Horace Dediu Farshad Nayeri

Ever had a question about Apple’s business or financial fundamentals?

Starting this month, as part of Asymco One, we’ll host monthly Office Hours, a call-in shows where our own Horace “the Horacle” answers your pressing questions, live.

Regular monthly sessions will be announce with plenty of notice for questions. Special editions timed to major Apple moments: quarterly earnings calls, product launches, and WWDC.

Learn more about Asymco One.

For the first time, we will be bringing all Asymco Podcasts under the same roof, included in Asymco One subscription.

Asymco One subscriptions will include access not only to the new episodes of the Asymetric Podcast, but also to all classic Asymco Podcast content.

We have already started the process of remastering, transcription, and indexing archives of: The Critical Path, Asymcar, and Asymetric.

Watch Asymco Podcasts for the latest updates.

Learn more about Asymco One.

 

I will be presenting my latest analysis of Apple at the Sustain event in San Francisco on Thursday Sept 8th, the day after Apple's keynote, along with Ben Bajarin, Carolina Milanesi who will alsob equipped with their latest market insights.

There is a time to disrupt and there is a time to sustain.

Sustain event is about understanding Apple's levers of control to sustain the iPhone as it moves into direct competition with Android. We will also examine positions of top five technology brands: Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft.

Learn more about the event at Airshow.io. Given he short notice, we are keeping this event on the small side so reserve your seat soon.

We are ready to roll out Airshow 2.0, a redesigned curriculum for motion-based data presentations.

Three years ago, we created the Airshow concept as a study of how stories come alive using data. We drew inspiration from cinematography and combined with the work of Welles, Tufte and Rosling to build a new theory of presentations. We offered explanations of: 

• How and why are presentations different from one-on-one interactions?
• Will new user interface metaphors such as touch help tell stories better than the slide advance clicker?
• Are motion and interaction an effective ways to present? If so, how are they to be choreographed and directed?
• How does “camera position” affect a data story?

Since that initial concept, we have learned far more.

Airshow 2.0 moves beyond executing a story in pixels to the writing and directing process. As before, we teach using the process itself: through stories presented as data. 

A full-day presentation of Airshow 2.0 will debut on May 28 in Boston. We will also hold a special performance in San Francisco on Saturday June 11 (weekend before WWDC) to commemorate Airshow’s third anniversary.

To register, or for more information, see http://airshow.io/ .  A 30% discount is available to early registrants. 

We will be conducting the 11th Airshow event in Seattle on Saturday, 8 November 2014.

The purpose of Airshow is to:

• Understand how data can be used to persuade through an appeal to logic as well as through empathy.
• Understand the basics of "data cinematicism" including the techniques analogous to cinematography and direction.
• Understand story development techniques including how to facilitate the audience's entry into the story.
• Learn how to build a cinematic presentation.

The method we devised borrows heavily from the techniques of cinematography and screenwriting to impart meaning to the audience beyond the literal words spoken or images shown on screen. These techniques are demonstrated with "feature presentations" and then deconstructed in interactive lectures. Throughout we also weave Aristotelian rhetorical tips and present from the Asymco repertoire of stories.

Given the cinematic nature of the event, we thought it would be fitting to use a screening room, so we have reserved the the Auditorium at Fry Art Museum. See Airshow Seattle event page for more information. Discounted registrations for readers of this site are available. Students and teachers may register with an academic discounts.

Fry Art Museum Auditorium

Frye Art Museum Auditorium

On the eve of earnings and the "It's been way too long" special event, it's time to look back a few years and forward a few quarters. The instrument chosen is Apple's income statement viewed in Perspective flows.

109098798

You can view the story as a video, produced using Perspective.

We will be conducting our 9th Airshow event in Vancouver next Wednesday, March 26, 2014.

The purpose of Airshow is to:

• Understand how data can be used to persuade through an appeal to logic as well as through empathy.
• Understand the basics of "data cinematicism" including the techniques analogous to cinematography and direction.
• Understand story development techniques including how to facilitate the audience's entry into the story.
• Learn how to build a cinematic presentation.

The method we devised borrows heavily from the techniques of cinematography and screenwriting to impart meaning to the audience beyond the literal words spoken or images shown on screen. These techniques are demonstrated with "feature presentations" and then deconstructed in interactive lectures. Throughout we also weave Aristotelian rhetorical tips and present from the Asymco repertoire of stories.

Discounted registrations are available for readers of this blog, and students.

We will be conducting our 8th Airshow event in London next Wednesday, 26 February 2014.

