Ein explain Artikel

Take them there

Don‘t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. Anton Chekhov

The following lines are dedicated to an innovation project that we as the company explain undertook in the past two years. explain is specialized in developing presentations holistically. We would like to give you an insight into some of the underlying ideas behind the project and some of its outcomes. We were aiming for nothing less than creating the future of corporate presenting. True to Anton Chekhov’s words:

Don’t only tell me about something, make me feel its impact!

First, let us take a step back. Presentations are an essential tool of communication in our modern business life. Still, often we encounter criticism that can be summed up by the phrase: “Death by Power Point”. This critique is the result of the way many presentations are created:

The contents are not relevant to the respective target audience.

Visualizations force the audience to read the slides instead of supporting the speaker.

The time of creating a presentation is inefficiently used and leaves the presenter with little to no time for rehearsal.

These and many other factors cage us within what we call the “old school of presenting”. Although that has done the job in the past, communication on that level gains in importance rapidly. Change has become the new normal and we experience that every day. Effective communication is the only way of dealing with these rising levels of complexity.

Our customers

Explaining and emotionalizing our products and services.

Our partners

Giving them insights and involving them into our company’s micro-cosmos.

Our employees

Finding the best talents, developing them and leading them towards our goals.

The public

Positively and sustainably taking them on board of our current and future plans.

Our investors

Convince and win them to gain their support.

Our starting point was our “presentoric model”. This model contained three dimensions that have great impact on the success and impactfullness of a presentation:

Content, that is relevant for the target audience and the situation.

Design, that enriches and supports speaker and content.

The Speaker, who completes these dimensions and impresses an audience.

After many discussions, we arrived at the point that our presentoric model needs to be enrichened by another dimension. The dimension of space. Sure, at that point we already have been involved in many events and the importance of where a presentation is held had been considered numerous times. Yet, we have never asked ourselves the question: how does a perfect presentation room look like?

This question sparked a new mindset and an idea that was the starting point of a journey. A journey of trial and error. A journey of innovation. A journey towards the explain Shuttle: The perfect 360° presentation room.

At the start, we didn’t know what exactly we wanted to achieve, as it so often is the case with big ambitions. However, we knew that it was time for a big change. Presentations in companies are usually held in meeting rooms. As soon as we started to reflect this fact, our first conclusion was: meeting rooms are not equal to presentation rooms. Meeting rooms are built for discussion and dialogue. The space is often very limited and not very practical when it comes to taking a step in any direction. But the single most important missing feature is its lack of immersiveness and mood creation.

Impressive presenting is about taking an audience on a journey. What if we were not only able to show our world to our audience on a 2D screen, but actually take them with us into our world? What if we were even able to take them there? We weren’t only aiming for taking them with us into a different surrounding, but also inspiring them to consider new perspectives.

Our first step was testing Virtual Reality glasses. Not only was that the “new sh*t” out there, but it seemed to tick all the boxes. It seemed to entail all the factors that we were aiming for. After several tests we came to the conclusion that it was not what we had hoped for. Not to speak of the motion sickness that some of our colleagues fell victim to, we felt separated. We all were in our own worlds and didn’t go on a journey together. After some more attempts and tests we were sure that VR glasses can’t create the experience that we were searching for. Still, one insight from testing led us to our next question: what if we were all able to get inside a single pair of glasses? What if we were able to share a presentation within a room that had all the positive implications of VR?

At that point an idea was born. Soon we found likeminded partners that had the necessary technical knowhow to bring our vision to live. We wanted to build a 360° presentation room that, unlike other 360° installations, had the perfect set-up for impressive presentations. We wanted to combine presentations with 360° videos and 3D elements.

We wanted to be able to take customers on an emotional journey to see new products. We wanted to create immersive storytelling to get our partners on board with the latest developments. We wanted to win the war for talents and find a way to recruiting the brightest minds, give them a chance to playfully develop themselves and lead them towards common goals. We wanted to create a platform that has the power of connecting companies to the public. And finally, we wanted to empower companies to win investors for their future visions, not by talking about the future, but by taking them there.

We wanted to build a room that works just like a shuttle. A room that can take people into new worlds in order to send their imagination on a journey. A room that is perfectly designed for high impact presenting.

We wanted to build The explain Shuttle: The perfect 360° presentation room. And so we did.

What sounds like an ending presented itself as the real beginning. Step by step we started to realize that we opened a dimension that we had not mastered yet. To be honest, we were taken by surprise by the possibilities. Much of the knowledge we built up during the last 15 years, didn‘t fit anymore in the 360° setting. We were used to getting the most out of a 2D screen when developing presentations. Design effects that had brought classic presentations to life, turned out to simply overcharge an audience. Storytelling and the arrangement of contents gained immensely in possibilities by for example the infinite projection surface and the dimension of sound. In some way, we were beginners again. With all its positive and challenging aspects.

In the past months the vehicle that we name explain Shuttle has grown. It has grown as we have begun to understand how to fly with it. We have started finding answers to interesting questions: which factors create which emotions? How can such a vehicle become an interactive and immersive experience? How can we tell never ending stories? How can we move people?

There are countless learnings that already arose from this ongoing project. The most general one: Space matters! Human beings are very sensitive to their surroundings. Especially our subconscious is guiding decision making by making use of our senses. Pleasing or even actively communicating through the sensation of space can build bridges of understanding and ultimately enhance communication in general. We tend to only focus on the contents, the design and the speaker when approaching presentations. The factor of space is not just a “nice to have”, but a pivotal factor that can make or break the deal. So, the next time you have an important presentation coming up, think about that. Try to include this dimension into your concept. Play with the idea of space and different room settings.

Don’t just tell them about it, take them there!