I thought my first encounter with Jon Thomas was when I cited his bio story, one of the examples Michael Margolis shared during his webinar series on developing one’s bio story. He responded with a comment about his bio story that he elaborates on later this week in this Q&A; his comment prompted me to invite him to do the Q&A. As I was researching questions to ask him, I made the horrifying discovery that I had already encountered Jon when I trashed a presentation his company crafted that was one of the winners of SlideShare’s 2010 World’s Best Presentation Contest. Yikes! Jon was a very good sport in commenting on my skewering. Jon is one of several practitioners in this Q&A series who emphasize storytelling in presentations. I’m thrilled to have him — especially after I dissed his work here! This Q&A will run over the next five days.

Bio: [in his own words from his company site]: I am the founder of Presentation Advisors, but more importantly I am a storyteller and have been developing engaging brand stories for nearly nine years. I have extensively researched the topics of presenting, design, marketing and storytelling and fear that the world has unknowingly been exposed to a poisonous presentation landscape since the inception of PowerPoint. I am here to make a change.

Presentation Advisors was founded on the principles of simplicity, clarity, beauty, and most importantly, narrative. I design presentations with the audience in mind, including vibrant images, few words, and an engaging story. I don’t play nice with bullet points, and work best with clients who are willing to throw out what they know about presentations and realize that a story is more powerful than their sales pitch.

Whether your presentation is polished and you’re just looking for visuals, or you know you have a story and don’t know where to begin, don’t worry. I have designed award-winning presentations from just a two-page word document, and I’m excited to work with you to help you present your emotion, your passion, and your story.

I am also the Director of Communications for Story Worldwide, the world’s first post-advertising agency, where I am constantly working to make Story famous through social media engagement, audience generation, web strategy, and content creation.

I am an avid blogger and passionate speaker on presentation and marketing topics. You can follow my daily ramblings on my Twitter account. If you’re hoping for a follow back, make sure you’re not doing any of the 10 reasons I won’t follow you back.

Q&A with Jonathan Thomas, Question 1:

Q: How did you initially become involved with story/storytelling/ narrative? What attracted you to this field? What do you love about it?

A: Right out of college I joined a video production house and for five years immersed myself in the story. From videography, to script writing, storyboarding, graphic design, editing, and producing — it all revolved around telling a compelling story that would entertain. I even started my own wedding videography company and had to weave the story of my clients’ wedding days into a two-hour DVD. It was hard work, but seeing their eyes light up when they watch it for the first time was pretty amazing.

From there I got my MBA in marketing and left the production house for a job within marketing at an IT security firm. It wasn’t easy since the firm was working with traditional, interruptive marketing techniques like direct mail, list buying, and cold calling. I sat right next to our outside sales team (telemarketers) and heard them get hung up on (and rightfully so) day after day. It ate me up inside. I felt bad for them and for the people on the other end of the line. I knew there was a better way to tell our story.

I made it my goal to bring the company into the 21st century — what I now like to call the post-advertising age. I totally immersed myself in the latest marketing books and read blogs religiously. I took a fondness to social media, eventually launching a corporate blog and Twitter account. I loved everything about it this new style of marketing and knew it was going to be the industry standard very soon.

Only out of chance did I start working on presentation design. I had a basic graphic-design background, so all of our corporate PowerPoints started showing up in my email box with notes asking if I could “pretty them up.” I figured if I was going to do that on a regular basis, I better learn how to do it effectively. Again, I turned to books and blogs to teach myself the ways of Presentation Zen.

I’ve always felt that the intersection between marketing and presentation design was storytelling. In order to engage your audience and express how a product or service can truly affect their lives, you had to have an engaging story. That story flowed through our presentations into our marketing materials, blog posts, webinars and more.

A little more than two years ago I founded Presentation Advisors to help others present more effectively, and joined Story Worldwide in April of 2010 as the Director of Communications. Story was walking the walk and talking the talk of brand storytelling way before any other marketing agency, and I knew a place called “Story” was going to be a great fit for me.