Boris’ presentation agency – 356labs
Boris Hristrov, Data Platform MVP, design whizz, and all-round great guy, recently launched 356labs. Boris wrote a great Presentation Design course for PluralSight, you can sign up for a trial of PluralSight and watch the course if you’d like to find out more.
Being an avid reader of design stuff I did find I knew some of the things on the course, but the context and application were very helpful. Off the back of his course, I went on to produce my most visually impressive presentation slide deck to date – Agile BI.
I took a look over his site and asked a few questions since I was really curious. Here are the responses!
Q) How long before the presentation deadline should someone get in touch?
A) At least one week before, preferably two to four weeks in advance. This gives us sufficient time to deliver the best results for the presentation, and allows time for the presenter to practice and get comfortable with it.
Q) What should the presenter already have done?
A) The presenter should already have the material they want to cover, as 356 don’t write the actual material. Ideally, the presenter will already have a story or narrative through their material, but if they don’t that’s ok as we’ll help them with that bit.
Q) How much time do 356 put in?
A) Typically 2-3 days, but it depends on the starting point and where the presenter wants to take it. If it needs weeks, then that’s what we’ll do – we are in to make this the best presentation they can present with, so we make no compromises.
Q) How many hours can the presenter expect to put in with you?
A) They need to put in at least 2 or 3 hours with us initially to build the story around the talk. Once we agree on the draft version, we start the design process. From there they may be contacted for additional feedback and details, but this work can be easily done via e-mails too.
Q) Do you turn anyone away?
A) Yes. People who don’t take their presentations seriously and are not willing to communicate properly will be sent away
I was really gladdened by the response to that last question – some people might see Boris’ 356 as an outsourcing of presentations, thinking they can pay their way to awesomeness and it’s good to see that Boris recognises this risk. Personally, my expectation is that someone will only need to use 356 once – so that they can see actually hands-on how to turn the great theory into reality. Once they’re thus equipped they can make good decks in future, maybe going to 356 again when they’re worried about a magnitude jump in the size of their audience and want some extra help.
Do check out Boris’ course, the 356labs portfolio, and 356labs blog. I want to sit through better presentations, and we can all always do better!