Innovation comes to us from all places – some we would never expect. I was impressed by breadth and depth of 
resources and presentation decks that are available from Empowered Presentations, an award-winning presentation design company, based in Hawaii. Founded in 2010 by CEO, Cory Jim, and President, Yancey Unequivocally, they create customized one-of-kind, high-impact presentations designed to engage and target specific audiences. In a nutshell, you will have a presentation that will knock your socks off!
Their list of awards (and there are many) include a first place win as SlideShare’s “World’s Best Presentation” 
Contest and the chance they took when they entered the contest and the road they took with their win came from the heart. Yancey told me that Cory’s love of PowerPoint was personal. While serving our country overseas, he wanted to find a way to communicate with his four-year-old son, Andrew, and teaching him the alphabet seemed like a perfect way to spend time together. Cory turned to PowerPoint to create ABC slides to help Andrew learn the alphabet and how to read. It was definitely a labor of love. The innovation came from his heart and started an adventure that still goes on today.
Fast forward and they decided to enter a contest but with what content? Yancey’s father had lung cancer and it was a growing epidemic. Many of us have been touched by it – I know I have. So, they decided to do a presentation about smoking and the statistics about the cigarette industry and how it is affecting people. Visually, the presentation told a strong, impactful story that made you think. That combination of right pictures, the right information, and the right presentation told a story that has and emotional impact. No wonder it was named the “World’s Best Presentation”. I shared a few slides with you but click here if you want to see the entire deck.
Passion also leads to innovation and it was great fun to see the out-of-the-box ideas that they use to tell the stories – whether it is for fun, for a client, or for themselves. Their personalities are definitely a part of the appeal. You can feel the emotion in some of their slide decks – see for yourself:
And they give back to the presentation community. In addition to the 100+ presentations on SlideShare, they also offer a number of resources on their website that is meant to make you think. Think how you approach presentation design so you can tell your story in a way that closes that deal, or gets you the job. It is worth your time to download these resources. They contain excellent content as being visually appealing. The visuals they selected in The Presentation Tool Kit fit the content perfectly to the content. I would add a few things to the list such as a backup laptop, an extra power cord and a thumb drive with the presentation loaded on it.
This article is the start of a monthly column where I get to introduce our community members to you. If you have someone you would like me to profile, please email me at sfitzpatrick@presentationxpert.com
