 J. It is always fun visiting with you on your show. I've learned something every time I'm here. Thank you for inviting me And so do I Graphic design, you know, I mean if you're going to do what we do at think deck you got to be interested in graphic design And you are the cats meow. May I say that? I don't know if it's the cats meow or the cats scratch my face. I think it's one of the two But you know, it's interesting that you mentioned graphic design because I look at the picture behind you Why did you put pictures there? Why does it not have text? And the answer is because images communicate and What I've discovered is that a lot of people assume that images are the domain of the graphic artist and only The the highly trained Graphicist can create images and unfortunately, that's damaging to a lot of people including executives and High-tech people who don't understand how to use images to communicate Have you J for instance just to ask your question Have you ever needed to do a fundraising pitch to get people to donate to your August enterprise? why see every do that right and Think about how important it is for people to pay attention and for you to capture the attention of people who aren't paying Attention the first place The audience that you're trying to reach is highly distracted and is looking for every possible reason not to listen to you So what are you going to do to get their attention? Well, obviously you're going to sit down at your keyboard You're going to write a 75-page white paper and drop this tome directly on their laps They can't move until they give you a credit card, but for most people that won't work No, so the question is you know, what what is a? Graphic emitter like me. What do I do to get graphics that can communicate? By realizing that you have access to a lot more design tools than you think and over the next 20 minutes I'm going to give you some specific examples of what you can do to improve the quality of your communication So Jay, here's a question you've just been given the assignment of doing a Fundraising pitch to the business round table in your city. You're going to be talking to executives What's the very first thing you do? after panicking You design what kind of graphics you're going to use and what kind of messages you want to send out and make sure That they're both on the same page You may be one of the lucky few that thinks that but most of us would sit down at the keyboard and start to type up a Bunch of PowerPoint slides which are all text heavy. In fact, if you look at this image here This is a typical PowerPoint slide And you get up there on stage you say, you know two separate independently controlled long-range studies Show an average of 50% growth in positive outcomes for test subjects when compared to the historical baseline And by now the entire audience is asleep. They realize you can't read an English sentence and they've just about passed out You've lost their attention. What happens if you say that? It's exactly the same message It was created using a font called Cooper black a Gradient which can be done in any application that exists on any computer Mac or Windows with a little border on it It's an outbarrow and yet what does this do? It says 50% growth well the very first thing the audience does as it comes back to you It says chain. What are you talking about? I got to get in on 50% growth. They're not reading an English sentence They're looking at a graphic Where did you look first? Did you look at the body text? Probably not Did you look at the headline? Probably not the very first place you looked was the image if you're talking to a distracted audience What you want to do is find a way to cut through that distraction get them off their phones and Get them to pay attention to you as soon as they see that slide The very first thing they're gonna do is they're gonna turn back to you and say Jay I gotta know more tell me what what this is What text could you write? That would equal the emotional power of that fire chief on the scene of a disaster There's not a word you could put down nothing that would equal that Why then do we spend all of our time as we're getting ready to do a PowerPoint slide? Why do we spend all of our time in trying to find ways to put text on the screen when the text is not gonna help us? You pop that up Duck migration. Okay, think tech Hawaii 50% and a picture not of a duck But maybe a you know something that's meaningful a pile of gold coins of a bank statement something but it's a picture and Notice two things number one There's very few words on there and number two it doesn't answer a single question 50% what? Why a duck? Now this would be a biology conference when you're talking about ducks But the very first thing people are gonna do is look at that and say cool They look back at you and say Jay What are you talking about and you with a serious expression lean against the podium and you say with great sincerity? Do you realize? That 50% of the ducks migrating in the spring and the fall are female Well, you don't pay that off in the slide You pay that off in your talk and what you do is you're making yourself the center of attention You're not making the slides the center of attention and everything that you're doing in that slide is cutting through the distraction is cutting through People's trying to get on the phone. They have to keep looking up and say wait a minute What's this slide about because when you think about it your goal in Communicating is to capture the attention of the audience and hold it long enough to deliver your message and Your message is so compelling because you care about it That people say hey, I have to I have to take a part of this. This this is something I need to belong to they unlimber