Judging Covers

Elon Musk recently tweeted, “I admit to judging books by their cover.” Well, I do too.

Design matters. Whether you’re navigating a site or selecting a service provider, you will inevitably make assumptions about what's under the hood based on superficial markers. The same holds true for books – at least for me (and Elon), anyway.

For my book, I worked hard to brief the design team to help them come up with the best possible cover. I told them about my target reader and positioning in the market. I gave them a short list of some of my favourite book covers and why I found them to be effective and attractive.

When I got the first round of designs, I quickly shared them with friends and family. When I asked him what he thought, my good friend Ron replied, "You’re going to have to look at this thing for a long time. Which one do you like?” My honest answer: none.

Initial designs didn’t click but provided and lots of lessons

My friend Karen asked, "What were you picturing?" Given how much thought and effort I had put into the book, you would think I would've spent more time picturing its cover. But funnily enough, I hadn't. I just had faith that if I did my part, the design team would work their magic and we would get the right one.

The first round did teach me some helpful things: go for bright colours, big and bold fonts, and high contrast. It also helped me get clear on what I didn't want. I remember writing in the margin beside this design, "I've never done acid before, but if I did…"

“I’ve never done acid before, but if I did…”

The second round of designs focused on emphasizing movement in the word "move." Some great creative work was done, but the designs just didn't land for me. As ad guru Brent Choi said, "Breaking up the title interrupts my flow of reading.”

Moving the word “move”

After a lot of effort and shared frustration, I was wondering if I needed to find a different design team. Sometimes the creative process doesn't click with one person and you simply need a fresh perspective.

Page Two leader Jesse Finkelstein reassured me that we would get there. Creative director Peter Cocking decided to take on the project himself. While chatting with Peter, I identified an area that we had yet to explore in the design: Powerful speaking as a force multiplier. I shared with him some designs that inspired me: the inside of Pink Floyd’s album The Dark Side of the Moon and a few other images conveying amplification and impact.

Images conveying amplification and impact

Peter has won numerous book cover design awards and I soon learned why. He came back with some terrific options, which we quickly narrowed down to two favourites, each with its own pop: the colours on the left with the design of the right:

Peter Cocking’s designs

To make the final selection from the final round, I reflected on Ron's question. I knew which one I liked best immediately.

Thank you to Peter and the team at Page Two for your creativity, patience, and persistence. We got there! 

I hope you like it and it makes you want to pick it up—I know I’m ready to look at it for years to come.

Looking at the non-fiction books on your shelf, what’s your favourite cover?

What took me so long?!

I’ve been wanting to tackle this important project for far too long. Super excited to give you this 91-second update.

Help! Where do I put my notes when speaking online?

After a year of participating in webinars and delivering video presentations, you’ve got it down to a science—make sure the cat’s in the other room, position your camera so no one can tell you’re wearing sweatpants, throw a couple of good-looking books in the background. Chances are, though, you still don’t know what to do with your notes while you’re speaking. 

You might have a secondary monitor off to the side. While this keeps things nice and separate, you’re forced to glance over every few seconds while you speak. The resulting sense of disconnect between you and your audience is counterproductive, to say the least—after all, one of the reasons you host webinars in the first place is to establish and deepen relationships with coworkers and clients! You can also lose your credibility if you’re demonstrating an obvious dependence on notes when speaking about subjects people expect you to know, such as foundational definitions. 

Slides aren't the answer, either. It might make you feel more comfortable to have a slide fill the screen, but it won’t actually make you more effective. When slides are shared, the video image of you—the speaker!—is reduced the size of postage stamp. That’s not ideal, particularly when the goal is to strengthen human connection while sustaining attention. (For the times when you can’t avoid using slides, I've provided some tips below).

So, no monitors or slides—what then? What should you do if you need your notes, yet want to maintain a connection with your audience?

1. Place a sticky note on your screen, just below the camera. Jot down a few bullet points—the bare minimum you need to prompt yourself. If you have more content than can fit on one note, have a few more at the ready. When it comes time to switch, exchange the current sticky note for a new one (don’t worry, not many people will notice you reaching to swap the stickies). If you have alotof material—too much to cover on a few notes—the next suggestion may be more useful.

2. Put a digital note just below the camera. It’s best to test this method before—some video presentation platforms (Zoom, for instance) automatically enter “Full Screen” mode when you launch the call. Be ready to press “escape”, and drag your prepared virtual notes over top of the presentation window. Make sure to narrow your notes window (two to three inches wide will minimize how much your eyes need to track from side to side), and keep it short (that way your eyes will stay close to the camera at the top of your screen). Scroll through the digital file as need be.

3. Use a good old-fashioned notepad. You don't need to hide the fact that you have one, either. Pick it up, pause to look at it, put it down and speak until you need to refer to again. Once, I was on a video call with a pile of authors and the event was emceed by the brilliant broadcaster, Bruce Sellery. He had his notepad in hand and casually, even comfortably, referred to it a number of times. He didn't make the use of notes a big deal, and so it wasn't. 

However you choose to organize your notes, make sure you spend at least 90% of your presentation looking at the camera. That way, you show you know your stuff because you are not over-relying on your notes and you will maintain a strong connection with your audience.

OK, but what about slides?

You don’t clean your windows with a crow-bar and you shouldn’t use your slides like notes; they’re the wrong tools for the job. Use slides sparingly and purposefully. Try not to start with them, either (at least, not in a virtual presentation). Instead, wait to share your screen until after you’ve created a strong and sustained connection with your audience. Once you’ve started sharing, use your mouse or another digital pointer to direct the audience's attention to various parts of your slide. Stop sharing your screen if you plan to elaborate on one point for a while, or talk about something that isn’t supported by your slides.

