The New York Times: Presentation Skills for Insights Team

• Client: The New York Times - Audience Insights Group (AIG)
• Challenge: Excellent research that lost its edge the moment it hit a slide
• What we built: A two-module program - storytelling, then deck design - plus a run of office hours
• Scale: The Insights team - two sessions plus ongoing support
• Result: Weeks later, an unprompted compliment in the Marketing Leadership Slack after a company-wide presentation

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 - and 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.

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.)

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 - office hours plus a curated shelf of storytelling resources - so the skills got tested on live presentations, not 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.”

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 demo