3 truths about AI and design with expert Mike Parkinson

Mikey Mioduski: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Presentation Thinking. AKA, the Storyteller Study Club. This is your host, Mikey Meki, founder of Ghost Ranch Communications, presentation Design Studio Nest Old in America. You know, we're spread out and I'm joined by someone. I look up to someone. I've been following an industry expert as far as I see it.

Mike Parkinson, you just told me you don't like to talk about yourself, so this may be tough, so I'll, I'll brag about you. You're a Microsoft MVP, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That look that up. 'cause that is super impressive and you're the partner at Billion Dollar Graphics and 24 Hour company and I can't wait [00:01:00] to get to know a little bit more about each of those.

I know a thing or two, but I really like that you've structured them, you know, in different ways for the different offerings and personas that you, y'all service. Mike, like welcome, thanks for being on the show.

Mike Parkinson: Thank you for having me. Mikey, big fan of you as well, and Ghost Ranch. I think that you do incredible work.

Definitely one of the top groups I've ever, ever seen in the world. What You blow me away, the stuff that you do and the fact that you're trying to make a difference in the world that you're championing best practices is a, is just, I should like cheer from the top of a mountaintop 'cause not many people do.

It's a lot of work to do what you're doing right now.

Mikey Mioduski: Man, that's huge. High praise that, that warms my heart on a Friday. I'm, that's, that's got the, the wind in my sails, Mike. So I appreciate that. You've been on the show one time when we had a little party with Rick Altman. Carmen, Simon. But today's all, I want to hear more about you, and you've been in the game for a while and I think you probably have some really [00:02:00] solid perspectives on where things are going.

You're a visual storyteller, presentation designer, a designer in general. Can you tell us about your background, how you got to where you are? You can give us the long or the short version.

Mike Parkinson: Short version. Yeah. 'cause as, as, as I said, I'm not a fan about myself. Got into fine art, went to Baltimore School for the Arts, realized I couldn't make the living I wanted to make.

Grew up, you know, America poor, so not overseas poor, but, um, said, you know what, I don't wanna be poor anymore. So I figured. What can I do? Went into, I stumbled upon computer graphics and marriage made in heaven, love science, love art, and helped found or helped start 24 Hour Company, which is a graphic services firm.

We do it for our clients. Yep. At was almost 30 years ago, which is crazy. Wow. I know, right? Yeah. In, in 20, in 2006, my wife and I. Said, well, there's a lot of people out there that will never hire a creative services firm. Never, ever. [00:03:00] But they'll play around with doing it themselves and then eventually graduate to hiring someone like Ghost Ranch to help make their stuff better.

So we created training and products to help people do it themselves so they see the value in visual communication, and then graduate to using someone like 24 Hour Company or Ghost Ranch to do what they need to do. I haven't looked back since. Yeah. Been been very lucky to have had the success that that we've had.

Mikey Mioduski: That's awesome. And at 24 hour company, when you were first getting going, were you then specialized in any one particular medium? I. Or kind of taking Yeah. Different industries on different types of, uh, design.

Mike Parkinson: So yes, in our area, in the Washington d DC area, bids and proposals is the bee's knees, meaning that a state, federal, local organization, commercial company, puts out what's called an RFP request for proposal and.

All these companies that are good solution providers respond to that RFP, [00:04:00] and they put proposals out there. And so what our company focused on was bids and proposals, and that would be oral presentations or written responses. And no one goes to school for RFP responses. So alls were marketing designers were people that had, what's it called?

Interactive design, web design. Yep. So we offered that suite, that spectrum of solutions, but that's what we've focused on and we continue to focus on that. Over 50% of our, of our work is in proposal response. The rest is going to be oral presentations and things like that.

Mikey Mioduski: That's awesome. And then, so hence the name I, I imagine there's not always a ton of time to turn around to an RFP response.

Yes. And as business

Mike Parkinson: owner, I gotta tell you, it's really hard to hire somebody for a company called 24 Hour Company. I don't know about you, but I don't wanna work and speaks to our commitment, not to how Right. And we used to work that way. Those days are gone.

Mikey Mioduski: Yeah, yeah. Right on. And okay, so I've seen you speak several times at the presentation summit.

I know you [00:05:00] speak tons of other places too. One of the, I think I told you this, uh, on a call a while back. One of the things I, I remember that you did uniquely in a keynote at Presentation Summit was talking about like, uh, hieroglyphics symbols and what they can do to communicate like, pretty quickly key ideas.

