Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

For a couple of years now (actually more than a couple of years if I really think about it) I’ve been meaning to get around playing with either Powerpoint of the Apple equivalent, Keynote. These slide show organizing software packages are used in business to make presentations and deliver talks where the visual images/slides are used to help make the points that are being talked about… I’ve been a big fan of watching the Apple Keynote speeches that are typically delivered by Steve Jobs and have enjoyed the way that the presentations have been so seamlessly accentuated by stunning visual graphics, videos, music, impressive text etc and have always figured that given the right situation I’d like to learn how to do this sort of thing and figure out a way to incorporated it into one of my shows.

Now it’s not the thing if you’re presenting a show outdoors which I often do, but in an indoor setting they can be quite effective. I first saw one used by a performer who was doing an impersonation show. He’d flash images on screen of the voice he was emulating and the power of the visual combined with his impersonation had a far greater impact than what the effect would have been had he just gone out and done a series of voices. The next performer I saw using slideshow technology was a stand-up comic named Jim McDonald on a ship who had a series of great jokes about what life is like on ships and used slides to help make his points. The visuals combined with the set-up and punchlines of the jokes appealed to both the audiences ability to hear the joke, but also to see it as well… The more senses you appeal to, the greater the effect you have on the audience… That’s a given, but as a juggler the visual impact I usually aim for is more directly related to the skills I’m presenting than some other visual that might be more of a distraction than an addition, so I’d never figured out a way to successfully incorporate the power of a slide show presentation with the style of performance that I do.

The chance has finally come though… This Thursday, October 22 I’ll be one of twelve speakers at the CreativeMix Ideation Conference. As the website states –

This conference is for everyone who depends on their creative output—whether it’s a small or big part of their work. The goal is to help individuals take their creativity to the next level! We believe that the next level can be achieved through inspiration that comes from learning and working outside the box.

When I was first asked about doing this I wasn’t really sure how it was going to pan out and to be honest I’m still not sure how it’s going to pan out… I’ve had a pretty wait and see what happens approach to this as it’s been in the works for almost a year, but the cool factor of what this is has just recently started to hit me. I recently took another look at the list of speakers who will be talking and scratched my head and wondered why on earth I’d been included in such a cool cross section of Vancouver Creative Community, but decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and am diving in head first in an attempt to get as much out of the experience as I possibly can…

This includes finally sitting down and playing around with some visuals that I’ll be including in my 25 minute session. I opted to use Keynote as the presentation software as this is what the presenter specifically asked for I figured that since this is what they’ll be using it’s likely best to keep the software packages as in sync as possible so I run into the fewest possible technical head aches. Sat down last Friday and took the on-line tutorials on the Apple website then noodled around with the version of the software that I’ve got (a few generation’s old at this point), then Saturday I sat down and crafted the talk from the ground up and played with the visuals that I’ll be using and put them together in a nice slideshow format so I could meet the imposed Monday deadline (yesterday) for such things…

Having this deadline imposed on me gave me the incentive I needed to make the time to learn the software. Now that I’ve played with it, I’m quite keen to see how the talk goes on Thursday and how it feels using visuals of this nature in the context of my ‘performance.’ If it ends up being as fun as I hope it will be I think I’ll have to start working on other ways I can incorporate this into my regular shows… Hmmm… Fun!