Ethos3 had the privilege to spend a few minutes with Cliff Atkinson, author of Beyond Bullet Points.
Cliff’s Bio: Cliff Atkinson is an acclaimed writer, popular keynote speaker, and an independent consultant to leading attorneys and Fortune 500 companies. He designed the presentations that helped persuade a jury to award a $253 million verdict to the plaintiff in the nation’s first Vioxx trial in 2005, which Fortune magazine called “frighteningly powerful.” Cliff’s bestselling book Beyond Bullet Points (Microsoft Press, 2007) was named a Best Book of 2007 by the editors of Amazon.com, and it expands on a communications approach he has taught at many of the country’s top law firms, government agencies, business schools and corporations, including Sony, Toyota, Nestlé, Nokia, Nationwide, Deloitte, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Intel, Microsoft and the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal.
1. We are big fans of your book, Beyond Bullet Points, can you tell our readers a little bit about the book? (Though not too much, they need to go and buy it!!)
Beyond Bullet Points is a “how-to” book that shows you a proven approach you can use to create an effective presentation. Using classic story and logic techniques that are thousands of years old, the BBP approach guides you through the steps to create a clear story structure and then a compelling storyboard. The second edition of the book tells the story of the impact BBP can have – a lawyer in Texas used BBP to persuade a jury to award a $253 million verdict, which Fortune magazine called “frighteningly powerful.”
BBP starts with 3-act story structure as its foundation, and guides the development of a visual story from there. Although storytelling has been around thousands of years, in most organizations today it is still rare to see a PowerPoint presentation that tells a story.
3. I know you work with several attorneys, how is that field at storytelling?
5. In your industry, how do you encourage communicators to approach the generation gap between boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y?
All generations these days are comfortable with film and television, so the best way to bridge gaps is to use the common language of visual media. The difference these days is that where a filmmaker in the past might only consider theaters or television sets as places to display their work, today they have many more outlets and platforms including YouTube, iPhones, and Facebook, among others.
