Thomas: It’s episode five of season two of the Presentation Boss Podcast

Kate: it is. And today we have a presentation breakdown. So what this is, is together we’re going to watch a presentation and we’ll pause at anywhere that we find interesting, somewhere that we think maybe could be improved, something that we really love. Just, you know, anything of note during this presentation.

Because as you say, Thomas, um, you can’t make all the mistakes yourself, you have to watch other people make them as well. And also, you know, it’s one of the best ways to learn how to present better is to watch really proficient speakers. So, you know, that’s what we aim to do, and learn from them. So today, um, I have no idea what we’re watching because I didn’t look at the spreadsheet properly.

And, um, that was your job. So I ju- what are we doing?

Thomas: Oh, dear. Uh, look, this is one of those talks, uh, that I have… I- it, it was… It’s from TED 2015 in Vancouver. I probably saw it in 2015, and I think about it so often. It’s one of those talks that, like, is just in my head. Uh, we had this on the list, uh, to do a breakdown on years ago, but it’s quite visual, so I am so excited to be doing it today. Uh, so the talk is, and I’ll tell you a little bit about the background, the talk is Roman Mars, who might have one of the best names in the world.

Kate: It is. Sorry, we’re doing flags. We’re doing flags. Sorry, I’m getting ahead. Go

Thomas: We’re doing the flags talk, right? Um, why city flags may be the worst designed thing you’ve never noticed. Roman Mars hosts a… I mean, I listen to his podcast, 99% Invisible. It’s actually a radio show in California. uh, literally this week I listened to the episode on the Finnish baby box. So it’s a podcast all about design. And this talk is gonna be pretty interesting to listen to because the way he does the show is it’s an asynchronous show. So what he does is he will record music and interviews and such, and then he plays that, like, during the live show. So what you’ll see in this talk is he’s sitting down with, like, a mixing desk in front of him, and he pushes buttons all the time that plays a clip, plays a piece of music, plays a piece of an interview. And it is such a… I think it is a brilliant talk. Like, he gets a standing ovation at the end of it, and I think because he makes the audience care about something that you probably would never otherwise care about. City flags, right? Who knew that cities have flags even, right? Uh, and you see in the clips of the audience, people go from politely listening to properly engaged, and you can see that they care.

Uh, oh, it is a brilliant, brilliant talk. Uh, I, I am gonna have to be careful to not say too much about everything I think and everything this talk makes me feel

Kate: Do you know what? With, before you said anything, I probably could have guessed actually that you were going to pick Flags. I know about you that this is one of your favorite topics and also favorite, um, talks ever. So I have managed to avoid it up until now, but I’m intrigued by what you said about people, like politely watching and then going into a place of caring.

So that will be– I will be the litmus test on how much I end up caring about this

Thomas: You can represent the, the normal, uh, like the control of the population. You,

Kate: Yeah.

Thomas: you’ve never seen this talk though?

Kate: No, no.

Thomas: What?

Kate: I always call it your fun with flags talk that I’ve never actually watched. Because you, I know that you love it. You’ve talked about it

Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Kate: All right,

Thomas: right.

Kate: let’s do it. Let’s do it

Thomas: We should probably jump in.

This is Roman Mars at TED 2015 hosted in Vancouver, Canada with why city flags might be the worst designed thing you’ve never noticed.

Roman Mars: I know what you’re thinking, like, ” W- why does that guy get to sit down?” That’s because is radio. I tell radio stories about design, report on all kinds of stories, buildings and toothbrushes and mascots and wayfinding and fonts. My mission is to get people to engage with the design that they care about so they begin to pay attention to all forms of design. When you decode the world with design intent in mind, the world becomes kind of magical. Instead of seeing the broken things, see all the little bits of genius that anonymous designers have sweated over to make our lives better. essentially the definition of design, making life better and providing joy. And few things give me greater joy than a well designed flag Yeah Happy 50th anniversary on your flag, Canada.

It is beautiful, gold standard. Love it. I’m kind of obsessed with flags. Sometimes I bring up the topic of flags and, and, uh, people are like, “I, I don’t, I don’t care about flags.” And, and then we start talking about flags, and trust me, 100% of people care about flags. There’s just something about them that works on our emotions. family wrapped my Christmas presents as flags this year in- including the, uh, blue, uh, gift bag that’s dressed up as the, as the flag of Scotland. I, I put this picture online and, and sure enough, within the first few minutes, someone left a comment that said, “You can take that Scottish saltire and shove it up your ass.” Which seems-

Thomas: You may fill me in on this, Kate. I have Googled that joke, and I don’t get it. I don’t know if it’s a Scottish thing or what

Kate: No idea, but no idea

Thomas: yeah, it’s not just me. Um, when you hear that applause, he literally just put the Canadian flag up, which, let’s be honest, top ten, uh, like national flags. Um, you know, he’s in Vancouver.