their checkbooks and they give you the contribution or fund your idea or start the company or or Participate in some form. They agree with you because you cut through the chatter and That's what images do. We don't have to be a professional photographer We don't have to understand graphic design. In fact, we can do much better than that we can Leverage the power of emotions to tell the stories that we want to tell For instance here take a look at this slide Together we can create magic Look at that How can you not look at that slide and how can you not come back and look and say Jay that is brilliant? Yes, we can create magic together my organization your funding together the power of the synergy is greater than each of us alone Let's find ways to create magic. I'm not an artist. This is stock art I'm leveraging the power of typefaces I'm leveraging the power of of the way I'm formatted on the screen In fact, if you look at me on the screen, you notice I'm not particularly centered. I'm slightly off-center Why? Because if you're centered You're a very boring image The eye says, okay, they're sitting in the center Now I want to look and what happens is my eye looks at you and you look handsome. You're well-lit Gloriously photographed and I want to start looking at the images behind you because the eye gets bored of stuff that's in the center The eye wants to see what's slightly off-center. So notice that when we're doing an interview show on any name the talk show The host is never perfectly centered. They're always slightly off-center because that balanced but off-center approach Adds I catching interest you have to keep coming back. Why isn't he centered? I look at the background and I say that that background looks kind of interesting interesting colors of yellow and green and brown And let me come back and look at Larry and then my eye leaves Larry and it comes right back again The eye is attracted not to that which is perfectly framed and perfectly centered But which is balanced which is slightly off-center Which means that you keep coming back to who I am you keep coming back to what I look like As opposed to alright, I've seen him done been there done that let me go take a look at that fifth picture in from the left So start to think about what is it that what do I have to do to capture the attention of an audience now here I've got a question for you. You're sitting down. You're ready for this Look at this slide. What's wrong with this image? Give me a minute She's I don't know. There's a bunch of things the frame is funny It's black and white no color. She's looking down not at you I don't know it maybe it does have an emotional impact, but I don't feel it You're gonna hate me when I tell you She doesn't have any legs The way our brains are wired not just yours not just mine But all of us is when we see a picture in the frame We assume that the only thing that's real is that which is inside the frame Just as you looked at that woman and you looked you only saw that which was inside the frame everything else you ignored Well, we can take advantage of that. It's a process called framing We can take advantage of that in terms of how like the way I'm composed now I'm slightly off-center. That's taking advantage of framing because the way your brain works It says the only thing I can see is what's inside the shot with Larry Now if you looked around you'd be seeing some lights and some cameras and some microphones and about 17 different computers and more Technical stuff that I want to talk about with you today But your brain says none of that exists the only thing that exists is that which is inside the frame Now take a look at this picture The instant your eye sees an image and there's no caption. There's no text Your brain starts to invent a story Why is Sarah sad? Why isn't the couple talking to each other? They're clearly somewhere other than the United States because look at that architecture on the other side of the lake And look at how she's dressed She obviously had a falling out Maybe, you know, maybe she was leading a difficult life Maybe she lost a family Whatever it is your brain starts to spin stories and you look at this you say it's a sad picture It's a haunting picture Even without me explaining it you're starting to get an emotional impact back from that image take a look at the next one Does this tug the heart strings right out of you the five-year-old girl waving goodbye to her mom as she leaves for work Oh my goodness how can the mom have the audacity to leave her child And the sadness and the child's face the separation of the child who loves her mom and her mom is leaving her This one brings tears to my eyes every time I see it partly because I know who they are But also the feeling of the young girl she would not let her mom go to work Unless she ran out to wave goodbye in her night dress no less She's trying to hold on to her And notice that your brain starts to create a story Instantly as soon as you see it I'll give you one more example Do you think she's happy She could be smiling and laughing hysterically but notice that we're looking down on her So we've already diminished her because we are looking down like we look down on a child The image is all blues and gray so it's not a warm cheerful color palette We see her from the back so we can't see her face she's alienated from us we are separated from her This is about teen suicide Depression of a broken relationship whatever it is As a parent you want to go over and just give her a hug and say it's going to be okay But notice how that emotion comes right back to you If you were doing a talk and say what we help people do is to identify people that are in trouble And give them a hand I mean think how that image would tell your