using this site included

• dramatically reduced total kilometres travelled for spoil disposal,

• reduced risks associated with haulage delays,

• more certainty on haulage turnaround times, and

• overall more efficient removal of spoil from tunnelling site.

See how much difference you can make just by adding bullet points and putting text in bold?

Keep it easy: recap

Let’s recap how you can make your audience’s life easier:

  • Make your point quickly: front-load important words

  • Don’t give them useless text to read: no time for small talk

  • Add structure to your text that makes it easy to read on a screen: make content skimmable

There’s lots more you can do, of course. But I think this is the bare minimum.

Next in the series

On to ‘Keep it short’…

3 tips for taking better work-related photos, part 3

Now that you know what story you’re trying to tell (from part 1) and what type of photo will tell this story effectively (from part 2) you need to get over the most important hurdle: will anyone even care about your story?

3. The story your photo tells should be something your audience wants to hear

Good content is at least one of these things:

  • Cool

  • Interesting

  • Useful

Importantly, good content isn’t something that you find cool, interesting, or useful — it’s something your audience finds cool, interesting or useful.

At work if a photo (or any piece of content, really) isn’t one of these three things, we don’t post it.

Posting bad content is worse than posting no content. So we try to make sure that the content we do post is actually something our audience (or at least a part of it) wants to see.

Some of my own examples

Let’s end with some examples of good event photos that I’ve taken over the years.

I have taken lots of bad ones, by the way. These are just a handful of the better ones :)

Behind the scenes

Here’s one from 2017 when I was working at Jetstar. The story I wanted to tell was: it took a whole production team to run this hugely successful event.

Photo of a large conference venue taken from behind a control room that’s been set up to the side. The speaker is standing on a stage in front of the far wall. A projected screen behind her says ‘Jetstar Live’. In the middle ground are attendees all facing the speaker. In the foreground several people are hunched over open laptops and computer screens.

This is somewhere between a wide shot (showing the scope and scale) and a medium shot (showing something specific).

This photo is from the first time we’d done a ‘Jetstar Live’ event in which our Group CEO talked about how the business was doing after our latest full year financial results. We had people from seventeen countries watch this webcast live and all our individual airline CEOs participated via video conference. Pretty much all employees thought this behind-the-scenes production photo was cool.

People you want to know

This is a photo from the 2020 Melbourne Business School alumni reunion. The story I wanted to tell was: our Dean welcomed us and introduced us to our newly-hired deputy Dean a few weeks before she took up her role (that’s her in the background).

Photo of a man in business attire standing in the middle of a U-shaped classroom. Behind him are projector screens that say ‘Alumni Reunion 2020’. A woman in a business attire is sitting in the front row of the classroom, just behind the speaker.

This is a medium shot that focuses on something or someone. (In this case two someones.)

Alumni who were interested in what was happening at business school but couldn’t attend the alumni reunion found this photo interesting.

How things work

This photo is from the Measure Camp Melbourne unconference in 2018. The story I wanted to tell was: this is the board through which we are collectively organising this event and scheduling the day’s talks.

Several people are standing in a semicircle around a wall with columns of index cards stuck on a wall. This is the schedule of events. Along the top of the wall are logos of several businesses, including Google Analytics 360 Suite, Snowflake, and Datalicious.

This is a medium shot that focuses on a specific part of the event.

Folks who and wanted to see how things were being organised would’ve found this useful, regardless of whether they were attending the actual event or not.

What’s happening

This is a photo from the 2017 Melbourne Business Analytics Conference. The story I wanted to tell was: this conference, which is jam-packed with excellent sessions and speakers, is about to kick-off.

Close up photo of a conference agenda with multiple speaker tracks and multiple talks in each track. The title across the top of the printed agenda says ‘Melbourne Business Analytics Conference’.

This is a narrow shot that focuses on something very specific.

This photo worked because I tweeted it before any of the talks started. It gave an insight into what was going to happen at the event: people could see the titles of the talks, the names of the speakers, and the wide range of businesses represented. I don’t think anyone found it genuinely useful, but I think many did find it interesting.

Focus on the personal

Let me leave you with one bonus tip: find something personal from the event you’re attending and express that through your photo. This could be something that resonates with you (in which case it’ll likely resonate with your followers) or a feeling that you can try to capture through your photo (excitement, energy, awe, surprise, etc). The more personal your story/photo is, the more your audience will enjoy seeing it. There is a reason you’re the one they’re following, after all.

