How Do You Say “Top 10 Best Presentations Ever” In…?

It was a fun process looking through hundreds and hundreds of video presentations as we created our Top 10 Best Presentations Ever. And it was fun seeing that post get the amount of attention and linking that it got all over the world. As a bonus, I’ve learned how to say Top 10 Best Presentations Ever in lots of languages. Here’s a sampling:

Spanish. 10 momentos de leyenda en la historia de la empresa. (via La central de datos)

German. Die 10 besten Präsentationen aller Zeiten. (via Anders | denken blog)

French. Top 10 des meilleures présentations de tous les temps. (via Le blog a Ollie)

Italian. Le dieci migliori presentazioni di sempre (via Guidone)

Hungarian. A világ 10 legjobb prezentációja. (via Doransky)

Latvian. Labākās prezentācijas. (via laacz.lv)

Estonian. Kõigi aegade kümme parimat esinemist. (via sevenline internetiturundus)

Russian. Top 10 –õ—É—á—à–∏—Ö –ø—Ä–µ–∑–µ–Ω—Ç–∞—Ü–∏–π (via ideali.ru/ez)

Japanese. 最高のスピーチを観て、腕を鍛えましょうか。(via blog@slightlyblue)

Polish. 10 najlepszych prezentacji (via NetatNik)

Hebrew. ◊ú◊ô◊†◊ß◊ô◊ù ◊ú◊¢◊©◊® ◊î◊§◊®◊ñ◊†◊ò◊¶◊ô◊ï◊™ ◊î◊ò◊ï◊ë◊ï◊™ ◊©◊ú ◊î◊©◊†◊ô◊ù ◊î◊ê◊ó◊®◊ï◊†◊ï◊™, ◊ú◊ì◊¢◊™◊ï ◊©◊ú ◊î◊õ◊ï◊™◊ë. ◊ê◊ï◊ú◊ô ◊ú◊ê ◊î◊õ◊ô, ◊ê◊ë◊ú ◊ô◊© ◊õ◊û◊î ◊©◊ô◊© ◊î◊®◊ë◊î ◊û◊î ◊ú◊ú◊û◊ï◊ì ◊û◊î◊ü ◊ë◊™◊ó◊ï◊ù. (It’s transposed, but I didn’t know how to cut it in otherwise. via ◊î◊ß◊ï◊ú◊ß◊ò◊ô◊ë “The Collective”)

Swedish. De ti beste presentasjonene noensinne (via KP’s Blogg)

And as a quiz to KnowHR readers, what language is this? 10 těch vůbec nejlepších prezentací!

UPDATE: Reg helped me with a proper Spanish translation, which is Las mejores 10 presentaciones (en la historia). Thanks, Reg!
Coming Soon: 10 More Great Presentations.

UPDATE 2: Priit at Seveline Internetiturundus gave me the proper Estonian translation and I amended the first one. Thanks, Priit!

Top Ten Internal Website Goofs

Corporate internal websites can be useful, but are often headache inducing. Employees are required to use them, but are often unable to find what they need. It’s often the little things that break down. And we’ve seen them all. With that in mind, we assembed our list of the top ten internal website goofs:

10. Poorly scaled. Otherwise useful tools are not scaled up for use with thousands or tens of thousands of users. If the only way to find your meeting in your meeting organization software is to click ‘Next’ four or five times through the list of every meeting your company is having today, then the software simply isn’t scaled for the demand.

9. Inability to navigate without a mouse. Don’t get me wrong, computer mice are handy tools. But so is the keyboard. In fact, there are users who simply can’t or shouldn’t use the mouse (e.g., blind people and carpal tunnel sufferers, respectively). And, quite simply, there are employees who prefer to use their keyboard. Browser technology is sufficiently advanced that there’s no excuse for making a website unnavigable without a mouse.

8. Not cross-browser compliant. Internet Explorer may be your corporate standard, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other browsers users might want to use. Some browsers have disability-friendly tools (e.g., Firefox and Opera) that make it possible for users with disabilities to get around the internet. Don’t make it harder for them by making your site unusable by their tools of choice. Cross-browser compatibility can be difficult to achieve, and you’re always going to have to make some choices about which browsers you support, but more is better.

7. Inconsistent look and feel. You click a link on your corporate site, and you’re suddenly transported…somewhere. The logo’s the same, but the menu’s changed. Or the page title says it’s an internal department, but there’s nothing remotely similar in the look of the site to make you think it’s related to your company at all, let alone a part of the company. Not good. Users need to feel like they know where they are. When the look and feel of the site changes unexpectedly, it confuses your users.

6. Multiple navigation schemes. You’re looking for a link to today’s cafeteria menu. But is it in one of the many dizzying menus? One of those tab thingies? The quicklinks? Those sidepanels with extra info? Who knows? The more ways there are to organize info, the less likely you’ll be able to guess where your particular info is hiding.

5. Too much information on the front page. Too much info. Too many links. Tiny fonts. Too, too…busy. Company portals need to be scannable. No one has the time to or interest in reading everything available. Everyone’s just looking for the first link that catches their eye that could possibly be the thing their looking for. Sure, there’s a lot to your company, lots of information, and a lot of people to please. But the point of a portal isn’t to provide everything you possibly can squeeze in there. The point is to make a clear, easy starting point where employees will be able to navigate themselves to everything.

4. Poor role awareness. You see a link. It looks vaguely like what you’re looking for. You click it. You go to a page that says: “I’m sorry. You don’t have access to this feature.” Or maybe you get a popup with an error message. This is just not ok. Do not waste your user’s time. The user should never have access to a link to something he or she is not allowed to use. If they don’t have access, don’t give them something to click.