It works really well. Um, I do like that he talks about why design is important. It’s not just we’re making things look pretty, why it’s important. Um, good intro

Kate: Yeah, I liked the intro that he said, “This is why it’s important,” and then went into, like, “I’ve always been interested in flags.” I think there would have been a temptation to open with, “I’ve always been interested in flags, and here’s why you should be, too.” That would probably put me off. I mean, God, th- this is a fun with flags speech, isn’t it?

Um, but I really like the setup and, um, he, he made a comment about, like, everyone’s interested in flags, and I was like, “Ooh, challenge accepted.” Um,

Thomas: yep

Kate: yeah, so all right. Let’s go, let’s go. I’m, I’m, I’m optimistic

Thomas: I’m so excited. I love this talk.

Roman Mars: People are passionate about flags, you know? That’s the way it is. What I love about flags is that once you understand the design of flags, what makes a good flag, what makes a bad flag, can understand the design of almost anything. So what I’m gonna do here is I’m gonna kind of… I’ve cracked open an episode of my radio show, 99% Invisible, and I’m gonna reconstruct it here on stage.

So when I, when I press a button over here- S for sound it’s gonna make a sound. And so whenever you hear a sound or a voice or a piece of music, it’s because I pressed a button. Ssssound. All right.

Thomas: Clever thing here. Kinda like I said in the introduction here, I mean, how would you describe that, Kate? Like, there’s an iPad, there’s a sound desk thing, and he’s got his, uh, prompts or script sitting there. Like, he’s sitting down. Um, uh, it’s clearly different to what we expect in a keynote or a TED Talk where somebody is just standing and delivering.

So I really like that he just went through why I’m sitting, why there’s stuff in front of me, and why you’re gonna hear different things. It’s just call out the thing, make sure everybody knows what’s going on

Kate: Yeah, it looks like we’re looking into a radio studio with his controls in front of him, his boom mic. Um, yeah, it looks like live radio, honestly

Roman Mars: Got it? go. two… This is 99% Invisible. Roman Mars. Five basic principles of flag design According to the North American Vexillological Association. Vexillological Vexillology is the study of flags. It’s that extra “lol” that makes it sound weird. Number one, keep it simple. The flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory. Before I moved to Chicago in 2005, I didn’t even know cities had their own flags.

Most larger cities do have flags. Well, I didn’t know that. That’s Ted Kaye, by the way. Hello. He’s a flag expert. He’s a totally awesome guy. I’m Ted Kaye. I have edited a scholarly journal on flag studies, and I’m currently involved with the Portland Flag Association and the North American Vexillological Association. Ted literally wrote the book on flag design. Good Flag, Bad Flag. It’s, it’s more of a pamphlet, really. It’s about 16 pages. Yes, it’s called Good Flag, Bad Flag: How to Design a Great Flag. And that first city flag I discovered in Chicago is a beaut. White field, two horizontal blue stripes, and four six-pointed red stars down the middle. Number two, use meaningful symbolism. The blue stripes represent the water, the river, and the lake. The flag’s images, colors, or patterns should relate to what it symbolizes. The red stars represent significant events in Chicago’s history. Namely, the founding of Fort Dearborn on the future site of Chicago, the Great Chicago Fire, the World Columbian Exposition, which everyone remembers because of the White City, and the Century of Progress Exposition, which no one remembers at all.

Thomas: Have you read Good Flag, Bad Flag, Kate, or just me?

Kate: No. Have you actually read it?