And one of them, I think you walk, we're walking through like a, an airport, maybe a broad, and you like, maybe it was like 60 seconds worth of footage and you asked a really cool question, like very interactive session. You are like, all right, can anybody tell me how many, how many like icons or visuals you saw?

Graphic visuals, I should say in that, that stretch. Do you, do you know what I'm talking about, Mike? I assume

Mike Parkinson: it add a, it was a keynote called at a Glance, and the whole premise is we live in an at a glance society. And if we don't, if we don't understand that that's how the brain works and that's how we've evolved to we will be become dinosaurs.

So the secret is how do you navigate as a [00:06:00] creative services person? As a creative in this at a glance society. So you're optimizing your, your visuals. Yeah, because it's communication, visuals is communication to help people get what they're trying to get. Because oftentimes our, the authors, our clients, yep.

Don't know what they're trying to do. They're baking it as they work with us.

Mikey Mioduski: Yeah, exactly. And so not all visuals are created equally though, right? Like I think probably a trend we're seeing now. That everyone, you know, I guess we probably said this when Word came out with clip art is like, oh, now everyone can add clip art.

And you know, today flash forward, we'll go through the same thing. Everyone can create visuals. What makes a, a good, clear, compelling, you know, communicative visual versus not? Like, what's the antithesis, what's a, what's a poor visual?

Mike Parkinson: So. If, if the visual has no value, meaning that if it's just dancing baloney, what's the point of it?

So there [00:07:00] are two parts of the human brain, and forgive me, this is rather reductive. There's the emotional part and the intellectual part. The emotional part. So the intellectual part would be, Hey Mikey, what is 4,672 times 307? Can you answer that quickly and easily? No. Yeah, that's the intellectual part.

It's slower, much, much slower. It's called the fast and slow brain, the manual and automatic brain, it's called a lot of things, and the emotional brain. If I said, Hey, Mikey, what's your favorite color? Yeah, blue. Right? It's much easier or. Our emotional brain is the part of the brain that that reacts very quickly.

Yeah. For according to research, and it's gonna change, we have one to 8 million unconscious or emotional reactions or thoughts compared to every conscious thought we have. So the emotional brain is really fast. So basically what often happens is that. That the author and the designer grapple with intuitively we know this, but the author and the designer, they grapple with how to [00:08:00] create something that not only appeals to the emotional part of the brain, but also appeals to the intellectual part of the brain.

And so what I find a good technique is the emotional part of the brain is gonna be things like aesthetics. So if ever I give a graphic to a client and they go, Hey, do you like this? And they go, no, I hate it. And they haven't read a darn thing on there. I know it's an emotional response. I know it's an aesthetic issue.

If, however, I show something to somebody and they digest the content, 'cause you know, graphics aren't just visuals, it's not just decoration. There's usually a narrative woven into that. 'cause it's telling a story. And if they read it then, then I have to question whether it's content messaging concept. So one of the tricks I like to use is I take an Eminem approach.

So if I create a visual, I, I want, and there's exceptions to the rule and we'll talk about those if you want to. Yeah, if, if I'm trying to communicate something, 'cause it's visual communication, it's not just pretty pictures. Visual communication. I need to make sure that if I were to summarize this [00:09:00] graphic into one sentence, that has a motivator and a means.

For example, if, if, if I'm trying to get people to buy into this new software or to learn a new process, I would say make your job easier by using this new tool. That would be my message. So if I had an action, caption, a title, whatever it would be. You know, make your job easier using this new tool. And then it becomes a dialogue with the, with the participant, with the, with the audience and the graphic.

So the audience will naturally ask two questions. What is the means? Which is, what is the new tool? And how does the new tool make my job easier? We answer those questions in the graphic. We have success. So it's no longer a pretty picture. It's not dancing baloney. We are telling a powerful story that's engaging not only emotionally make your job easier, but also intellectually, and this is how you do it by using this new toll.

So we, we, we use both [00:10:00] of the sides of the brain to effectively engage the audience and increase adoption rates. Ugh.

Mikey Mioduski: That's like the show and the tell and yeah. Okay. And the motivator is like, your job to be done. This is what I need to do. This is what I want. And beautiful

Mike Parkinson: motivator is pain gain or fear.

That's it. All of that only thing that motivates human beings. So you're gonna avoid, uh, wow. Celebrate, you're gonna avoid pain. Pain. Fear is future pain. And then gain is, is what's in it for me. Make my job easier. Yeah. So one of those three things will make it, otherwise, why would we do anything? So if there was no pain mm-hmm.

