Microsoft 365 Insider Spotlight: Richard Goring

(Originally posted January 30, 2023 By ~ Microsoft 365 Insider Engagement Team)

Richard Goring

How can someone who was focused on biomedical science transition to a career in presentations and design? Richard Goring, MVP and director of Microsoft 365 apps and services Bright CarbonHe came to share his journey with us.

“I went into school thinking I wanted to focus on engineering because both my parents were engineers. It just seemed natural. But I discovered a love for biology and physiology, and the intricacies of how living things work, and how all the individual components come together to create something fantastically complex.”

After graduating from college, the most obvious path was to go into medicine or pharmaceuticals. First, he wanted to see if there were other fields, and stumbled upon a work experience placement at a presentation design agency that changed the trajectory of his career. He realized that helping organizations work together and create presentations that communicate effectively was truly his passion. He hasn’t stopped designing since.

So where did your journey with PowerPoint begin?

I started out professionally with PowerPoint about 20 years ago. About 12 years ago, some of us started an agency called BrightCarbon to help people create more compelling visual stories using standard tools like PowerPoint. The kind of things people have to use every day to communicate complex, difficult, technical ideas. But PowerPoint allows you to do it in an elegant and easy-to-understand way. It helps you create visuals and tell stories easily.

Richard Goring, Director of BrightCarbon

At BrightCarbon, we work with organizations to create stories and help people understand complex ideas. What we’ve found over the last 20 years is that PowerPoint has evolved quite dramatically. It’s gone from being a fairly basic graphics tool to a very sophisticated animation that can present even the most complex stories clearly and elegantly. It helps people have more useful conversations, and I find that fascinating.

The pandemic and working from home forced them to adjust their behavior and the way they interacted with technology. They started learning new things about PowerPoint and discovering more of the really cool things it had to offer.

How does the Office Insider program apply to your work and designs?

Well, sometimes it’s through better discoverability. For example, in-app release notes that tell you about new features, like “Would you like to try this?” or letting you try out the latest features as soon as they’re released. I fondly remember the first time I used Morph when I was on the Insider channel. It’s a great way to create smooth, seamless sequences. Morph is great, but what if you could layer layers on top of each other and create a zoom lens effect? ​​Like two images on top of each other. I’ve used this technique to create interesting little drawings of the vasculature to educate people about pulmonary embolism, and people don’t realize it’s a PowerPoint when they look at it.

Pulmonary embolism morph

When people first see these new features, they might say, “I’ve already used this tool and I’m really familiar with it, so I can do a lot more with it.”

I also speak at many conferences, webinars, and training sessions every year on using PowerPoint. I enjoy showing off new features and use cases to audiences, especially those who haven’t had the chance to try them out themselves. The joy I see on their faces or read in chat when I show them something really cool like, “This is awesome! Wow, this is really great!” is very rewarding as a speaker.

Richard Goring speaks at conference

What is one word that describes your working style?

Accuracy. Accuracy is very important to me. It’s also important to our clients. The organizations we work with are very concerned about how visual representations work, how relevant levels of detail are shared with their target audience, and how accurately and effectively we tell their stories.

So given your background in the creative field, what forms of art or hobbies inspire you the most?

I love seeing what other people are doing. It inspires me and gives me joy. I work for a large design firm with 150 people working remotely. We get together once a week and share cool stuff. It’s really cool to be part of a collaborative group… you know… “What about this? What about that? I’ve made something cool. How do we solve this problem?” I would recommend anyone who wants to improve their communication and presentation skills to find a community to practice them. If you’re looking specifically for presentations, I highly recommend checking out: Presentation Guild.

I am a lifelong learner. I really enjoy books and podcasts by scientists and economists like Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford, and Tim Harford. They are great communicators and can explain complex and technical topics to anyone. I think you can learn a lot from the way they structure information and stories, and what details they include and what details they leave out.

Last question, Richard. Are there any fictional characters that inspire you?

How about Neo from the Matrix? I love to throw movie references into everything. Not only is the Matrix a really good movie, but Neo is great at dodging bullets. That’s the kind of thing we do in PowerPoint. Get away from the point and the text and use visuals instead. We even created an animated sequence of the Matrix in our BrightCarbon brand style to show that presentations can sometimes have a fun side.

Richard Goring, Director of BrightCarbon

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