Thomas: Of course I’ve read it. It’s like he said, if you understand flag design, you understand heaps of design. It’s how I judge flags now. Um, what I paused here for, so we’ve got the City of Chicago flag on screen described, and those four events he called out, the Fort Dearborn Chicago Fire, Columbian Exposition, and Century of Progress Expo, uh, each labeled each one of the stars. And keeping in mind this is in 2015, but those labels are so ironically poorly designed. Um, it’s like a preset in a PowerPoint text box. It grates on me how this is labeled. It’s not aligned. It’s just a bit messy. This is the type of thing I would like to see a bit more, um, funnily enough, design go into how I label the specific pieces of the flag

Kate: my comment at the moment is that this is fascinating to watch the way that he has all these voices come in. This is absolutely a masterclass in, like, managing multiple different inputs. This takes a phenomenal amount of skill that I’ve not seen on this scale before. This, this is incredible

Thomas: It’s so clearly master at work. Like, 99pi now has over 600 episodes, so you know, a couple of years ago, a few less. He’s clearly done this a lot, and I really like he’s got those soundbites from, um, the two people so far, Ted K and I forget the other name, and it sounds like he’s having a conversation with them, like he knows exactly which piece he’s clipping. Um, it’s, yeah, like you say, it’s a multi-media, multi-media masterpiece

Kate: Yeah, for sure. Um, and yeah, it’s interesting. I know that podcast, 99% Invisible. I didn’t realize this was the same guy. Yeah, just interesting to know. All right, let’s keep going, let’s keep going

Roman mars: Number three, use two to three basic colors The basic rule for colors is to use two to three colors from the standard color set, red, white, blue, green, yellow, and black. design of the Chicago flag has complete buy-in with the entire cross-section of the city. It is everywhere. Every municipal building flies the flag. Like, there’s probably at least one store on every block near where I work that sells some sort of Chicago flag paraphernalia. That’s Wett Moser from Chicago Magazine. Today, just for example, I went to get a haircut, and when I sat down in the barber’s chair, there was a Chicago flag on the box that the barber has kept all his tools in.

And then in the mirror, there was a Chicago flag on the wall behind me. When I left, a guy passed me who had a Chicago flag badge on his backpack. It’s adaptable and remixable. The six-pointed stars in particular show up in all kinds of places. The coffee I bought the other day had a Chicago star on it. It’s a distinct symbol of Chicago pride. When a police officer or a firefighter dies in Chicago, often it’s not the flag of the United States on his casket. It can be the flag of the city of Chicago. That’s how deeply the flag has gotten into the civic imagery of Chicago. And it isn’t just that people love Chicago and therefore love the flag.

I also think that people love Chicago more because the flag is so cool. A positive feedback loop there between great symbolism and civic pride. Okay, so when I moved back to San Francisco in 2008, I researched its flag because I had never seen it the previous eight years I lived there, and I found it, I am sorry to say, sadly lacking. I know. It hurts me too Well, let me start from the top

Thomas: What I love here is you could have just shown the San Francisco flag to an audience, and they’d just probably just go, “Oh, it’s a flag. Cool.” But he’s already set up that you need that symbolism, the colors, and, um, to keep it simple, that when he shows that flag, we can immediately see like, oh, there’s genuinely an issue there.

It turns into a humor point because we’ve educated the audience just that little bit

Kate: Because he set up the rules that are now clearly being broken

Thomas: Mm-hmm. So do you know what… We- we’re, we’re in Brisbane. Do you know what the Brisbane City flag looks like, Kate?

Kate: No, we’re not getting into flags. We’re gonna watch this talk. We’re not talking about our own flags. Continue

Thomas: We’ll come back to the Brisbane flag, I’m sure. Let’s go

Roman Mars: Number one, keep it simple Keeping it simple. The flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory. It’s a relatively complex flag. Okay, here we go. Okay, the main component of the San Francisco flag is a phoenix, representing the city rising from the ashes after the devastating fires of the 1850s. A powerful symbol for San Francisco. I still don’t really dig the phoenix. Design-wise, it manages to both be too crude and have too many details at the same time, which if you were trying for that, you wouldn’t be able to do it, and it just looks bad at a distance, but having deep meaning puts that element in the plus column.

Behind the phoenix, the background is mostly white, and then it has a substantial gold border around it. Which is a very attractive design element. I think it’s okay, but here come the big no no’s of flag design. Number four, no lettering or seals. Never use writing of any kind. the phoenix, there’s a motto on a ribbon that translates to, “Gold in peace, iron in war.”

Plus, and this is the big problem, it says San Francisco across the bottom. If you need to write the name of what you’re representing on your flag, your symbolism has failed. The United States flag doesn’t say like USA across the front.

