Inspired by Swedish blogger Fredrik Wass who stated that he will blog for a 100 days in a row I felt I had to get my blog going again. So here we go!

Photographed by Paulina while forecasting trends at the Creative Summit together with among others Brian Solis and Alf Rehn.

In 2011 I was honored to be selected as the keynote speaker for events all over Europe. I delivered more than 80 keynotes on entrepreneurship, creative ideas, future branding, communication and business development, some of them shared here on Slideshare. In more than 90% of the occasions I was given the highest ranking of all the speakers by the audience. Hell, I even spoke for 24 hours in a row without any sleep. In other words – I’m confident I have some thoughts to share on how to deliver a great keynote presentation.

Here are 15 keys to deliver a fantastic keynote presentation.

1. Before even getting on stage – make sure you’ve got your logos, pathos and ethos wired.

What you speak about is 50% of your keynote, but the way you look and sound giving that keynote is the other 50%. The worlds first branding expert Aristotles knew how to make people buy what he sold. He divided the means of persuasion, appeals, into three categories; Ethos, Pathos and Logos.

- Ethos: the source’s credibility, the speaker’s/author’s authority

My credibility when I’m speaking is of course a mix of how I look, my credentials and the way I bring my message forward on stage. A common mistake I see over and over again is when speakers enter the stage and then go; “Before I speak, let me tell you about who I am and the company I’m representing.” This is more or less totally unnecessary since you’re there for a reason. If you do your thing right people will understand that you know your shit. After all, someone invited you so the people in front of you in the crowd will surely expect you to deliver. Remember that no one knows what you will say before you say it so don’t be to hard on yourself if you forget something you were supposed to say!

Who would you listen to if you were a banker? Who would you listen to if you were an Art Director?

An important thing though is to avoid making people angry (if that’s now what your assignment is) by dressing totally wrong, swearing or making fun of things that matter to the people in the room. A certain amount of selling should always be taken into account even if it requires you to dress up differently than you’re used to.

- Logos: the logic used to support a claim (induction and deduction); can also be the facts and statistics used to help support the argument.

When it comes to logos there’s different ways to handle this. Reliable statistics, famous quotes, facts and but also your own observations. However if you only bring up a observation as a proof of your theory you’ll tend to make people feel unsure about your whole presentaiton. But if you make sure to find patterns in historical information and present them in an understandable way you’re usually home free.

In 2007 I spoke about how Facebook would be the worlds most trafficked site with the help of this technical analysis of site traffic.

After all – if you are giving a keynote about future trends or an idea the world have never seen you will have to present logics that support your claims. The history if often your best friend when speaking about things in the future.

- Pathos: the emotional or motivational appeals; vivid language, emotional language and numerous sensory details.

Mirror mirror on the wall! Yes it’s actually true. The more you rehearse the better you get. Use your face, eyes, arms, voice and your whole body. Once you’ve got it wired get out there and rock the party!

2. If you don’t know the subject – don’t speak at all.

The worst presentations I’ve ever given over the years are the ones where I didn’t really master the subject. Avoid moments like that. Of course that shouldn’t keep you from challenging yourselves every now and then. But don’t choose the big arenas for those crying games.

3. Ask what your contractor want

I’ve learned that no one knows your audience better than your contractor. Therefor it’s key that you ask what they want to achieve with your keynote. Make people happy? Make people angry? Make people scared or give people hope. Still I don’t want to much information. It’s important that the contractor doesn’t shape my presentation After all, I am the professional. My solution is the five bullet point rule. Before every presentation I’m expected to give I ask my contractor to send me five short bullets that explains who I’m speaking in front, what they want them to learn, how they want the audience to feel once I’m done and what the goal with the event is.

4. Sell one thing!

This is an easy one so I’ll keep it short – If you’re selling fish don’t make up stories about dead meat. Make sure people understans that know one knows big fish as you do!

