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What are the steps in creating a corporate blueprint?
Step 1: Create Company Formats. Formats, or outlines, need to be created for the specific type of presentations given most frequently. First, the presenter decides on the presentation's objective and key message or story line. Then a format is chosen to help organize and craft the content for the message. Here are several formats many companies could use: (a) product launch format; (b) company overview format; (c) product sales format; (d) strategy recommendation format; (e) project update format; and (f) technical update format. These formats need to be created and tested by the people who will be using them. Many presentation software packages include formats in the software, but in all likelihood companies will want to customize them.
Step 2: Design Slides with a Background Look. First, a background look will be designed, then slides will be designed to go with that background. To decide what different design looks are needed, first, watch how the information is presented now. Then create slide looks to make the information more "digestible" to the audience. For example, when a new product is introduced, a slide comparing some other product in the market to this new product can be created. This comparison slide design can be one of the slides for that new product's format.
Also, slide designs should enable the presenter to interact with the audience, unless the speech is to a very large audience. Presentations need to be created in such a way that audience involvement occurs. The easier it is for a presenter to discuss the slide, the more likely the presenter will look at the audience and engage in a dialogue, versus a monologue. Tables that compare products or project phases, before-and-after photos, questions on slides, and fill-in-the-information slides all help the presenter engage with the audience. You'll see some of these examples and more later in this chapter.
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Benefits of Corporate Blueprinting
Many benefits accrue from corporate blueprinting. They are described below.
Time Savings. When people don't have to start from scratch, they will save hours. For example, in many companies, if a technical person needs a comparison slide without a blue background, he has to create such a slide. He will save time if that type of slide is already in existence.
Consistent Corporate Image and Message. The second benefit is that the company will have one corporate image in the marketplace. With a pre-defined color scheme and many different slide designs, the slides will be easy to mix and match between presentations. People will look forward to using all the different designs and not go off on their own, either creating horrid color combinations or just giving up and creating text slide after text slide. With a consistent corporate image, the presentations will—just by their structure and design—subtly tell audiences about the mission and goals of the company.
Higher Standards of Professionalism. Companies will have professional looking slides for their presentations, showing their audiences that they took the time and energy to create well-conceived slide designs.
Ability to Focus on Other Business Concerns. The fourth benefit is that people will be able to spend more time on the real work of creating the company's future. The businessperson can think about larger issues of business expansion and customer satisfaction.
Ease of Delivery. Presenters will be more interested in speaking if they don't have to look at the same slide design hour after hour. Variety in the slides enables the presenter to have more variety in voice tone, gestures, and audience interaction.
If you want your company presenters to be smarter about creating and delivering presentations, then provide a library of formats and slide designs that employees can use to create professional and consistent slides for their presentations. Figure 4.1 is a flow chart of how the blueprint process fits into the whole scheme of a presentation. Next are some examples of actual company blueprints from Summit Business Consulting, The Nature Conservancy, and Harmon, Inc. To see these designs in color, open the CD and look at them.
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