No fear, future pain, and there's nothing in it for me. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Why? Why would I use the new tool? It's not gonna do anything mean more work for me.

Mikey Mioduski: Right. And that is the difference between. Fine art and graphic communication, graphic design, we are trying to get people to do something right.

And so yeah, it's gotta have that, that action [00:11:00] orientation and some sort of, uh, some sort of driver that we want, that the marketer needs somebody to do or the politician or whatever.

Mike Parkinson: Yeah. And that comes first so that the, the author's goal is the first thing. So there's a process that I like to use and the first thing we figure out is selfishly, what do we want someone to do after they have digested and used this?

Graphic. Yeah. That is selfish. That's the only time we get to be selfish. And then we figure out who our target audience is. And there's, broadly speaking, only three archetypes for audiences. Hmm. It's strategic thinkers. They're like the bosses. They're thinking ROI, you know? Yeah. The tactical thinkers, they're the people that have to actually use the new tool.

There are the people that have to do this, and then people who are apathetic. Someone that was told, Hey, you have to sit in this. You have to listen to this podcast. That's some guy named Mike Parkinson's on terrible gold. So what, what, how do we engage them? How do you get somebody that doesn't wanna be in a workshop, that doesn't wanna sit through a presentation?

So these are, those are roughly the three archetypes I want [00:12:00] to think of. Yeah. Then I, with the motivator, that will motivate one of the one or more of those three archetypes depending upon who then who's my target audience. Okay.

Mikey Mioduski: Did you say there's exceptions to the m&m, the motivator and means?

Mike Parkinson: Yeah. So.

There's not really, it's not really an exception per se, as much as you don't have to be explicit. So most times living in a, in an adequately in society, I recommend being explicit. Just coming out and saying it. Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski: Yeah.

Mike Parkinson: But there are times when you don't want to come out and say it, and that's when I'm giving a presentation.

And one of the best ways to engage people is keep them curious.

Music: Mm-hmm.

Mike Parkinson: Okay. So give them enough. So you, for example, I might say, Hey, do you wanna find out how to be a millionaire in one year? So there's a motivator. Yeah. But I'm not gonna tell 'em how, there's three ways we're going to do that. Ah, what's the three ways?

And now I'm engaged. Yeah. So, so you can hide part of that to keep people curious. And I've seen it flipped to where they give the [00:13:00] means but not the motivator. And it's clever. But it is, it is a, it is a technique to engage people when you are delivering and creating a presentation.

Mikey Mioduski: I think just these first five minutes with Mike Parkinson reveal what that a presentation designer I.

Is not just a, a make a slide pretty kind of person, like the psychology, the science, like, I mean, so much that goes into this stuff. And Mike, I I, it sounds like it's stuff you can only pick up after two, three decades of actually doing it. Right. How many

Mike Parkinson: or, or, you know, attend your conference on visual storytelling?

Hey. Yeah. Or, or gets a training from me, but Yes, that's right. Basically the definition of an expert is someone who is. Done it the wrong way. Enough. And so, so like you, Mikey, I have figured out some right ways to do things. Yeah. That's awesome.

Mikey Mioduski: Well, we were looking, you know, you and I were talking about like what's ahead, it's on a lot of our minds and I would love you had a really cool idea.[00:14:00]

Again, I think you lean into the power of threes. So let's do, do you wanna talk about it? Yeah, sure.

Mike Parkinson: So I know we talked briefly about this. One of the things that I recommend is that designers embrace wholeheartedly ai. It's, it's here to stay. It's not going anywhere. It's going to be like the Internet of things.

Back in the day, the internet of things basically said that the internet's gonna be woven into everything that we do and, or, or rather things that are inanimate will be on the internet more than human beings. And it is. You know, com, cars, phones, everything. Yep. So like that AI is gonna be integrated into everything we do.

It's gonna be everywhere. It's gonna be you when it's, so, let's, let's embrace it. In doing so, I developed what I believe are three truths, if you will, the three things that will are unlikely to change in a, in a very long time. Yep. The first truth is, is that designers or creative who embrace AI will thrive.

But what's the opposite? Mikey? What is it [00:15:00] me like with my head in the sand? Yeah. No. No. Okay. If, if you don't, what happens if you don't? Em? Embrace ai. Will you be as successful? I think you, I think not for long. I don't know. Right. Can you imagine saying, I refuse to use Adobe's Firefly, I refuse. Right. You won't.