If not something personal to you — if you’re posting something on a corporate channel and not a personal one, for example — then try to find something oddly specific to tell a story about. Humans are curious creatures and if you show us something unusual or oddly specific we enjoy seeing it.

Putting it all together

To sum up:

  1. Figure out what story you’re trying to tell (covered in part 1)

  2. Figure out which type of photo will tell that story best (covered in part 2)

  3. Make sure your story is cool, interesting, or useful to your audience

If you can do these three things then there’s a good chance your audience will like your story and they’ll keep following you and wanting to hear what you have to say.

3 tips for taking better work-related photos, part 2

Now that you know what story you want to tell (discussed in part 1), let’s talk about the type of photo you want to take.

2. Figure out what you’re trying to say, then pick the appropriate type of photo

To simplify things let’s say there are three main types of shots you can take:

  1. Wide shots: these are for setting the scene or for showing the scale of your project or event

  2. Medium shots: these are for when you want to showcase one part of your project or event

  3. Narrow shots: these are for when you want to focus on something specific in your story

Basically, you need to match your image (ie the type of shot you’ll take) to what you’re trying to saying. Ask yourself which type of image will be the best for telling your story.

Wide shots

Here’s a photo with a good perspective that shows an event space and how active it was. The story it tells: the popular event was packed.

Overhead photo of a large event registration space, probably taken from the floor above. Dozens of people are standing around chatting with each other, while some are standing in front of tables to collect their name tags. [Source: Product School]

  • Wide shots are good for showing the scale of your event and the space it’s held in. They provide an overview of activities.

  • The challenges with wide shots are their lighting, framing, and finding the right angle for your photo. Wide shots are particularly difficult to take in office meeting rooms.

  • My recommendation is to not bother taking many of these unless you can get a good (or unusual) angle that provides a nice overview of what’s happening.

Here’s a bad wide shot. The angle is poor (too much ceiling) and you can’t even tell what the attendees are doing. The story this tells: lots of people were crowded into a large room for some reason.

Photo of a long space with a curved glass ceiling. There is a crowd of people in the room, but you can’t tell what they’re doing. [Source: Dion Hinchcliffe]

Medium shots

Here’s a good medium shot that shows people doing an activity (which makes the photo interesting). The story it tells: people participated at the event and achieved something together.

Photo of people in a meeting room. Most people are sitting around a large table with their laptops open in front of them. The far wall that has lots of colourful sticky notes grouped on it. A woman is standing by this wall with her hand raised towards to the sticky notes. Most of the people sitting on the table are looking at her. This appears to be a project planning session. [Source: Leon]

  • Medium shots are good for showing people and emotion. They help you highlight a specific activity or part of your event.

  • The challenge with medium shots is adding emotion and dynamism to your still photo. It’s also not easy to always get a good angle or to time your photos to capture emotions and activities.

  • My recommendation is take lots of medium photos from different angles. Try to capture emotions (take burst shots and pick the best one). Do your best to avoid posed photos (especially of people in a line – those are the most boring photos you could take).

Here’s a bad medium shot. All you see are a bunch of people in a line. You can’t tell who they are, where they are, or why they’re sliming at the camera — at least not without reading the caption. The (super boring) story this tells: these people were at an event.

Photo of four people standing next to each other, all looking at the camera. The people are wearing business attire and all have name tags on identical lanyards. They are apparently at a conference. [Source: AFGE]

Narrow shots

Here’s a good narrow shot of people doing an activity they’re focused on. The story this tells: people are actively collaborating on work.

Photo of two people seated at a table, both looking at a large computer monitor. The person closest to the camera is using a trackpad and keyboard. [Source: Christina @ wocintechchat.com]

  • Narrow shots are good for showing something specific that’s cool or interesting. They’re particularly great if you can find a single photo that captures the whole mood of the event

  • The challenge with narrow shots is finding something or someone specific to photograph. The framing and timing of these shots can be difficult too.

  • These photos aren’t easy to take, but my recommendation is you should try anyway. You never know when you’ll get a great photo. See if you can find something small but significant to photograph.

