Morphological Synthesis as a Presentation Technique
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So today at the PASHA Fair in Islamabad, Jehan Ara suddenly announced to everyone that “Osama Hashmi from Green&White would be doing an on-the-spot workshop on something.”
There wasnt even a topic prepared let alone slides or a structure of the talk so I had about 10 minutes to put some random thoughts together into a unique topic of interest that you could base a workshop on.
I thought this would be a great time to try out a creative presentation technique I’ve wanted to practice called “morphological synthesis” which was described in the book Conceptual Blockbusting by James L. Adams in the 70′s.
This technique is an improvisational process, where you associate yourself with a certain set of start and end thoughts and basically present whatever piece you can deliver effectively at each step until you get to your end-goal. In essence this doesn’t just bring out more creativity but helps you focus on engaging delivery at each sentence. The second major part of this technique includes making “visual maps” using very casual metaphors.
So I needed to explain professionalism AND interviewing tips in 10 mins in a “casual tone”. While I was thinking all of this, Jehan got me a cup of coffee and off I went on the improv workshop.I dont know how I did with this technique, so feel free to give brutal feedback, I can take the criticism as long as you’re being constructive (i.e. dont stay stuff like “obviously, you have no idea what presentations should be — they should have powerpoint slides” etc.)
I was introduced to this technique by watching Ze Frank and studying how he was able to build highly engaged communities around his brand. He was the one who talked about James Adams’ work in an interview.
Here’s a video of Ze Frank on Startups and VCs. I also recommend his other episodes but I cannot post them all here because some jokes are suited only for US Cultures.
P.S. No, these are not the things that they teach in your average school here… so I dont understand why people still say “but you have to be qualified to be a presenter”. What qualification? I’m a human being given the gift of an intellect, that’s my basic qualification on which I base my work on.
P.P.S. My Haitus officially begins now.
6:32 pm
some body did a very good analysis of the steve job iphone presentation
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2007/sb2007076_474371.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech