Part 3

Present

It's a tragedy when the product of a presenter's preparation and effort is compromised; not by the content of their work, but by how it's presented. For example, a playwright's work could be compromised by poor acting, a brand's message could be compromised by ineffective advertising, or a scientist's discovery could be compromised by incomprehensible writing.

All of these ideas' potential value is hindered by their presentation—the highly important point at which the ideas move from behind the curtain into the real world. This isn't an easy transition, and it comes with risk. It requires skills and approaches that may not come naturally to those who created the original work. Playwrights are not often directors and scientists are not always writers. An amazing idea, poorly presented, loses value quickly.

And so it is with explanation. Explanations cannot survive in isolation. They must be skillfully promoted and shared to achieve their potential. To create change and solve problems, they must move from behind the curtain in a form that fits with the audience's needs. Even the most amazing explanation loses value quickly if presented poorly.

This is the focus in this part of the book—to move from packaging and writing explanations to releasing them into the real world in a form that engages the target audience and helps them feel confident. My goal is to not only help you consider your presentation options, but also to introduce the potential of tools, ideas, and approaches you may not have considered before. In the end, your explanations should be remarkable—not only because they solve explanation problems, but also because you've presented them in a way that makes people notice them.

In the following chapters, we'll cover:

• The lessons that we at Common Craft have learned in presenting multimedia explanations
• How to think about media choices and use constraints to find the right ones
• Different types of visuals, and how to use visual thinking in your explanations
• How Emma's team approached the options to present their explanation

To finish up, we'll zoom out and think broadly about your life as an explainer and the potential to make explanation a productive part of your organization's culture. We'll also explore various opportunities to use explanations through real-world case studies and examples that highlight explanations at work.