How do you take a small idea that brings big change and spread it around the world? Look at how Jeff Kirschner, the creator of the Litterati app, did just that. In his TED Talk, “This app makes it fun to pick up litter,” Kirschner talks about how he raised awareness on the amount of litter around his home. That message spread around the world.
Start with a Story:
Kirschner opens his TED Talk with a story about how his daughter spotted litter while he was taking his kids for a walk. This made him think back to when he was child and went on camping trips. The camp leader made every camper pick up a piece of trash found near their site. This idea of if everyone took time to pick up litter they find near their homes, the communities will benefit from it. Kirschner ties back to this theme of children at the end of his presentation.
Effective Animation:
Litterati started out as an Instagram account that began to start a trend. Kirschner encouraged people to take photos of the litter they picked up, tag Litterati in that post with their location. Using images from Google Maps, Kirschner showed how this trend increased with more and more people sharing their posts. Seeing the red markers go from being spread across the map to almost taking up the whole screen was an effective way to show the change happening.
This animation was a great way to display stats. As Kirschner named off the number of people picking up litter in various communities, he used percentages along with the Google Maps to show the increase in cleaner communities.
Show your Solution:
The problem presented in Kirschner’s TED Talk was that more and more places around the world are being impacted by litter. His solution is to find a way to encourage the younger generation to make cleaning up litter part of their social life. By turning to Instagram, he attracted a more tech-savvy generation to getting on board with making our planet cleaner. With the success of his Instagram, city leaders began calling Kirschner for answers on how to clean their communities. This lead to the app Litterati providing better data on where litter was being picked up.
This is a great TED Talk to watch if you are an entrepreneur or have a cause. Presenters can represent data in ways unique to their brand other just using numbers alone. Presenting a practical and simple solution to a problem can lead to change happening and spreading throughout the world. And storytelling is an easy and impactful way to bring your presentation full circle.
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