Nancy Duarte - How to be a Spice Girl

For the first time, I've met Nancy Duarte. Where has she been all my life? I have to admit, I'm a little pissed that I didn't find her first--but this presentation was shared within our internal sales/marketing community for good ideas on how to present better. Nancy Duarte has clearly mastered the art of dissecting a great speech. Her analysis of The Secret Structure of Great Talks, is clearly amazing and inspirational. I'm already working on how to explore this method when working on my next presentation for our team.

But at the beginning and end of this presentation is where I might have found a little mojo for myself. This was Nancy's self projection in the Suavitos Baking Spices girl.

Nancy says she was born from an economically and socially starved environment. "I chose a different story for my life," she says. How powerful is that?

Because what she was saying was so inspirational to me, I wanted to look up a little more about her. Wikipedia says she is a designer and writer. This really hits home for me, as I'm constantly asked, "What do you want to do, where do you want to go next?"

Like Nancy, my background started in design. I love the art of putting on paper (or on screen) what brilliant people are thinking. A lot of times our great innovators and incredibly intelligent change-makers can't design a presentation to show what they are thinking. But I can. My skills are growing every day and seeing presentations like this one, really change the way you think.

So for me personally, I'm looking for my inner spice girl. Nancy knew right away that she was this Suavitos Baking Spices poster girl.

When people ask me what I want to do next, or where am I going... does this mean I'm not where I should be? Should I be doing bigger and better things? I'm pretty excited about my current job, but I know I can't do this forever. I'll eventually discover, streamline, and conquer it's twisty path to success, and then I'll want something new. But what is that something new? How can I find my poster girl?

"The future isn't a place
we're going to go.
It's a place that
 you get to create,"
 - Nancy Duarte

It's inspiring to see how Nancy has taken design to an entirely new level. Recently, I helped to create some powerpoint slides for a presentation meant to inspire sales to use more marketing materials, and to show WHY we're investing so much in marketing. The presentation was intended to give sales a clear idea of how marketing was here to help, and how it will help their pipeline, and how it will help them make more money. The presentation was a huge success. We had rave feedback from the sales managers. I think it could have been better...and it will surely evolve over the next year as our audience expands.  

The excitement around this project was fun and invigorating. But I was a little confused with myself... Is this what I want to do next? Make powerpoints and find clip art? I started out as a designer back in 1997. Did I really want to go back? I was half embarrassed and half ecstatic. Could this be a full time gig? Are more people needing to find ways to show what they are thinking?

But it IS so much more than that. To be honest, I'm not that great of a designer - there are much more talented people out there for that. But what I AM good at, is helping communicate what YOU are saying.

I feel like this is my spice girl. I fell that the presentations, or whatever mode of communication the speaker chooses, should be a big part of my next path.  I can see what you are saying. It's like my sixth sense. It's my gift. So I will continue down this path. I will continue to learn about different forms of communication, different ways to send a message to your intended audience.

I'm really stoked about this. I feel now that this isn't going backwards. That creating inspirational materials for speeches and introductions can be much more than just a pretty powerpoint. I am creating stories. Your story. Who wants to go next?!

Oh, and here is my vintage poster girl. I don't quite have her body, but I'm kind of like a marketing-girl Godzilla, so I think it works.

Thanks Nancy. (We're on first name basis now, you can call me Rachel. or Marketing Girl Godzilla...either works)

Vintage Advertising for a Modern World

Vintage YouTube, Facebook and Skype Ads - My Modern Metropolis:

Super cool ads I found on Modern Metropolis. Nothing like seeing an old twist to such a new thing. I'm sure one day I'll look back at this post and say, "haha, I remember when Skype and Facebook were cool!"

Getting to know about.me

Just in case you didn't know all you wanted to know about Rachel Macik... I've added yet two more profiles to my collection of accounts to keep up with. The first one, is about.me/rachelmacik
I liked this site because people have such pretty pictures. I'm not talking about the faces (although mine is pretty steller. Just kidding. Not really.) I'm talking about the chance to see giant 1680 x 1050 portraits and beautiful photography. Here's mine.

I decided to leave all those open tabs cropped in this screen shot because it's ridiculous. Anyway, This is the only horizontal professional photo I had of myself. Thanks to Victoria Lind Photography. There is a lot of pressure to make your profile as interesting as your peers. I'm not sure I've done my about.me profile justice, but I expect to keep it updated as I learn more about myself.

Lately, I've been reading blogs, articles, tweets, and downloading podcasts about blogging and marketing.  (I tend to get obsessed) My first mission is to find out what my niche is. What is THAT THING that makes me different than the billions of other bloggers and marketing evangelists out there? I think I have self realized what my niche is, but I'm still working on how to say it. I can't just say, I'm Awesome! There are tons of awesome people, that just won't work. This about.me profile has my first stab at penning my niche. After this post, I promise not to say niche anymore.

The second profile I've set up is really cool. Vizualize.me/rachelmacik automatically connects to your Linkedin profile and creates your very own infographic.

This is pretty cool. I wish I could add more skills. By default it shows the skills you've had the longest, but I would rather feature new skills that I'm working on...but then, I don't want it to look like I'm a newbie with no experience. Sigh... 

And why on earth am I keeping all this up anyway? I was asked a great question today: What are you doing now, and what do you want to do next? I want to learn how to be a better speaker. I want to try my hand at sharing with a large audience of people I don't know. I want to learn how to network in a room full of people I don't know. I'm really not looking for riches or fame (Don't tell my boss that). I'm looking to grow, looking to learn, looking for my next mentor, looking to share with you, looking to teach others what I know. 

So, if you're new to social media, and are overwhelmed with the amount of accounts, profile pictures, and whitty one-liner profile taglines you're supposed to come up with and maintain--don't worry. You're not alone! It's never ending really. I've been blogging, tweeting, and facebooking as a professional since 2009 and I'm still learning every day. Isn't it fun?!