Here’s a bad narrow shot. For starters the angle is weird. But really, this photo wouldn’t be interesting even if you knew who this person was. The story this tells: this person was at an event…maybe?

Side-on photo of a woman looking off camera to the side. The woman appears to be in a large room, maybe? You can’t really tell what’s happening here. [Source: Pioneer Library System]

So, to sum up: now that you know what story you’re trying to tell, figure out what type of photo is best suited to tell that story. Picking an appropriate type of shot will go a long way in telling your story effectively.

[Continued in part 3]

3 tips for taking better work-related photos, part 1

Part of my job is training people on how to improve the digital and social media content they create. This includes teaching folks how to take better work-related photos. Based on what I’ve learned over many years of doing this, here are my top three tips.

1. Figure out what story you want to tell, then take photos that tell this story

Many people take photos that just document what’s going on. Don’t do that.

For example, here’s a photo from a speaking event.

Photo of a large conference room. There are dozens of people seated in chairs facing the stage. On the stage is the speaker who is standing behind a podium and is talking to the audience. On the wall in front of the audience is a large projector screen showing a slide with the title ‘The Second Curve - planning for an uncertain future’. [Source: Karen Shuster]

This photo isn’t worth sharing on social media.

Sure, it successfully documents that a speaking event took place – but who or what is the subject of the photo? Usually the subject is the most prominent element in the composition. In this case it’s not the speaker: they’re too small. It might be the slide they’re talking about, but that’s mostly unreadable. The main element of this photo is the backs of people and the chairs they’re sitting on, which is incredibly boring and certainly not worth sharing.

Don’t just document, tell a story instead

What you want do with your photo is tell a story. For example, try to share specific details of the event, along with your feelings and opinions. And then, based on this story that you want to tell, take your photo accordingly.

Here are some examples.

Let’s say I wanted to talk about how huge a conference was. To tell that story I might take this photo.

Photo of a massive conference room. There are hundreds of people seated in chairs facing the stage, all focused on what the speaker is saying. The speaker is a small figure walking across the stage in the left corner of the photo. [Source: Samuel Periera]

This is similar to the previous photo: the audience and ceiling take up most of the frame and you can barely make out the speaker. But in this case the subject is that massive audience, in this massive conference room, with everyone focused on the speaker.

And it’s not just their backs that you’re seeing any more. You’re seeing their faces and can tell what they’re looking at. It’s fun how just changing the perspective of your photo can make such a big difference.

Speaking of different perspectives, what if you were a panelist and wanted to tell that story? Well then you might take this photo.

Close-up photo of a microphone on top on a table, taken from the side of the person who will be speaking into that microphone. In the background, which is out of focus, you can see several dozen audience members facing the speaker, who is evidently a panelist who is seated at the table on the stage. [Source: Ben Rogers]

Here you’re sharing something specific and you’re showing people things from an angle they don’t normally get to see. All of which is cool.

But if you were in the audience maybe you’d want to tell a story about how you had a great time. Then try taking this type of photo.

Photo of several people seated in the front row of an audience at a talk. They are all dressed professionally and the three closest to the camera are smiling. [Source: Priscilla Du Preez]

Not only does the photo focus on something specific, it shows you what people were feeling and not just what they were doing.

What if you thought the speaker was fantastic and you wanted to talk about that? Consider this photo.

Photo of a what appears to be a café in which several people are seated on long tables. All the people are focused on the speaker, who is standing on the opposite side of the room. We can only see the back of the speaker. They are holding a microphone and are gesturing as they speak to the audience. [Source: Cydor]

Yes, the perspective is odd: you’re seeing the back of the speaker. But you can tell that they are energized and animated, and that brings a lot of dynamism to the photo. You can also tell the audience is clearly focused on what the speaker is saying, which further enhances the story you’re trying to tell.

Finally, what if you were the speaker and your talk went really well? Maybe you could take a selfie with your audience.

Photo of a speaker standing with their back to the audience while they take a selfie of themselves with the audience in the background of their photo. [Source: Howard Lake]

Okay so this particular photo is a bit meta: it tells the story of someone else telling a story (which is what their selfie with the audience in the background is). But you get my point :)

So, to sum up: don’t just document, tell a story instead. Do that and your event photos will be much better.