Kate: This is amazing. This is, um, again, he’s setting up the rules that have been broken, and if you’re only listening to this in audio format, you need to Google the Chicago city flag and then the San Francisco city flag, because the, um, visuals just add to this absolutely beautifully. It, this is- Yeah

Thomas: And do you notice the audience are getting more and more engaged? There’s more and

Kate: Yes

Thomas: we’ve paused here at a, a wide shot with the audience. There’s a lot of people leaning in now

Kate: Yeah. Yep, yep

Roman Mars: In fact, country flags, you know- They tend to behave. So like hats off to South Africa and Turkey and Somalia and Japan and Gambia. There’s a bunch of really great country flags, but they obey good design principles because the stakes are high. They’re on the international stage. But city, state, and regional flags are another story. There is a scourge of bad flags- -and they must be stopped. That is the truth, and that is the dare. first step is to recognize that we have a problem A lot of people tend to think that good design is just a matter of taste, and, you know, and quite honestly, sometimes it is actually. But sometimes it isn’t, all right? Here’s the full list of NAVA flag design principles. The five basic principles of design. Number one. Keep it simple. Keep it simple. Number two. Use meaningful symbolism. Number three. Use two to three basic colors. Number four. No lettering or seals. Never use writing of any kind. Because you can’t read that at a distance. Number five. And be distinctive. All the best flags tend to stick to these principles. And like I’ve said before, like most country flags are okay. But here’s the thing, if you showed this list of principles to any designer of almost anything, they would say these principles, simplicity, deep meaning, uh, having few colors or being thoughtful about colors, uniqueness, don’t have writing you can’t read, all those principles apply to them, too. But sadly, good design principles are rarely invoked in US city flags.

Thomas: I think, um, the– I, I know this talk goes on to have probably a different message, but I reckon if you walked away from this talk with that message, which is the design principles, those, those rules that apply to flags, those design principles kind of applied to everything make for good design. I think there is a really strong message there.

Like, if you walked out, we’re what? Halfway through this talk now, that’s a brilliant take-home message. Um, and it’s halfway through the talk, which is pretty incredible

Roman Mars: Our biggest problem seems to be that fourth one. We just can’t stop ourself from putting our names on our flags, or, like, little municipal seals with tiny writing on them. Here’s the thing about municipal seals. They were designed to be on pieces of paper where you can read them, not on flags 100 feet away flapping in the breeze. So here’s a bunch of flags again. Uh, vexillologists call these SOBs, seals on a bedsheet. And if, if, if you can’t tell what city they go to, yeah, that’s, that’s exactly the problem, except for Anaheim, apparently. They, they fixed it. Uh. Uh, flags are everywhere in the US. The European equivalent of the municipal seal is the, is the city coat of arms, and this is where we can learn a lesson for how to do things right.

So this is the city coat of arms of Amsterdam. Now if this were a United States city, the flag would probably look like this. You know? Uh, but instead the flag of Amsterdam looks like this. Rather than plopping the whole coat of arms on a solid background and writing Amsterdam below it, they just take the key elements of the escutcheon, the shield, and they turn it into the most badass city flag in the world And, and because it’s so badass, those flags and crosses are found throughout Amsterdam, just, just like Chicago, they’re used. Even-

Even though, uh, seal on a bedsheet flags are particularly painful and offensive to me, uh, nothing can quite prepare you one of the biggest train wrecks in vexillological history. Are you ready? It’s the flag of Milwaukee, Wisconsin I mean, it’s, it’s distinctive. I’ll, I’ll give them that. It was adopted in 1955. Uh, the city ran a contest and gathered a bunch of submissions with all kinds of designs. And an alderman by the name of Fred Stephan cobbled together parts of the submissions to make what is now the Milwaukee flag. It’s a kitchen sink flag.

There’s a gigantic gear representing industry. There’s a ship recognizing the port, a giant stalk of wheat paying homage to the brewing industry. It’s a hot mess. And Steve Kotas, a graphic designer from Milwaukee, wants to change it. It is. It’s, it’s really awful. It’s a misstep- on the city’s behalf, to say the least. But what puts the Milwaukee flag over the top, almost to the point of self-parody, is on it is a picture of the Civil War battle flag of the Milwaukee Regiment. So that’s the final element in it that just makes it that much more sort of ridiculous, that there is, you know, a flag design within- On the flag- the design of the Milwaukee flag. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kate: I picked that up. I was like, “Hang on, there’s a little flag in there. I wonder if that’s another flag or if that’s like what a sensor should be the flag.” Oh, I’m a bit proud of myself

Thomas: Look at, see? You care about flags. He’s, he’s done it.