3. Missing information. This is especially problematic when combined with #5. A user can spend over a half an hour trying to hunt down info that should be there, but just isn’t. If your company offers a shuttle service, employees should be able to find the schedule. If you have a cafeteria, the hours it’s open should be easily available. If you provide an emergency weather phone number, it should be on your site.

2. No clear way to tell where I am. A complex portal website must have a clear and easy way to identify the user’s location in the portal. The portal should have breadcrumbs at the top of the page. The company logo should always be in the upper left corner, and should be a link to the home page for the portal. Links in the menu should not use different labels than the title of the page it will take you to. Every time you confuse your user, you slow him down. You slow your user down, they have less time for actual business concerns.

1. No clear way to find what I want. The biggest culprit of all is lame, poorly implemented, useless search. Your users need to be able to search or browse for what they want quickly and easily. So, you’re not Google. Fine. Hire them. Or spend some serious effort on making clear, clean browsing trees for your users to poke around in. When you go to a mall, and you don’t know where a store is, you check the mall map. When you go to a portal, and don’t know where your info is, you need a similarly straightforward way to navigate to that info.

Fundamentally, a portal should speed your users up. It should move them quickly to the info they want. It should be friendly to people with disabilities. It should be flexible to the myriad ways people do things. It shouldn’t get in their way, slow them down, or confuse them. After a half hour of battling with an uncooperative portal, your user is going to be tired, cranky, and uninterested in whatever it was they were originally doing. And that’s not good for business.

Want to learn more about good design? Consider the following resources:

Top 10 Best Presentations Ever

Sarah and I were talking about great presentations we’d seen or heard about and she came up with an idea for a Top 10 list. Here’s our take on the Top 10 Best Presentations Ever (in no particular order…and if you have others to add, we’d love to hear about them):

Steve Jobs introduces the Macintosh in 1984. Back then, Steve dressed like Tucker Carlson circa 2006, but black tee shirts and jeans or double-breasted jacket and bow tie, this Macintosh unveiling rocked the house. Steve has perfected the sense of theater, and none is better than this one. Check out how he pulls the 3.5-inch floppy from his jacket pocket. Flair, baby.

Dick Hardt’s Identity 2.0 presentation at OSCON 2005. Hardt’s preparation and energy sets the standard for presentation quality. He uses hundreds of slides in this 20-minute, high buzz work. Heck, I didn’t even care about virtual identity and still watched this one five or six times. It has a chance of becoming my presentation Dirty Dancing (which I’ve seen 100 times), where “nobody puts baby in the corner.”

Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start speech at TiECon 2006. In the 40-minute presentation (PDF of slides here), Kawasaki talks about innovation and business evangelism. When he talks about “Make Mantra” it’s well worth listening to. The beauty of his speech is that he uses a Top 10 approach and is unafraid to speak plainly and with great humor (which is sadly lost in public speaking).

Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech in 1963. Who can argue that Dr. King’s speech in Washington on August 28, 1963 was anything but brilliant and changed the trajectory of America? But the rheotrical beauty of this speech is also unparalleled. At a time when our language has been reduced to the common, it’s essential to look upon the preparation and thought that Dr. King used for this monumetal speech.

Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture talk at the 2002 Open Source Conference. The master of the simple slides shows us how it’s done. And since, as he says, this is his 100th time for this talk, he has this bad boy down solid. Even though this talk is from 2002, his slide presentation style is still as fresh today as Axe Body Spray.

Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink presentation at SXSW 2005. I’ve seen Gladwell talk a couple of times in person, and he’s brilliant. He talks fast and he makes points by telling stories. He doesn’t lecture, he paints a picture. All this from one of the foremost thinkers of our age. Gladwell makes the points, “We can do more with less. And there are real dangers in giving people too much information.” Hey, that reminds me, Where are his slides? Oh, he’s presenting without slides. How about that?

Tom Peters presents A Ham Sandwich in 1990. Okay, this isn’t a Peters presentation, but the guy has so much passion that he can make a ham sandwich sound compelling. I saw him a few times in the late 80s during the height of the Thriving on Chaos days, and that was some rallying cry. In the link here, Peters outlines what makes a great presentation. No one can leave a Tom Peters presentation saying they weren’t energized and entertained.

Seth Godin talks about Marketing at Google in 2006. “Technology doesn’t win, but it sure gives you a chance at marketing.” Godin knows the story, lived it, and tells it. He also uses slides to his advantage to persuade his audience that he’s right. Check out the slide he calls “No one cares about you.” Is there anything wrong with getting people to laugh and think at the same time?

Andy Kaufman sings along to Mighty Mouse on SNL in 1975. Mies van der Rohe would have been proud, because Kaufman showed the essence of “less is more” in this Saturday Night Live skit. I’m not suggesting that your presentations should be filled renditions of superhero songs, but negative space is important, and this presentation was both ahead of its time and pointed in its simplicity.

Rupert Everett sings I Say a Little Prayer for You in MBFW in 1997. Okay, this is just one of our favorites and isn’t exactly a “presentation.” In fact, it’s from a movie - My Best Friend’s Wedding. But isn’t a lot of what we do a “presentation” designed to persuade people to believe our story? The beauty of this one is the lead-in and then the music. Oh, the power of music. And if you haven’t seen this movie, the last scene is just fantastic.

UPDATE: The readers have spoken! And in addition to KnowHR’s Top 10 Best Presentations Ever, we now have Top 10 Best Presentations - The Reader’s Choice. Click on over and have a look at 10 more great presentations.

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