story without you have to say a word So you were saying do I need to be a graphic artist no you don't have to be a graphic artist You just need to understand the the way that emotions trigger pictures And you were saying that you can get this without being a graphic artist from stock photo houses You know and and we we think tech we have a list of 20 of them But the problem is how do you find Graphics that are like the ones you have been showing us they're powerful How many do you have to go through To achieve that kind of emotional impact it's not easy It isn't but here's a secret don't search by subject search by emotion So when you're searching for something type in the word sad type in the word joyful type in the word happy There's an image that I saw a website that I like which provides free images which are are able to be used at a high quality is pexels P.E.X. E.L.S. pexels.com and I typed in happiness and it was a picture of a pair of elephant seals Elephant seals and the male elephant seal is just smiling huge giant smile you can't see that picture without smiling with it Now when would you type in I want to see a smiling elephant seal on a search you never would But as soon as you search for happiness Maybe you see a dog that's smiling or an elephant seal or a balloon or something that gives that emotion Because now you're looking for that what you really want to convey which is the emotion of your image not the Not a sudden you don't want to say show me a young woman and brown hair. That's no give me the emotion The emotion can be represented in a number of different ways Well it has to be Keywords in that site in pexels for example there's somebody who wrote the word happiness in there Not all not all graphic sites stock photo sites are that good some of them won't have the word happiness You know you'd be surprised at how many do I've gone to get a images. I've gone to shutter stock I've gone to pond 5 I've gone to pexels and all of them have emotional triggers built into many of their images And remember if you've got 5 million images to choose from even if only a million have been categorized That's still more images than you're going to need in your your production Now another couple things If we go back a couple slides go back to that picture of the of the boy in the magic images are magic That slide when the duck there you go perfect that slides designed very specifically I know that by the way that it's designed your eye is going to go to the image first Then it's going to go to the title Then it's going to images that work it's going to go to the body text I can control by the way I do that design I can control where your eye goes for a second third so I can actually tell a story as your eye scans through that slide And the reason is is our brains are hardwired to go through a checklist when we see an image on where to look first And where it looks second and where to look third just like this PowerPoint slide here So let's take come back to me go to the slide that says six priorities and put that on The way that I chose down this checklist is the very first thing the eye looks at is movement Then focus then brighter sorry then different then brighter than bigger in front Since a hundred thousand years ago when we were hunter gatherers if something moved out of the corner of our eye Everything else stopped until we turn to identify that movement can we eat it or is it going to eat us That's so hardwired into us that filmmakers take advantage of that all the time by moving the camera because that movement draws us into the scene Where did your eye go first it went right to the horse not the dust not the trees not the sky not the ground but the moving horse Because our eye says it's moving am I in trouble or do I have breakfast on the hoof so to speak If nothing's moving and for still images we can apply movement but not actually show it the second option is that which is in focus Notice that your eye went to the woman first because although there are dozens of people in the slide Only one person's in focus and you saw her first if everything is still or not moving and if everything is in focus The third option comes into play your eye goes to that which is different There's all kinds of puzzle pieces here but your eye sees the black puzzle piece first because it's different than everything else The rest the slide is white the fourth option if everything is the same is your eye goes to that which is brighter You see the woman in a white t-shirt before you see the woman on the left And before you look past them to realize you're in a wine bar and you start to look at all the furnishings around it If everything else is the same your eye goes to that which is bigger Now here we have a double advantage the woman in in front is both bigger and in focus the background is out of focus But the fact that she's bigger draws our eye before anything else in a shot Then the last criteria is that which is in front We see that which is in front before we look at that which is in back and if you change again We can use multiple ones of these at the same time Here the woman in the front is also brighter. She's also in focus So you have to look at her first have to and then you look at the people behind her the two women over her shoulder Because they're brighter than the two people on the edges I can say you're going to see the woman in the center than the two women behind her than the two people on the edges And 99% of the time that checklist is going to happen exactly the same way with everybody that sees your slides This is all stock footage but now think about that image that I had with the kid Your eye went to that child that had the magic right exactly He's brighter. He's bigger. He's in focus Colorful different meets almost all the checkboxes except not moving and then you go to that which is brighter You go to the together images do magic and an images work You've got that same checklist. Well, this checklist is available to everybody. You don't have to be a graphics designer These pictures that you're showing us are I know you're showing them to us to point out the priorities and where our eyes had run But they're also emotional pictures. I mean what are these would you use these pictures in order to convey an emotional message The ones you've been showing us I'm talking on a network television show right now and I'm using these images I would say yes. I use these images. I use the images in the fire chief I yeah, here's another example Emotions are in more than just images if we skip down through the slides we see a text graphic and they're talking about plumbing The color is exactly the same the point size is exactly the same the words the content is exactly the same But do they have the same emotional context? No The one on top looks like it's made out of spun sugar and likely to dissolve in the next rainstorm The one on the bottom says these pipes are not going anywhere And this is just simply changing a typeface type faces have emotion Which of these two feels more like a keepsake? Colors are the same words are the same contents the same positions the same It's not the same emotion and don't you have access to the typefaces on your computer Can't you use these to evoke the same emotional and now combine the emotion of text with the emotion of your images Which of these two is more fearful? It's tight. It's a typeface. It's something you type with your keyboard and you put into Microsoft Word And yet they don't look the same at all Or how about this one here the text is the same but the background is not Notice how on the left the cleanest room robot against that day glow yellow Your eye sees the background and has to fight off the background to be able to read the words in front And the background is so intense and so bright just sucks your eyes back Whereas on the right the background supports the words the words are easier to read and you read the title With the general background on the right and you have to fight your way off the background The background on the left Or here take a look at this. This is everything you don't want to do Driving down a highway in Nevada. I saw this graphic on the back of a truck There's the name of the company. There's a slogan. There's another slogan. There's a third slogan There's a graphic of a flag. There's a logo and there's a phone number and all of that is wasted All of it first they don't keep their trucks clean so that doesn't help But second there's so much going on that nobody bothered to actually look at this thing on the back of a truck So they spent a fortune to get this designed another fortune to get it printed and put on to the truck and To drive the truck around and all they're doing is wasting money Because they didn't think about well, what do people see first and what are they going to see and if I'm going to put this ad on here Wouldn't it be nice to to hose down the back of the truck every so often the answer is yes Or here take a look at this Which of these shots is the most emotional to you? It's rhetorical It's the exact same image The one on the left is in color the one in the middle is in black and white The one on the right is sepia But they don't have the same emotional resonance The image on the left feels like it's today the image on the the center is sort of like I'm depressed But though the one on the right in sepia is an age old longing for some way of getting out of this existence that I'm in There's not the same emotion at all Or here one more just by the way you position the camera Which of these two shots of the Emphasizes the subject The one where we're looking at the two standing facing each other Pretty boring Or where we move the camera over the shoulder What you find is is that when you have the camera in the center you're showing the geography of where stuff is located But when you move over the shoulder Now we start to get closer into emotions and close ups And look at how much more visually interesting and compelling that picture is on the right Well if you never thought about it you'd take the handshake in the top center because you know it's a handshake That's all I need But now that you're aware of it you'll never take that center shot again because Why why leave all that emotion on the table Or take a look at this Which of these feels happier It's the exact same shot Exactly the same I just cropped it in for a close up Close ups deliver emotions Wide shots deliver geography So I see he's working on a computer He's sitting on the steps But I don't get the same level of joy on the wide shot as I do with the close up So maybe I download the close up But I say I really want to show this guy happy So crop it in so you just see his face Or this one Notice how taking the color away Makes it more Lonely more alienated More on your own Same shot Same framing Same size Colors missing Or this one Remember I was talking about the fact that if something is centered your eye quickly goes away from it Look at how you look at the picture on the left and say ah Stones are centered Your eye instantly goes over the stones on the right And keeps going back to the stones on the right Because it is a much more intriguing shot When it's balanced but off center Then if it's centered Or how about this It's a still image But which one is moving And which one is more interesting to look at And which one keeps your attention Or this one Which one feels scarier Well the one on the left we're looking down at a toy dinosaur The one on the right the toy