[Continued in part 2]

Gender diversity at Melbourne Business Analytics Conference 2021

The 2021 Melbourne Business Analytics Conference kicked off today. This is a four-day online conference with talks running from 10am-2pm, Monday to Thursday.

Screenshot of a web browser window showing a virtual conference layout, with boxes for speaker video, slides, Q&A, presenter information, and event resources.

42% female speakers

I’ve attended all four #MBSAnalytics conferences since they launched in 2017 [1] and have been constantly impressed with the gender diversity that Melbourne Business School have achieved with their speakers and panellists. This year, for example, 42% of speakers and panellists are women.

Screenshot of a column chart titled ‘% female speakers at #MBSAnalytics conference’. There are four columns on the chart, one each for the years 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021. The percentage of female speakers and panellists shows above these columns is: 31%, 39%, 51%, and 42% respectively.

Not a manel in sight

Not just that, but at all four conferences there has never been a single manel (ie all-male panel of speakers and experts) – which I think is hugely impressive.

Screenshot of a webpage showing a grid of head shots. These are some of the speakers at the 2021 Melbourne Business Analytics conference. Half the speakers on the screen are female and two of the eight speakers shown are people of colour.

This is big deal

Tracking and reporting on the proportion of female speakers and panellists is important because (a) that’s not often tracked and (b) a high proportion is rarely achieved at conferences in this field. In fact, none of the business or analytics conferences I’ve attended in the last decade (?) have had more than a third of speakers who aren’t male.

The highest I’ve seen elsewhere was at MeasureCamp Melbourne in 2018 where 31% of the speakers were women. That took a bit of effort too, since the year before that number had been zero!

Photo of two hand drawn graphs on lined paper under the heading ‘Measure Camp Melbourne 24 Feb 2018’. The first chart shows 34% of attendees are women, the second shows 31% of speakers are women. That attendee percentage is an “estimate based on welcome session attendance”.

And it compares well with the industry

This high proportion of female speakers and panellists is particularly great because:

  • ~29% of full time computer science graduates are women and

  • ~35% of 2020 Melbourne Business School graduates were women.

Also, a couple of years ago I did a Professional Certificate in Business Analytics from Melbourne Business School. As part of that I took two subjects that had 17% and 30% female students respectively.

I know these numbers aren’t definitive, but it’s awesome that the proportion of female speakers at the #MBSAnalytics conference is at least higher than the proportion of women typically graduating into this field of work and study.

So kudos to the folks from Melbourne Business School who make this happen every year. This is already my favourite conference and seeing those stats makes it even better.

—

Footnote

[1] Your maths isn’t wrong. They’ve had four conferences in five years because they had to cancel their 2020 event because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

FYI

I’ve tweeted about these numbers each year I’ve attended this conference: 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.

MBS alumni reunion 2020

I’m back in a lecture theatre at Melbourne Business School for our 2020 alumni reunion.

A university lecture theatre full of adults. The screens in the lecture theatre say: alumni reunion 2020.

It’s always great to get an update on the school, connect with other alumni, and learn new things from the variety of speakers. This and the Melbourne Business Analytics Conference are my annual highlight events.

Melbourne Business School alumni reunion 2019

One of the highlights of my year is the annual Melbourne Business School alumni reunion – which is, essentially, a two-day seminar and networking event.

Here’s our Dean, Professor Ian Harper, giving us an update on how the school is doing.

Professor Ian Harper, Dean of Melbourne Business School gives alumni an update on how the school is doing.

This year I attended sessions on:

  • creating career roadmaps (with speakers from act3 Planning)

  • data-oriented businesses

  • areas of marketing debate

  • ethics for companies that collect data, and

  • managing sustainability.

All of which were excellent, as usual.

Content strategy is super important, y'all

I work in the corporate communications space – primarily on the digital and social media side – and I’ll be the first to admit that I dislike most of the online content that brands produce.

Most of what they (we?) produce is bland, boring, repetitive, shallow stuff. Even 90% of the ‘thought leadership’ content you see online isn’t particularly original or in-depth. (I’m looking at you, folks on LinkedIn.)

It would take me time explain why I think this way, but then content strategist Kristina Halvorson summed it up beautifully in a series of four tweets:

1.

Content marketing says: "Brainstorm what content your audience wants, then distribute it wherever they are."

Content strategy says: "Your audience couldn't care less about your content until they need it. Better talk to them and figure out when, what, and where that is."