I mean, it would be silly. Yeah. So just s that don't embrace AI will not thrive. And that is the truth. I don't think that's going to change. It's like saying, I like to do pay stub. I refuse to use Adobe. Right. Well then you're gonna not have as much work. So the other thing is 'cause because AI is a friction fixer or an accelerator.

Yeah. That's what it's there to do. It's there, Hey, are there things you hate, hate to do about your job? Are there things you need to do quickly? AI can help you with that. Yep. Second truth is, is that AI will always be a part of the process. It will not be the product. So if I said, can AI create a, a winning presentation?

Brian, click of a button and [00:16:00] you're done. Nope. Can it create a winning infographic? Nope. Can it help create a winning presentation? Sure. Can it help? Yes. It's part of the process. Yeah. It's like, like using Google Slides. It's, it's part of the process. The reason why I say that is because. It's not gonna take our jobs.

Someone using AI effectively will, until AI has judgment, which if it has judgment, I'm not worried about it taking my job. I'm worried taking my life until AI has judgment it, it's now sentient. Yeah. Will replace it. So even if you created something and AI and you press the button and you're like, oh my gosh, this is perfect.

We still need to make that decision. To decide to put it into our presentation, into our graphic indoor, so it's not like we can create something and then blindly give it to the rest of the world. Yeah, that's a very dangerous choice. And then the third truth is that as designers, as creatives, we want to learn.

How to use the right tool the [00:17:00] right way. So just like chat, GPT has Dali and it's very good at some things. It's not very good at others. Yeah. Mid journey is great at some things. Firefly, oh my gosh. I. If you've never done a generative fill with Firefly, yeah. Ole moly, and I'm, I assume most of you listening know what that is, but if you don't, basically what it is, take book graph and increase the width of it, and AI will automatically fill in the missing pieces of the photograph in an incredible, magical way.

Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski: And Mike, like back in the day, like as doing production work, like how many times did you have to strip out you like a, a subject from a background and the hair and the, the intricacies and the, the blur. Awful. Now, now you do it with like two, two clicks.

Mike Parkinson: Yep. It, it, it is pretty amazing and it's just gonna get better.

AI is the worst it's going to be right now it's right. Prove, just know that it is there to help not hurt us. I saw a keynote speech at [00:18:00] a training magazine network from a thought leader in ai, and she's published a bunch of books and she said, think of AI like a drunk intern. It always wants to do good work, but it doesn't always do good work.

Yeah. But I thought that was a, you know, although it was a bit, you know. Inappropriate. It was still funny to hear.

Mikey Mioduski: Yeah, yeah. I could, I could think of it that way. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, truth one, designers will embrace who, who do embrace AI will thrive. And you can think about the opposite. AI will always be part of the process.

Uh, but just that part of the process. And then we need to use these, understand that there's different tools for different purposes, and so get to know the right tools for the right reasons as well

Mike Parkinson: gonna change. It's the wild west out there. Things change. Oh my gosh.

Mikey Mioduski: Yeah.

Mike Parkinson: Be flexible. The, the whole concept of prompt engineering is slowly sunset and these tools get more intuitive that it, it's going to be the case that there will come a time when what we think of a science fiction will be science [00:19:00] reality you've seen?

Yeah. So creating videos, photorealistic videos, it's not there yet, but it's darn close. There will come a time when we can start to say things like, Hey, can you design this? And it'll give us something and then we can, right. Again, we'll be the authors. Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski: And your second point too about Yeah, I could see, I think I could see an individual keynote speaker creating their own deck in a vacuum, heavily leaning on, you know, what they input and maybe they get something out that they like.

But Mike, like you just told me, you're, you're, you're about to fly, you know, across the country to go do live work, to bring an emergency, kinda like fire drill project to life because, and you have to be in the room where it happens. Right. Rarely is, is a presentation built in a vacuum without lots and lots of stakeholders who have to approve and have to be aligned on what it says.

So for that reason, I, I just don't see any way that a human couldn't be there trying to, [00:20:00] trying to wrangle that sucker and wrangle all the voices to figure out, you know, how this thing comes together as one cohesive, cogent piece.

Mike Parkinson: Yes. I mean, and, and not to sound, not to sound like I'm belittling my clients at all, they don't know what to even ask AI to do.

Yeah. Hey, create a keynote presentation that talks about these things. Okay? Did you engage the audience emotionally? Is there a motivator in a means? Do you have a hook in there? Is there something to increase engagement? Do you have cognitive cur, curiosity? All, there's so many things that. The casual user would never think to prompt AI to do, and AI is this just based on the people I've talked to, the really smart people I've talked to that are running Yeah.