5. Drop the corporate bullshit

If you’re representing your company and is expeted to sell something then make sure you share your knowledge and people will ask you in the end what you sell. Nothing sells as competence. Trust people to contact you if they thought you knew what you were talking about.  If you’re on stage purely focused on selling no one will listen to what you’re actually selling.

6. Drop the bullets.

Sometimes the best solution is to make fun of the worst.

No one wants you to read bullets from corporate slides. We’ve all been there. Stuck in the middle of an audience listening to some boring odd character looking not on us but instead on his own presentation and reading those bullets like dead people read poems…not good. Please stop giving keynotes if you don’t know how to sell your shit! Tons of corporate CEO’s are really good at this. They’re sent off to a stage somewhere in never-never-land expected to deliver a keynote with a deck of slides in their hands prepared by a assistent somewhere. I hate CEO’s speaking of shit they don’t know shit about. What’s up with that?

7. Drop the corporate fonts

Every slide in your deck should be there for a reason!

There’s nothing as boring as a presentation with one headline font and then another one for the rest. You’re on stage to inspire people, teach them something and especially keep them awake. No two slides should be the same.

8. Tell stories from your own life.

Preparing a keynote and a story about how my snowboard career ended.

Nothing brings life to a presentation like your own life. True stories that are coming from your own life are the best. People have never heard them before, they’re authentic and people out of some reason always count them as real stories. Of course, if you end up telling stories about Marsians and shit like that people will probably not belive you.

9. You’ve also got ‘black’ slides in your deck!

This is your most valuable slide!

In the world of photoshop, keynote, powerpoint and prezis maybe the most valuable color of them all – black – is often forgotten. If you’ve got something to say that you really really really want people to listen to. Place a black slide in the middle of the deck and let those words out without distraction. If you’re doing it right you’ll have your audience spellbound.

10. Rehearse, rehearse and rehearse some more.

This is one of the things I’m really bad at. But every time I’ve done a presentation that I’m really proud of I’ve almost rehearsed it. I even rehearse presentations that I know by heart already. You can never rehearse enough!

11. It’s your stage. Then make sure it fits your needs.

One of the key factors to delivering a great keynote is the actuall stage. Far to many times have I entered a stage that didn’t match the venue. Maybe the stage was to big compared to how many people visited the event or vice versa. Every now and then someone has placed a wide table between you and the audience – remove it. If people take their places far back in the room – leave the stage and get closer to them. The last thing you want is an audience that thinks your on stage acting superior and distant.

12. One minute before entering the stage

An audience in Zagreb minutes before I’m entering the stage.

Ok, so you’re all done and prepared to give the speech of your life. Remember those five bullet points I wrote about. Now it’s time to get into presentation mode. When I’m waiting to enter the stage I think about these five bullets. The most important one however is how did my contractor want people to feel once I’m done. If they wanted me to make people happy I’m smiling like a dumbass those last 60 seconds. I they wanted me to provoke the audience I’m getting myself psyched up and angry. If they wanted me to make people feel enlightened I’m getting ready to enlighten people. And then I do my best to keep that feeling alive all through the presentation.

13. If something goes wrong – restart yourselves.

Once you’re up there doing your best you will experience moments of dispair. You might see someone in the audience looking bored, someone looks tired or maybe you’ll get an angry comment. Now is the time to seek your inner strenght. Think back to that presentation mode you were supposed to deliver upon. Take a breath, pause, make people wait and then restart. You’ll notice that this will get you back on track!

14. Never lose track of time.

Make sure you prepare your presenter display right.

Rule number one of all presentations. If you’ve got 20 minutes it’s 20 minutes. Not less and definitely not more. If you’re using Apple Keynote you should make sure to set up your second screen with timer and a clock. Another good idea can be to download an app that Per Axbom told me about. It’s called Timer for iPhone and let’s you set up sections to keep track of time. It’s a great help!

15. Shine!

Now it’s up to you! Rock on!