dinosaur is about to have us for lunch It's simply being aware of the power of images And thinking about what it is that you want to convey When you're doing your presentation Jay and I'm just inventing because I've never heard it And you've never shared it with me But what you want to do is you want to reassure people that you are a reputable organization That you're doing good work That you're worth being supported Which means that you need to convey Solidity, stability, trust And the fact that together we can grow this into something more than it already is So the images that you want to use and the slides you want to put up Should not deafen people with thousands of words It should work on how do I reinforce trust How do I reinforce stability How do I reinforce the fact that I am a reputable honorable man And the people that you're working with are exactly like you That doesn't require writing tomes and putting lots of diagrams on a PowerPoint slide It requires thinking about what your real message is and the real message is I can be trusted I'm worth your fundraising dollar I'm worth you spending time with I'm worth you learning more Because the world will be a better place if together we make this happen And that doesn't require a graphic artist That just requires someone that looks at art from the perspective of What emotion does this convey And how does that emotion rub back on me From typefaces to page layout to selecting images Isn't that cool? Yeah, oh there's so much in there what you've said So let's have a case study So I want to develop a trust relationship I want to demonstrate that I can be trusted That I'm the kind of person that they should send a check to For example in the business context So here I am on pixels or a shot of stock or whatever you have Whatever stock photo opportunities you have What words would you put in to achieve a photo that would have the maximum power I wouldn't necessarily without hearing the whole speech But just hearing that sketch The stuff that I would be talking about would be partnerships People working together People cooperating Handshakes Some discussion perhaps But what you want to do is Is that you really need to have people partner with you To grow your organization It isn't you by yourself and it isn't the team behind you And it isn't just the audience It's your supporters It's your audience It's your team and it's you It gets developed now We can start to talk about cooperation We can talk partnership We can talk mentoring We can talk trust All of these There's lots of images that go with all of those But what we're talking is Is emphasizing the emotion Nobody's going to give you a dime if they don't trust you They won't give anybody a dime if they don't trust you The first thing you have to establish is trust The second you have to is that You're not only trust worthy But people are going to be able to know That their money is going to be well spent That you're going to put that money to good use And you're going to use it to develop Whatever your next project happens to be So they've got to get a sense that you have a vision You know where you're going You know how you need to get there You need resources to make it happen And the only way those resources are going to become available Is for you to be trust worthy Believeable Honest And then from there people say Okay, I'm going to commit this Then they're going to turn to their significant others I'm going to invest $10,000 in this And the significant others are going to say Well, how come? Well, what they've made inside is They've made an emotional decision I trust Jay I'm going to give Jay my money That's an emotional decision Then they're going to turn to their significant other Or their friends or the business associates To think tech Hawaii Because they're a reputable organization They have high ratings They've got good numbers They're going to justify it with logic But the decision is emotional All decisions are emotional Profit never factors into it It's do I believe this person It kind of makes a difference Once you hook them emotionally Then they'll find the reason to justify Why they're doing But the real reason is because they believe you What about the connection Larry Between the graphics and the words There's got to be a connection There's got to be consistent One has to reinforce the other Can you talk about that? I can, but it would take another hour If I can show the last slide About a year and a half ago I wrote a book called Techniques of Visual Persuasion Which answers that exact question And it took me 400 pages to do it Which I don't want to read to you tonight But it's the only book of its kind That I've ever seen Because it's designed for executives It's designed for non-artists To help them understand How they can create powerful images That motivate change What is persuasion? How do we do persuasive writing? How do we design PowerPoint slides? How do we use fonts to express emotion? How do we use colors to express emotion? How do we design PowerPoint slides That do what we want them to do? It covers photography PowerPoint Video production Audio production Motion graphics In one book you won't be a professional In any of these But you'll be sensitive to all of these So that when you talk to your artists Or you talk to your videographers Or you talk to your audio people You understand the decisions they're making And you can help them make better decisions And I have been blown away By the response to this book It's available on Amazon It's published by Peach Pit And it's targeted for Are not the artists But the people who have always viewed artists As mysterious Ethereal creators And all of us can be artists I can't draw a straight line I can't create art But I can take