The best AI companies in our vertical. In our vertical. True. And they said to me, you gotta remember, AI is. Pretty much as smart as it's going to get. Meaning AI has already absorbed [00:21:00] all of the internet and now new stuff is dribs and drabs, relatively speaking. So now what we're doing is we're just making AI get smarter.

Mm-hmm. With the knowledge it already has. So it's basically saying, all right, so I've already learned all the internet has to share with me. Or in the case of Firefly, all that I was given to learn. Yeah. Now I'm learning how to interact with users so that I give them what they want and not, not to belittle designers either.

Most designers don't even think of. Most creative, don't necessarily think of it from the perspective of psych, behavioral psychology. Yeah. It's not our world, however we do it intuitively. Mm-hmm. Meaning that our instinct tells us when something's missing, right. Or not right. And so ultimately, I. What's happening is, is that there, there's a possibility that you, Mikey, could train an AI engine to do what you do, how you do it, which would get the [00:22:00] user closer to getting there.

Yeah. But AI needs to understand what questions to ask. In order to develop something that's powerful, and then ultimately we need our judgment, and that's something, Hey, I can't do very well.

Mikey Mioduski: Yeah. There, there are those little nuances of something. Let's say it's like the CEO's vision keynote at a user conference.

The little, the dimension that's added is, well, who was on before them? What's the weather doing outside? Who, where did these people travel in from? What's on their mind? What news just broke? You know? Yeah. Uh, what guests are they bringing up and. What's the room look like? Is it dark? Is it light? You know, all those little factors kind of can change and, and maybe influence the humans who are building it like the day before.

And, you know, under stress, all that. Yep.

Mike Parkinson: People buy people, I'm sorry. Yeah. When first is up there training me when that person's up there giving a sales pitch, I'm buying into them. And if they haven't read the room and understand the cadence [00:23:00] and the, and the way it works. I was given a keynote in Amsterdam and typically my keynotes are interactive and, and a lot of energy.

Yeah. And I learned very quickly. The hard way that that's not how Amsterdam rolls. So I needed to back off. Okay. Dial it down a notch to keep that engagement level high. AI's not gonna, yeah. Ask that kind of question. You know, are you dealing with an academic audience? Are you dealing with what nationality, meaning what is their, their style du jour.

Mm-hmm. In their, their, the, the way in which they prefer to be presented to. 'cause that's what is it? The, the golden rule is how treat people as you wanna be treated. And the platinum rule is treat people as they want to be treated.

Mikey Mioduski: Yeah. That's how bad. I like that. Yeah. Mirroring and, and reading the room.

Right. Mike, do you have, have you looked much into like the, the copyright stuff going on with like, 'cause I think a lot of what I've been using AI for is [00:24:00] like, it's kind of cut into my. Stock photography, you know, like now I'm kind of going to midjourney to be like, Hey, can you drum up a picture of X, Y, and Z and I'll see what it can kind of spit out.

And so I, I haven't fully replaced like Shutterstock or iStock licensure, but I've been a little worried about like, should I be using this stuff created, you know, in Midjourney? 'cause I, I know there's a, a, a bit of copyright stuff going on.

Mike Parkinson: Yeah. My, my understanding, and this is after talking to a few attorneys, is that different AI tools have different copyright rules.

For example, mid Journey, last time I checked. Once you make it, it's public domain essentially. Arguably it's owned by Midjourney, but Right. It's more, it's basically like you can't really claim it as yours, huh? Because you created it on this platform. So it it, it's open for debate and I'm not even gonna get into how the AI learned because that, that's right.

Bunch of copyright issues. But Firefly not is different. So [00:25:00] Firefly is, once you make it, it's yours. Okay. So it's aunts, it's quote unquote public domain or owned by Adobe. Even though I'm sure they're learning from what you create. So different tools have have different rules. I would never put anything proprietary on chat.

EPTI would. I would always redact anything that is sense because once you put it out there, it's out there. Yeah. And I don't know that someone can easily go into your Chad CPT sessions. I know you can share that. Yeah. But you're, you're, the information it generates and the information you put in there is helping, it learns, so it will find its way into someone else's content.

Right. Okay. Good. That, that's what I've learned so far. Yeah. I'm sure there's people way

Mikey Mioduski: smarter than I'm about it. Yeah. Okay, so Mike, you've got the Eminem formula and tons and tons of kind of frameworks in your toolkit. A lot of people, we talk about content, right? And that the saying goes, content is king.

