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The New York TimesPrograms & Workshops

Presentation skills for an insights team

The Times’ Audience Insights Group did excellent research, then lost the room presenting it. Two modules plus office hours closed the gap.

Banner for the New York Times 'Design + Deliver a Narrative' workshop, with a film clapperboard and the Times logo

There’s an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown where forty-five minutes in Manila leave you tethered to a city you didn’t know that morning. The food is the excuse. The storytelling holds you there: what he shows you, and the order he shows it in.

The New York Times Audience Insights Group had the raw material for that kind of storytelling, and no reliable way to tell it.

Excellent research, losing the room

Dense findings and an overloaded deck can lose any room. These decks went up in front of the entire marketing organization, from the team whose whole job is making audiences feel understood.

First the story, then the telling

We split presenting into its two teachable halves, plus office hours to make it hold.

  1. Module 1Find the storyDiagnose the audience, define the outcome, weave the findings into a through-line.
  2. Module 2Tell it wellStructure, sense and deck design that steers attention.
  3. AfterOffice hoursLive presentations, plus a shelf of storytelling resources.

Module one: find the story

Diagnose the audience beyond the brief and define the outcome before touching a slide. Then weave the findings into a through-line. (Yes, there’s a periodic table of storytelling. No, we didn’t invent it.)

Illustration of a green crocodile with four children standing between its open jaws, used as a storytelling example
A children's book. Pictures that tell the story.
Slide of cave paintings of animals labeled 'Pyrenees Mountains, 12000 BC', an example of ancient storytelling
Pyrenees Mountains, 12000 BC. Cave paintings, an early story.
Workshop slide titled Hip Hop, 1975 AD, with portraits of three hip hop artists
Hip Hop, 1975 AD. Storytelling in music.

Module two: tell it well

Structure, sense, and (in their words) a dash of corporate charisma, with deck design to match: slides that steer attention exactly where you want it to go.

Office hours

We stayed on, with office hours and a curated shelf of storytelling resources, so the skills got tested on live presentations instead of filed away.

What shifted

A few weeks later, the team presented to the entire marketing organization. A colleague from another department wrote, unprompted, in the Marketing Leadership Slack:

“the insights were so juicy, the deck design was so clean, and the framing and pacing was honestly one of the best I’ve seen.”

Slack message: 'You know this is the first deck we worked on after the Wavetable workshop right?'

No feedback form asked for that. The work got noticed in the wild, by someone with no reason to flatter.

Doing work that deserves a better hearing? Two focused modules, then office hours until it holds: the shape we’d run for your team. → Book a 20-minute call

Try something like it

Director's Cut

Storytelling8 min · Solo

Pull apart three classic stories (Jaws, Dove, Romeo & Juliet), find what makes them tick, then remix it into something of your own.

Play

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