The purpose of Airshow is to:

• Understand how data can be used to persuade through an appeal to logic as well as through empathy.
• Understand the basics of "data cinematicism" including the techniques analogous to cinematography and direction.
• Understand story development techniques including how to facilitate the audience's entry into the story.
• Learn how to build a cinematic presentation.

The method we devised borrows heavily from the techniques of cinematography and screenwriting to impart meaning to the audience beyond the literal words spoken or images shown on screen. These techniques are demonstrated with "feature presentations" and then deconstructed in interactive lectures. Throughout we also weave Aristotelian rhetorical tips and present from the Asymco repertoire of stories.

Few seats remain. Discounted registrations are available for readers of this blog, and students.

Airshow New York was our best Airshow ever. We sold out to an audience who engaged and challenged us to our best performance. We are learning more each time and after three shows we have honed the show to a fine performance.

Due to the demand met in New York we decided to return there in December 5th but to also present in my home town of Boston on December 3rd. We are also presenting in my second home town of Helsinki in November.

You can sign up for any of these events at Airshow.asymco.com.

The purpose of Airshow is:

• To explain how to present rich data in a compelling and emotionally engaging way.
• To explain the principles of visual persuasion.
• To offer hands-on training with the tools of persuasion: iPad and  Perspective.

The method we devised borrows heavily from the techniques of Cinematography and screenwriting to impart meaning to the audience beyond the literal words spoken or images shown on screen.

This includes:

• Framing
• Light and Color
• Depth
• Motion
• The Reveal
• Texture
• Establishment
• Characterization
• Point of View

These techniques are demonstrated with "feature presentations" and then deconstructed in interactive lectures. Throughout we also weave Aristotelian rhetorical tips and present from the Asymco repertoire of stories.

The day ends with a hands-on exercise. iPads are required.

At the end of the seminar you should be able to:

• Understand how data can be used to persuade through an appeal to logic as well as through empathy.
• Understand the basics of "data cinematicism" including the techniques analogous to cinematography and direction.
• Understand story development techniques including how to facilitate the audience's entry into the story.
• Build a cinematic presentation.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the next Airshow.

 

After having "taken the show on the road" and spending an inordinate amount of time giving presentations during the last year I came to the conclusion that what remains less than good enough for presentations is the variable quality of projectors.

The problem is not just quality of image but also the unpredictable size of screen, how far it is from the audience, how poor the contrast or color reproduction might be and to what degree there is support for wireless connections.

When presenting detailed, information dense graphs, these quality issues become presentation killers and not only do they result in poor retention for the audience but decrease the confidence of the presenter, leading to a vicious cycle.

The answer is not to lug around your own projector because many times the venue will not accept it, other times the image "throw" is not matched to the screen and it's a pain to set up and transport.

What I think needs to happen is that the projector needs to be disrupted.

This is where the iPad and Perspective come into play. When presenting using Perspective we have the ability to "airshow" or present directly to the (iOS) devices that the audience has with them.

This way not only the presenter's screen is "mirrored locally" but also the direct manipulation and choreography of the data reveal is instantly visible. You can see a fragment of how it works in this test:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/xoLdmmmdCew&w=640&h=385]

This is the technique we use at the Airshow event and it has proven to work well even with large audiences. To see it in action (and to learn how to develop presentations into cinematic experiences) join us at the next Airshow in Chicago.

I join forces with Pixxa, makers of Perspective, to present a workshop on the future of presentation.

After giving dozens of talks in the last year using an iPad with Perspective I've learned a few things. Having also spent years using Powerpoint to try to do the same thing, I've experienced first hand how slideware has gotten in the way of great storytelling.

So we teamed up to understand how stories come alive using data and drew inspiration from Aristotle, Welles, Tufte and Rosling to build a new theory of presentation.

We believe that we have summoned up enough cohesion in the theory to put it forward to an audience and tell the story of storytelling; practicing what we preach, so to speak.

Here are some of the questions we are putting forward:

• How and why are presentations different from one-on-one interactions?
• Can mobile technology help tell stories better than the Powerpoint metaphors?
• Is motion and interaction effective, and if so how can it be choreographed and directed?
• Does "camera position" affect the focal point of a story? In other words, should the presenter think of the camera as a character in the story?
• Can presentations be built more quickly and can the presenter obtain confidence without rehearsal?
• What are some of the constraints of venue and legacy AV equipment that perpetuate ancient dogma? How can the presenter eliminate or mitigate these constraints?

At a minimum, the workshop is designed to recruit and equip a new cadre (no more than 50) with a new algorithm of presentation built on rhetorical, theatrical and cinematic foundations.

We call the workshop Airshow. June 9th, 10am to 4pm, the day before WWDC, in San Francisco. Sign up here.