Matthias Lüfkens is the man behind the social media communication of the World Economic Forum. He and his colleagues have upgraded the Forum’s online presence and have made the world’s most important summit on economy more transparent than ever before. They now use Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube and Myspace among other channels, involve citizen reporters and share almost every media content instantly on the web. Introducing how the WEF uses social media tools, Matthias is a keynote speaker of many events and conferences worldwide. Telling the story of going 2.0, Matthias uses Prezi, and now explains what he thinks about creating a good one.

As social media architect at the World Economic Forum, you see world leaders talking about the hottest issues of the planet. What do you think is needed for a good speech, what skills a good speaker must have?

The best presentations are those which do not require any text. Too many
 presentations are cluttered with text that the speaker is just reading. I
 believe a picture is worth a thousand words and therefore I like to capture
 the audience’s attention with visuals only. The pictures and videos will
 capture the audience attention and help get the message accross.

What were the most attractive features of Prezi when you first tried it?

Prezi is bringing the art of presentation to a new level. Instead of going
 linear from slide to slide like a PowerPoint presentation, Prezis let you
 surf from one subject to the other and allows you to deep-dive into
s pecific issues without losing the full picture.

How do you think Prezi shapes the way people tell their stories?

Prezi helps visualize the stream of consciousness of a speaker. I hope
 Prezi will soon allow multiple paths, so that the speaker can go different
 ways in the presentation depending on the reactions of the audience.

Was it easy or hard to switch to Prezi? What are the benefits you see?

It was amazing to see how easily you can prepare a slideshow using Prezi’s 
online tool. It takes some time to get used to it, but once you have 
mastered the control buttons, it is fairly easy and straightforward.

In the Prezi embedded to this interview you show the process of upgrading the Forum’s communication extending it to the social media. What was the main message you wanted to deliver?

My aim was to show the richness of social networks out there and then to
 focus on the five key social media sites. The presentation aims to show how 
the Forum has been using the key social media sites.

How do you think Prezi helps the audience understand your points?

Judging from the reactions I received after the presentation it was a
 smashing success.

Tags: Your prezis

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