What's, I think you have a [00:26:00] really fun twist on this.

Mike Parkinson: Yeah. So I. My opinion is, is people should have good content or why waste my time? It's kind of table stakes now, so I've taken that off the table and said, yeah, don't waste my time if you don't have good content. Instead, because of the two parts of the brain, the intellectual and the emotional part of the brain, I.

Context is king and contrast is queen. So the reason I say that is context gives me a reason to care. It basically gives me a reference point. So for example, if I just say, Hey, I have this new tool. Mm-hmm. Or Hey, I put this new X 23 engine in my car. There's no context there per se, right? Hey, I'm gonna make your job easier.

Or, Hey, you can go. Zero to 60 miles per hour in 1.8 seconds with this new engine. Now I have context. So providing some context is important. And now contrast is keeping the brain curious. So the brain pays more [00:27:00] attention to things that are different. 'cause things that are different. Can hurt us. Things that are the same can't.

So if, if you've ever walked in, oh, Mikey, I got a question for you. If you've ever walked into a room and forgot why you walked into a room. Yes. Okay. So according to the latest brain science, yeah. When we walk into a room, our subconscious, our emotional brain purges our short term memory to take in the room in case there's something dangerous in there.

Whoa. Huh. So. The way the brain works, it's automatic. The brain is amazing. So I wanna make sure that I use the brain the way it works in my favor. So I'm gonna use context, I'm gonna give you a reason to care about what I'm talking about. I'm not just gonna give you something like, you should learn the three steps to algorithmic.

Yeah. Why? Because it, it'll help you pass your test. Okay. That's context. I care. Contrast means give it to me or show it me, show it to me in a way that I haven't seen or heard before. Because my brain automatically is more likely to be engaged by something that's different. [00:28:00] So if I were to perhaps use a different visual metaphor Yep.

Or perhaps use a different style. Or perhaps use a different animation technique or use a video where I hadn't used them. So one of the things that the brain loves is safe surprises, huh? Because that's that contrast. So if we listen, if we analyze some of the most iconic music out there, for example, you'll find there are safe surprises woven into those songs that really engage us.

So we're always looking for something that's. Different. That's not too scary. 'cause remember, the brain does not like things that are different. If we think it can hurt us, yeah. But we just want to, we want to what's called throw a, throw a little shark in the tank. And the metaphor is when they were shipping.

Fish overseas, or not overseas, but they were shipping fish to like a place that didn't have fish, let's say Aspen. So I need to get fresh to [00:29:00] Aspen, so I'm gonna put my fresh fish in a, in a tank and put it on a plane and fly it. Now the, the water's going like this, going back and forth and, and a lot of fish died.

And this is me paraphrasing the, the research. It's, it's not exact, well, let's say 30% of the fish died. Yeah. So. This, what they found was if you put a small shark in that tank with the fish, they're more focused on avoiding the shark. The shark would eat like 5% of the fish and most of them would survive.

So the the theory is, is a little bit of stress is good. So safe surprise, not that a shark is a safe surprise for the little fish, but put a shark in the tank essentially. That's crazy. Is another way to say, use contrast to keep people engaged. Use safe surprises to keep people engaged 'cause understanding.

How the brain works and using it to your benefit is critical. Yeah. Again, creatives typically nail this intuitive. Yeah, intuitive. But it's very difficult for for us to articulate why we've made our decision [00:30:00] other than, Hey, we're a designer. Trust us. That is a good answer.

Mikey Mioduski: That's a whole nother topic, is like presenting the work and you know, getting buy-in.

'cause sadly, yeah, design doesn't speak for itself often. Contrast. Yeah. That got me like the, the sharks got me spinning. That's crazy. I hadn't heard that story. Yeah.

Mike Parkinson: It's, it's just, um, a way for me to explain it to people. How, how, yeah. How the brain works and it's, it's primordial, you know, if fish do it, we do it.

It's part of the deal. It's Right. What's kept us alive.

Mikey Mioduski: Yeah. Oh, so I guess like, that makes me think about like, contrast in brands who are in really competitive spaces or. You know, like industries where things kind of start to look similar, like healthcare industry, we see a lot of blue or whatever. Mike, like what, how do you balance, how should someone think about embracing trends, leaning into sort of the, the zeitgeist, the style of the day, versus trying to really carve out something that that [00:31:00] stands out and what's the importance of, I guess, standing out or having some sort of brand equity that that gives a little contrast amongst the pack.