Creatives all over the world do their best to visualize their ideas when pitching clients, preparing for photo shoots or simply putting their ideas on paper. Apart from sketching with Sketchbook Pro I’ve personally been using Flickr and Google Image Search combined with Photoshop for ages. Lately I’ve added Bing and iStockphoto to the list. It’s a time consuming process but it’s usually getting my message across.

Today however I’ve seen the light. A new web based application (down at the moment due to high traffic) that I found on Mashable let’s you draw your ideas and then it composes an image out of that doodle of yours. It’s made by five Chinese Computer Science and Technology students at Tsinghua University and the National University of Singapore and it’s sick!

Whatever kind of ides you’ve got in your head – it’s now easier than ever to get a matching photo. Draw and you will conquer! Here’s a video explaining what this mind-boggling thing does:

We live in the best of times. It’s all happening now!

The Lamborghini Miura – A timeless car

What makes an object timeless? Why in some cases do we all end up liking something so much so it rises from being just another thing to instead becoming culture? Certain designs and certain objects has that little extra, they’re like an open fire – we can’t stop staring. And what’s even more strange is that often are these timeless objects simplistic, clean and not very complex in their structure. One would think we would grow tired of them but no, we grow more and more fond of them every year. One things for sure, it’s not about luck! 

Darth Vader – A timeless charachter

In order to create something timeless you’ve gotta set your goal right from the beginning. It has to be bolder, bigger, better, different from any goal that has been set up before. I call it Megagoals. Basically, you wanna be the best in the world.

Helvetica – A timeless font

Megagoals are set up by people and brands who strive to create something unique, something that will change their category, they don’t take no for an answer and their way of thinking is out of the box. On top of that they’ve got a strong sense that their idea is the right one, not matter what people say. Only by thinking like this can you change history and make your brand timeless.

The Concorde – A timeless aeroplane

If you wanna create timeless things – accept failure. Accept that you won’t always reach your goals, but the sheer fact of setting a goal 10 times higher than your competition will put you ahead of the pack and leave a mark that your grand children’s kids will tell people about.

The Eiffel tower – A timeless structure

So, think about your brand and your products. How can you create the next timeless object. The thing, the gadget, the icon and innovation that will define your brand for centuries to come?

Apple – A timeless brand

Whatever it is, make sure you aim to be 10 times better than the existing competition.

And hey, don’t come telling me that it’s a risk – that’s the price we pay for greatness!

Just say the word – Viral – and brand owners go bananas. It’s what you want. Communication spread all over the world without a penny in media spend. It sounds so easy but in fact, not that many videos circles the globe every year.

Let me share one of my ways of increase the probability of succeeding.

I call it “The Viral Triangle”

I’ve created The Viral Triangle in order to get a better understanding from clients that viral marketing is all about buzz and creating hooks that pull people into the loop. The components of The Viral Triangle is something that comes naturally for many creatives but still loads of so called virals doesn’t even make it beyond the first viewer, only because the lacks a broad variety of hooks.

The Viral Triangle that will dramatically increase your strike rate when it comes to creating viral content. The model is applicable on both creative ideas, movies, content and product development. It’s all about injecting more ways for the consumer to find and spread your ideas.

If you use it right it serves as a simple checkbox model that you can use in order to ensure a wider spread of your ideas. Of course you still have to seed them but using the viral triangle multiplies the relevance for your potential target group.

The Viral Triangle consist of (you guessed it) 3 possible entry points (hooks) for your target group and one core component – the idea.

1. Brand / Product
Every piece of communication that comes out of a company should have the Brand or Product as an important, if not leading, part of the execution.

2. Celebrity / Partner
Associate your solution with some sort of an Ambassador that is widely known among your targets. This way you’ll ensure new possible entries to your communication.

3. Culture / Lifestyle
Finally, the strongest way to establish an idea in a community is to play it, to some part, by their rules.

Core component – The idea.
This is where you have to innovate. Provide your target group with something they have never seen before. Entertainment should be a core component of your communication but you need to do it in a new way. Without that innovative idea it doesn’t really matter what context you put it in – it’s never going to work. People don’t spread boring news.