existing art And I can use it for my purposes And benefit from it And that book shows you how to do that You know we live in a world That's online And the communications That ThinkTech and other companies Make are online Of course you have the connection Between the graphic And the text But these days Not that we do this necessarily But these days You can take the same space That you might have reserved earlier For a static graphic And put a short video clip There instead Your thoughts then Is it worth going down that road? You get the benefit there Which do you prefer? Well my recommendations Walk before you run It's easier to come up With a single still image That tells your message Now when you've got video You've got movement And you've got time Two things that you haven't had to deal with before So how do you use the movement How does the animation reinforce your message? And so what you find yourself making Is a whole lot more decisions Than you had to make with a still image So my suggestion is Find an image or set of images That work for you And use those and see if they work There's that picture of the moving horse Express power and change And mastery Whatever it is that you're trying to convey If that does now Substitute the picture of the Moving horse And now with the moving horse Now you can put some text that flies in And you start to watch Because we can track this instantly Watch your clicks Do your clicks go up or down As you put in the video They went down Let's animate some text Went down Let's try a different text Try a different font So you can start to do incremental measurement On an instant by instant basis Like a Super Bowl TV ad Where you're spending $5 million And it's make or break And you don't know until the Super Bowl's over If anybody was watching That's a high risk endeavor For people that really know what they're doing For the people like us That are evolving our message And evolving our communication skills This incremental ability to try it See does it get response Make a change Just one change Change the font Go down Then just keep doing that Until you start to Oh yeah, this works That doesn't work This works, that doesn't work And keep building on that which works And because it's incremental And because it's dirt cheap You know, experiment And then get hourly reports back Or the worst daily reports But be willing to make changes On a daily basis Just maybe a hard question, Larry Is there a relationship Although we haven't We haven't had the time to actually go into it With the text that you're using We've talked about, you know, the font Which is also kind of a graphic, isn't it But what about duration We're talking emotional Emotional capability here We're talking about the human species And the brain How the brain looks for this, that And the other thing As a matter of priority What time do I have Before my time runs out Six seconds We live in an ADD society If you don't have their attention In six seconds you're going to have to work Really hard to get it back again So that's one of the reasons Why we want to keep working with images Because when I pop an image up Your eye goes to that image to check it out Moving or still doesn't make any difference Then you've got to use that image To hook their attention So they can check their phone Because they know Facebook is calling them So one of the reasons We keep using images Is we're trying to break through this ADD Instant gratification And the only way we can do that Aside from jumping on top of the podium And tearing our tie off And making a fool of ourselves Is to use images that have power And to use images as a way Of distracting the distracted audience To bring them back to us So they can pay attention to our message Talking for 40 minutes, 30, 40 minutes And my hope is that I've kept you interested during that whole time But notice that during that time I've had a number of illustrations To explain my point And the illustrations have been To explain the captivating nature Of images and typefaces And colors And you've been looking at it And this is the last takeaway And then we can wrap up Because brains will explode But the reason that you're talking to me The reason that you're talking to me Is not because Larry is a good speaker I'm not a bad speaker But the first thought in your mind Was not that Larry is a good speaker First thought in your mind Is does Larry have anything Interesting to say That will benefit me Dale Carnegie coined this Almost 80 years ago He called it W-I-I-F-M What's in it for me I'm talking 40 minutes or more Talking with me right now Is not because you want to give me My 15 minutes of fame But because you're hoping That by listening to me You can glean something That you can use in your company tomorrow What's in it for me And everyone in your audience Is thinking exactly the same thing If they're still listening It's because there's something in it For them that they can apply In their business Nobody cares what Jay needs except Jay What you've got to do Is what's in it for your audience How did they benefit How did they gain And when you can position your talk From the point of view of What's in it for me Meaning the audience The world's your oyster Because nobody cares what you need Nobody cares what you want Nobody cares how important it is to you That's just a given You make me care You show how I'm going to benefit Man, I'll follow you around For the rest of my life And I will follow you around For the rest of your life, Larry Larry Jordan Every time we talk I feel enriched by the lessons Thank you so much And I hope we can do this again I know you're working on another book I want to talk about that And so many things we couldn't cover today But there will be another time Thank you so much