Mike Parkinson: Yeah, that is, so, that is a, a challenge because Mike, you nailed it. There's a balancing act. Consistency breeds trust. So, for example, you go to McDonald's, you know what you're gonna smell, you know what it's gonna taste like. So you trust that you're gonna have the McDonald's experience every time you go there.

I, I'm not talking about the quality of the experience or the, yeah. Food, you're gonna have that similar experience at every McDonald's is very systematic and programmatic. Kind of like your brand Bible. So your brand Bible is saying consistency breeds trust. And trust is the closest thing to a silver bullet in all forms of communication.

Trust. No adoption period. Right? But we're balancing that against safe surprises. Contrast is king. It's like how do we balance these things? So one of the things as a marketing guy, I'm our, I'm our C-F-O-C-M-O, sorry. Yep. At our very tiny company, you know, [00:32:00] and been talking about this a long time is I tell people, own your colors.

Yeah. We might get tired of it. I bet you Home Depot is thick of their color orange. I bet you. The US army gets sick of the green color or whatever. Yeah. Black, yellow. These companies, you know, internally, they go, oh my gosh, here we go again with our orange. So sick of it. I'm making it usually for you. I'm making it for another audience.

Yeah. And that consistency builds trust. Trust equals increased sales, great adoption rates. So I kind of don't care that you don't like it. Yeah. Yeah. I, sorry, I'm sorry. The author of this particular graphic or slide doesn't like it. You're not my intended audience. If you are now I care. So how do you balance that?

So we have a Home Depot employee. We're making a, an internal training seminar. Yeah. And all the employees are like fudge. If I see orange again, I am going to. Go ballistic. So, [00:33:00] but consistency breeds trust. No matter what someone tells you, they're whatever they say, people say, oh, I wouldn't buy that. They do buy it, and vice versa.

I'd totally buy that. Never buy it. So people aren't very good at articulating what really goes on in their head. There's a, a person by the name of Dr. Carmen Simon, and she rode. A few books impossible to ignore. And there's another one made You look, I think made you look. Yeah, yeah. And she's incredible and definitely read her stuff, but so people aren't very good at articulating what they're really gonna do.

So I am gonna use that Home Depot orange because branding, consistency, breach trust, that wants you to trust that when you depot you, you're always gonna get the same thing. 'cause small companies and immature solutions are ad hoc. They're always changing. Designer says, I don't like this style today. I'm gonna use a different style.

And they just do it for them. But we're not creating stuff for us, we're creating it for somebody else. So if I stick with that orange, so where, where the contrast or where the safe surprises come in will be perhaps visual metaphors.

Music: Mm-hmm.

Mike Parkinson: It might [00:34:00] be a a style choice. So for example, just being stuck with a font and a color.

There are a little client, a lot, a huge spectrum of options that I can play with as a creative person that still gives variation to how I present that information. Yep. And so visual storytelling is gonna play a role and all of these variables are, are allowing us to stay on brand and still be fresh.

That's great. There's still a lot of room in there. Yeah. If I say to. Mikey Ghost tranche. It's three colors and two fonts and you can't use shadows and we hate three date. That's still a giant sea of options That's right for you to stay on brand at Ghost Tranche. So those are the ways that I grabe, I balance the two seemingly at odds parts of the human brain.

That's,

Mikey Mioduski: yeah, that's beautiful. I love it, Mike. Some, some good [00:35:00] constraints. It can really do wonders for us actually. It's like we, we need it. We did, and Mike, I think we're officially in the spice cabinet of, of this fun time. I think we can do a little, little lightning round if you're okay with it.

Mike Parkinson: Yeah, sure.

You're gonna freak me out. I hope I don't, I hope I don't put my foot in my mouth. Well, no you won't. Okay. PowerPoint or Google Slides. PowerPoint due. Its ubiquity. Am I allowed to give a reason or just answer? Give

Mikey Mioduski: the reason for sure. Yeah.

Mike Parkinson: Due to its ubiquity. Yeah. I'm gonna go with PowerPoint. I think PowerPoint's done a terrible job of telling people that the online version is free Google.

'cause I think Google Slides I think free, but I never think PowerPoint's free, but it is online.

Mikey Mioduski: Oh yeah. And um, actually, when did you first become a, a Microsoft MVP?

Mike Parkinson: I'm looking at my little thing. 2016.

Mikey Mioduski: That's awesome. Yeah. Right on. Congratulations.

