Keynote at TheNextWeb: The future is motion graphic presentations

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I am giving keynotes this Wednesday at TheNextWeb CxO Summit and on Friday at TheNextWeb Conference.

My topic will be the Future of Crowds, a big picture view of how crowds will be the future of everything, including its impact on work, organizations, business models, capitalism, reputation, media, marketing, innovation, opportunity, and government.

However one of the most interesting aspects of my keynote is that my visual presentation will consist entirely of motion graphics, 3D, and video – there will be no still images.

I first started experimenting with using Flash in presentations in the 1990s, and often use a variety of videos and flash embedded into my presentations. For many years I have wanted to create an entirely moving graphic presentation. When I was asked to speak at TheNextWeb, I thought it was a great opportunity to finally do it.

For the last few weeks I have been working with a global team of moving graphic and 3D designers to create my visual presentation.



What is significant is that it is only the advent of crowd work that has enabled me to create this presentation. Not long ago the only viable way of doing it would be to pay an agency tens of thousands of dollars. Now I can gather a global team of awesome 3D and motion graphic designers for a significantly more reasonable cost, easily collaborating to develop the visual ideas through screen sharing and other tools.

I believe we are about to enter an era of motion graphic presentations. Initially Powerpoint was mainly used for lots of words in bullet points. Over the last years presentations have become far more visual, with now even the average presentation usually far better than 5-10 years ago. The next phase is presentations consisting largely of moving images. This won’t be for all situations, but certainly for when a strong impression needs to be created, such as in keynotes.

I am not aware that any entirely motion graphic presentations have been done before. Prezi is a good platform, but with only a couple of dimensions to play with. Please let me know in the comments if you’ve seen one.

It’s time to properly kick off the motion graphic presentation era. Creating my presentation has been a massive rush in the middle of a very busy period over the last few weeks, however I’m pretty pleased with what we’ve come up with. However it is a first effort, and from now I will be working hard to get better at the art of motion graphic presentations.

If this is the dawn of a new age of motion graphic presentations, I very much look forward to seeing what emerges. It is a marvellous domain for exploring visual metaphors, 3D conceptual representations, and ideas writ on a large stage, an arena for boundless creativity.

I believe my TheNextWeb presentation will be live streamed and archived, and I will probably release it as a video along with audio of me giving the presentation. If you do or see any other motion graphics presentations do let me know. I am sure that truly amazing things are coming in this space.