2.

Let me tell you something: every time I tweet something critical about content marketing, it's because I'm sick of being inundated by a bunch of terrible advice from big "content influencers" about how to focus on the WHAT and WHERE vs. WHY.

3.

As a result, we are now seeing widespread "content chaos" for the majority of orgs who went all-in on content marketing: a ton of repetitive, unoriginal, useless content pushed out on a million different channels that people have simply lost track of.

4.

And so: we need to move leadership away from a focus on content *promotion and engagement* and towards an understanding of content as part of a holistic, integrated user journey that's driven by need, not the mythical desire to have a "relationship" with your brand.

Isn’t that brilliant?

As a content strategist myself, what I often tell communications and marketing people is that no one will be interested in your content unless it’s:

  • particularly useful (and even then, usually just to customers)

  • mildly interesting (often just to industry professionals), or

  • super cool (to everyone else).

Everything else you produce will generally be ignored.

Importantly, if you continue to pump out content that people keep ignoring, people will start to ignore you altogether. That is, producing lots of bad and boring content is worse than producing less content that’s much more interesting.

So, please folks, stop limiting your communications approach to just a few popular content tactics and start thinking about content strategy instead. Your audience will appreciate it and your brand will be more well regarded because of it.

20 years since my first PowerPoint presentation

It’s difficult to believe, but today marks twenty years since I gave my first public Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

Back then, in 1998, I was three years in to my BSc (Honours) degree from Lahore University of Management Sciences in Lahore, Pakistan. I was a computer science major, a founding member of the local Association for Computing Machinery chapter, and webmaster of the official university website.

I’d already taken courses in Computer Networks (CS371), Advanced Networks (CS472), and Data Communications (CS574) and had found myself drawn towards network security.

I wouldn’t take the Network Security (CS473) and Network Programming (CS575) courses till the following quarter, but I’d already done plenty of my own research in this area.

All of which eventually led to my Senior Project, ‘Incorporating Advanced Security Features into the LUMS Network’, in my final year – for which I got an A, by the way :)

An introduction to computer network security

But before all that happened, on the afternoon of 8 December 1998, I found myself giving the end-of-term Topic Presentation to our local ACM chapter on the basics of computer network security.

This wasn’t a new area of study, of course – the Morris worm was already ten years old at that time. But a surprising number of computer scientists didn’t (and still don’t, to be honest) know too much about network security.

So, over the next 30 slides and 60 minutes I ran my audience – mostly students plus a couple of teaching assistants – through the OSI model and told them about the security vulnerabilities that existed in each layer and what you could do to secure those layers from attack.

I wasn’t a particularly polished presenter at the time – but then, neither was anyone else in that room so we didn’t mind.

A little visual highlighting goes a long way

That said, I was super happy with my slide deck. There wasn’t any animation in it, as such. But each time I’d move on to discuss a new OSI layer, the layer I was talking about would get highlighted in the box on the right.

This was a super cool visualisation for 1998 and, surprisingly, that basic idea of visually highlighting a part of the whole on a slide deck still looks pretty slick in 2018.

Great success!

I got lots of questions both during and at the end of my presentation, and our hour-long session stretched to ninety minutes – which I was super happy about.

The audience was engaged, inquisitive, and we ended up having an excellent discussion.

All in all, we had a great time.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

The presentations I give these days are of different styles (both ballroom and boardroom) and on different topics (though mostly social media related). What I put on the slides has change drastically over the years, too: more colours, more graphics, high resolution graphics, animations, embedded videos, and so on.

But so much remains the same as it was twenty years ago: I’m still telling a story, I’m still taking people on a journey, and I’m still using interesting visual effects to highlight what I’m talking about.

My storytelling skills have improved over the years, of course – which makes sense given how many books and blog posts I’ve read about giving great presentations.

What’s great is that I still love giving presentations and, if I can blow my own horn here for a second, I think I do a pretty good job with them :)

My latest one, for example, was to support an hour-long ‘social media lab’ in which I taught people how to create great content for social media. I even got to fly around the country and present this to different teams from different parts of the business – which was lots of fun.

So, here’s to twenty more years of telling stories supported by different types of visuals. Who know where we’ll be and how we’ll be presenting to (physically or virtually present) audiences in 2038, but I sure looking forward to getting there.