If you’re presenting slides from dual monitors, you can use the “Speaker Notes” feature. That way, your prompts are visible only to you. I recommend you stack your secondary monitor above your primary one. Use “Presenter View” to show the full slide on your primary monitor, and position your digital notes to sit at the bottom of your second screen, just above your primary monitor’s camera. 

It’s easier to customize the layout of “Presenter View” using Apple’s Keynote, as you can see here:

If you plan to speak with slides for an extended period of time, ask your audience to enable “Side-by-Side View.” The feature places you on one side of their screen, and your slide the other. Encourage them to move the slider bar between the image of you and your slide to make one side bigger or smaller as you present. This way they can make the slide larger to see detail or make you larger when you are elaborating. 

While what you do with your notes might seem like a minor issue (and probably isn’t the first thing you think about while preparing for a virtual presentation), small changes can make a big difference in effective, confident communication. Adjustments like these will do wonders for your online speaking abilities. 

PS—Sketches by yours truly. Nope, not planning to quit my day job!

A Courtship Catalyst

Say we take appearance out of the equation—what determines whether or not a prospective love interest wants to go on a second date? 

Alison Wood Brooks, a professor at Harvard Business school, has the answer. By analyzing thousands of speed dating sessions, she and her research team gained insight into the specific behaviors which compel people to create and sustain connections.

Brooks found that asking questions—including follow-ups—is relationship-building magic. I can’t help but think this also holds true for the corporate realm; after all, winning over colleagues and wooing clients isn’t all that different than dating! Whether you’re at the bar or the water cooler, the same rule of thumb applies: ask away. 

Careful, though: if you overdo it and ask too many question, it can be off-putting. In some cases, it might even feel invasive. I learned this the hard way as a single guy in my twenties—I was at an Ultimate Frisbee social event, and a woman I was chatting with said to me, “Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself; I feel like I’m being interrogated!” 

…Ouch. 

And so, as with most things, the goal is to strike a balance. Ask questions, listen carefully, ask a few thoughtful follow-ups. Be sure to share a bit about yourself, too. When in doubt, aim to split the available air time evenly. Doing so will help you bring in new clients, earn the good will of your colleagues—and maybe even land that second date.

How did one talk get over 90 million views?*

Every few years a talk gets posted that is so remarkable that people love it so much they want to share it. In 2015 Tim Urban delivered one of those talks. Urban is the co-founder of Wait But Why, a site he’s run since 2013 that generates millions of page views a month. 

Urban does a lot of things brilliantly in Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator. These are four that we can all learn from. 

1. He blends humility and humour

It’s takes thirty-three seconds to fall in love with Urban as a speaker. Two sentences in to is 2015 TED talk he projects a chart that shows how most college students spread their paper-writing workload over time. “So, you know -- you get started maybe a little slowly, but you get enough done in the first week that, with some heavier days later on, everything gets done, things stay civil,” he says, opening his arms and bowing his head down before the Vancouver audience.

In an ideal world, Urban’s study strategy would have followed a similarly measured format. “That would be the plan,” he explains. “I would have it all ready to go, but then, actually, the paper would come along, and then I would kind of do this…” Here, he drops his head with a hint of shame, pointing at a second projected chart. On that chart, all the paper writing work has moved to the day-before-deadline column. The audience laughs. How could they not? From his manner down to his jeans and crew-tee, Urban’s blend of humility and humor is refreshing. 

2. He makes us think, “That sounds like me”

Urban’s careful construction of a universal struggle is irresistible. As he talks, he repeatedly evokes a “That sounds like me” response from his listeners. The best speakers do. At the 4:12 mark, for example, he uses personable and relatable examples of the ways we all get sidetracked. "Let's read the entire Wikipedia page of the Nancy Kerrigan/ Tonya Harding scandal, because I just remembered that that happened,” he says. “Then we're going to go over to the fridge, to see if there's anything new in there since 10 minutes ago.” Sounds about right. 

3. He uses specific and concrete language to make his points

Equally important to notice is the specificity and concreteness of Urban’s descriptions. He doesn’t simply say “we get distracted watching videos.” No, he says, “We're going to go on a YouTube spiral that starts with videos of Richard Feynman talking about magnets and ends much, much later with us watching interviews with Justin Bieber's mom.” By using such concrete, even endearingly idiosyncratic scenarios, Urban ensures that even them more disciplined and focussed in the audience can identify with his experiences. 

4. He uses constructs and personas to give life to his insights

Once Urban’s pulled us in to the shared problem, he presents insights using constructs that he illustrates and names. 

Like The Dark Playground: “It's where leisure activities happen at times when leisure activities are not supposed to be happening. The fun you have in the Dark Playground isn't actually fun, because it's completely unearned, and the air is filled with guilt, dread, anxiety, self-hatred -- all of those good procrastinator feelings.” 

Urban outlines two kinds of procrastination: deadline and non-deadline. A persona he calls “The Panic Monster” solves the former. The latter is more complicated; left unaddressed, non-deadline procrastination can make you feel like a spectator in your own life and frustrated you haven’t achieved your dreams.

If you dream of giving a talk that will capture and move a crowd, consider following Urban’s lead and apply the four lessons from his terrific talk. And give yourself a deadline.

* Combined views from TED.com and YouTube.com