Let’s have a look at one of the most spread virals this year – The Bike Hero by Droga 5.

Brand.
There’s really no missing that this is about Guitar Hero is it? First hook!

Celebrity/Partner
Music. The video kicks off with a sign saying Prisoner of Society – The living end 1999. Here’s another hook (A quick search for Prisoner of Society places the video nr 2). Tons of people might not like Guitar Hero, but the can associate to the music. It makes them stay a little bit longer.

Culture/Lifestyle
Very early into the video we see that it’s about BMX a popular urban sport among the target group. Hook nr 3.

The solution – the innovative idea.
See for yourselves. It’s a great execution and it’s viral.

Start your creative work by forcing the viral triangle on it. By doing that you have a bigger chance than ever to strike luck. If you do it in another way you might still succeed but the viral potential is limited since you’re relevant to a much smaller audience.

Nothing is like it used to be. A couple of years back I attended a Luxury marketing meeting in Monte Carlo. I was one of the speakers and I spoke about how the younger generation will want to see more things from the Luxury brands than just good old beauty shots of expensive products. A couple of posts back I highlighted the IWC print campaign which is a step in the right direction.

Today however I’m amazed with how prestige cuvée champagne house Krug balances innovation with luxury.

Together with niche luxury art and fashion printing press Visionaire, Krug has created a marvelous piece of pop-up art. The 10 beautifully designed pop-ups have been created by Sophie Calle, Andreas Gursky, Cai Guo-Qiang, Steven Klein, Yayoi Kusama, Alasdair McLellan, Steven Meisel, Guido Mocafico, Nicola Formichetti/Gareth Pugh, Sølve Sundsbø, and Mario Testino. These guys all stand for innovation in their own field. The planning of this campaign is spot on.

Krug has limited the edition to 4,000 numbered copies worldwide and 12 sets with a bottle of Krug Grand Cuvée in a gift box only available at the Ode to Art Gallery in Singapore.

What’s truly nice about this piece is the fact that it’s demonstrates what branding is about today. If you’re looking to spread your brand it’s all about becoming talk of the town and not necessary pay to place your ads all over town.

This activity is about innovation, creativity, partnering with great people, a great print house, the Krug brand, industrial design, video, print, ideas, effect, visuals etc etc etc. There is something for everyone out there.

When you create communication pieces like this they’re spreading them self due to the fact that they offer something unique that is relevant to a multiple of audiences that in their turn spread the content further. In this sense my blog now becomes another branding surface for Krug.

Krug spreads their brand in social networks based on creative and innovative ideas

If your communication initiative is good enough you’ll probably end up with all good branding surfaces. The thing is that bloggers like me and other brand surfaces like to blog about bad stuff too. So make sure your piece of communication is up to the job, otherwise you might end up damaging your brand instead.

So, to conclude this post. What you gotta do is to create brand activities that are absolutely on top of the scale when it comes to innovation and creativity. If you partner up with someone or as in Krug’s case a bunch of great people, your campaign will kick off like never before since there is so much in there for everyone.

ps. I found the campaign on Luxury Insider. Down in Monte Carlo I met the founders of the site, a great bunch of young entrepreneurs.

I seek inspiration everywhere. But Steve Jobs and his lifework with Apple is absolutely one my top inspiration sources. Ran into this Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005 on YouTube. Steve shares the highs and low of his life.

What strikes me with this one is that Steve in a great way conveys the importance of not becoming a product of your business/background but instead always look for the unknown. Also the fact that sudden changes in life usually leads to something better as long as you keep our fire burning. (Something I’ve experienced myself).

Two quotes from Steve Jobs I personally live by too.

• Steve Jobs – “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to loose”
• Steve Jobs – “The only way to do great work is to love what you do”

Here’s the speech!

Quite silly, but a good way to remember nice quotes.

“Creativity is the opposite of routine” – Unknown.

Ms Swissmiss found a pretty good answer to that question on Frank Chimero’s, designer, illustrator and tinkerer from Missouri, USA, website.