Mike Parkinson: Every year, I think they're gonna kick me out.

Mikey Mioduski: They're like, what is it?

The imposter syndrome? Yeah, totally. You a jerk face. Get outta here, buddy. No, that's, that's wonderful. What's your favorite color? Uh, blue. Oh, [00:36:00] that's awesome.

Mike Parkinson: It's, there's something called the blue phenomenon, and scientists are aware of this, but it can't tell us why, but in almost every culture, blue's considered the most appealing color, almost universally crazy.

It's not that it red isn't your favorite color, but appealing color, I should say. Yeah, not. Healing is the most appealing color. Could it be sky? Could it be water? Could it be, but we, we don't know. But uh, yeah, pretty much universally blue is an appealing color.

Mikey Mioduski: That's cool. Well, you've given a keynote in Amsterdam.

Are there any other places on your bucket list to travel to or places like you wish you could go back to?

Mike Parkinson: Well, South Africa was one of my favorites and, and I gave a keynote in Australia as well. Dang. But I'm to Croatia. I'm headed to Croatia, but this one I'm not presenting at. This is a, a little cruise I'm doing with my wife and her friends, and I'm looking forward to, I've never been to Croatia, so we're going to go to Dubrovnik and split for a few days as well.

So I'm excited. Very excited.

Mikey Mioduski: Yeah, that sounds amazing. Word. All right, so when you do get, get that next keynote, [00:37:00] do you have a go-to walkout song?

Mike Parkinson: Gosh, no, but I have asked you what's going on. When people put me in a corner, I'll say Titanium by David, GTA and Sia. Love it. Yeah. So I love that. I like it. It's from like, I think it's called 1923, but I do love the song.

I think it's from 2016 or something. No, that

Mikey Mioduski: gets, yeah, that's perfect. You get, get that good energy going. I love it. Absolutely. Like that. Good energy. Yeah. That's awesome. Right on Mike. Well, what's, what's around the corner? What's, what's in store for 24 hour company? Billion dollar graphics. Where can people find you?

Mike Parkinson: Definitely excited about, uh, growing, build A Graphic. So Build A Graphic is a library of professional PowerPoint graphics that people can edit and make them their own, bring them into Adobe Illustrator. They're vector based, for the most part. Very excited about that. It's, it's, it's, it's growing very well.

A lot po really positive feedback. That's awesome. And. Looking forward to doing some more training coming up, a lot of corporate training for me and speaking at conferences. [00:38:00] Basically being passionate and sharing my excitement and, and learning from other people around me. People are way smarter than I am and looking forward to navigating the new normal and my world.

So I'll, I'll leave it at that. And I'm, I'm working on a new book called At a Glance, talking about concepts I shared, but I am the. What is it? The shoemaker shoes. I have the world's worst shoes, so I'm not Yeah. Focused on my, my own shoes. I'm worried about helping other people make their best shoes can.

Right.

Mikey Mioduski: We'll, that'll be finally, I'm sure a good time. I don't know how you'll, like, I, I don't know how you pull that off, but I'm impressed that you're, that you're writing a book and I'm sure it's a, a good time to reflect on pro all the many projects you've done, the good, the bad, the ugly, and yeah. What we can all take away from that.

Lot of, lot of failing forward is what I've done. Ugh, man. It's what we gotta do, especially with the, the time constraints that you're always up against, you know, it's just, yeah. Do the next right thing, you know? Absolutely. [00:39:00] Well, Mike, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much. We should, uh, we should do this anytime you want.

It's always fun to have you on. And if there's any parting shots to Presentation Nation, what, uh, what would you leave us with?

Mike Parkinson: I'd say, please embrace ai. It's, it's there to help. It's not there to hurt us. It's going to make our jobs easier. And, and my opinion, and I I, I'm, I'm Retting Rick Altman from Presentation Summit who said, it's not AI that's gonna take our jobs.

It's someone using ai. Well that's gonna take our job. So that's my my opinion. And it is. It is an opinions.

Mikey Mioduski: Yeah, no inertia. Uh, com you know, complacency can, can get the best of us, but, uh, yeah, I think that's a, that's a really, I. Really strong bit of advice, Mike. So listeners, I know you got a lot out of this.

Look for Mike Parkinson on LinkedIn. Billion dollar Graphics, build a Graphic. I'm stoked to check that out. And Mike, thank you so much for being here. Hopefully we can do this again. And until next [00:40:00] time, everybody keep on pitching. Thanks for listening.