Kate: Apparently

Thomas: Um, hilariously, when I Google the, um, the Milwaukee flag, f- can only find a different version that also has a little tiny US flag on it as well, um, which doesn’t appear in this version for some reason. I don’t know if they added it in since 2015 or what. what I, uh, am interested in here is that feels like the only misstep in his talk. You notice he talked over that recording, and he… I… you see a little bit of, like, annoyance on his face? I’m not sure

Kate: Yeah, I did notice that and I was like, “Ooh, I wonder did he mean to do that?” This is clearly very carefully choreographed. And yeah, look, that’s the first mistake he’s made in, in how many minutes? This is, um, incredibly complex, this whole talk

Thomas: Yeah, he just kind of nodded, went, “Yeah,” and he’s now reaching over to push the button and continue on. There’s no lingering on the boo-boo

Kate: Yeah, no acknowledgement of it. It was just continue on. Yeah, nice

ROman Mars: Now Milwaukee is a fantastic city. I have been there. I love it. The most depressing part of this flag, though, is that there have been two major redesign contests. The last one was held in 2001. 105 entries were received. But in the end, the members of the Milwaukee Arts Board decided that none of the new entries were worthy of flying over the city. couldn’t agree to change that thing. That’s discouraging enough to make you think that good design and democracy just simply do not go together. But Steve Kotas is gonna try one more time to redesign the Milwaukee flag. I believe Milwaukee’s a great city. Every great city deserves a great flag. Steve isn’t ready to reveal his design yet. One of the things about proposing one of these things is you have to, like, get people on board, and then you reveal your design. But here’s the trick. you wanna design a great flag, a kick-ass flag like Chicago’s or DC’s, which also has a great flag, start by drawing a 1 by 1.5 inch rectangle on a piece of paper.

Your design has to fit within that tiny rectangle, and here’s why. A 3 by 5 foot flag on a pole 100 feet away looks about the same size as a 1 by 1.5 inch rectangle seen about 15 inches from your eye. You’ll be surprised at how compelling and simple the design can be when you hold yourself to that limitation. Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, there anything we can do? I like to say that in every bad flag, there’s a good flag trying to get out. The way to make San Francisco’s flag a good flag is to take the motto off, because you can’t read that at a distance. Take the name off, and the border might even be made thicker so it’s more a part of the flag.

And I would simply take the phoenix and make it a great big element in the middle of the flag. the current phoenix, uh, that’s gotta go I would simplify or stylize the phoenix. Depict a big, wide-winged bird coming out of flames. Emphasize those flames. So this San Francisco flag was designed by Frank Camacho based on Ted Kaye’s suggestions.

I don’t know what he would do if he was completely unfettered and, and didn’t ha- didn’t follow those guidelines. Fans of my radio show and podcast, they’ve heard me complain about bad flags. They’ve sent me other suggested designs. This one’s by Neil Mussett. are so much better And I think if they were adopted, I would see them around the city in my crusade to make flags of the world more beautiful. Many listeners have taken it upon themselves to redesign their flags and look into the feasibility of getting them officially adopted. If you see your city flag and like it, fly it. Even if it violates a design rule or two, I don’t care. But if you don’t see your city flag, it doesn’t exist, but maybe it does, it just sucks. And I dare you to join the effort to try to change that. As we move more and more into cities, the city flag will become not just a symbol of that city as a place, but also it could become a symbol of how that city considers design itself, especially today as the populace is becoming more design aware, and I think design awareness is at an all time high. A well designed flag could be seen as an indicator of how a city considers all of its design systems, its public transit, its parks, signage. It might seem frivolous, but it’s not. Often when city leaders say, “We have more important things to do than worry about a city flag,” my response is, “If you had a great city flag, you would have a banner for people to rally under to face those more important things.” I’ve seen firsthand what a good city flag can do in the case of Chicago. The marriage of good design and civic pride is something that we need in all places. The best part about municipal flags is that we own them. They are an open source, publicly owned design language of the community. When they are done well, they are remixable, adaptable, and they’re powerful. We could control the branding and graphical imagery of our cities with a good flag, but instead, by having bad flags we don’t use, we cede that territory to sports teams and chambers of commerce and tourism boards. Sports teams can leave and break our hearts, and besides, some of us, you know, don’t really care about sports and tourism campaigns can just be cheesy, but a great city flag is something that represents a city to its people and its people to the world at large.

And when that flag is a beautiful thing, connection is a beautiful thing. So maybe all the city flags can be as inspiring as Hong Kong or Portland or Trondheim, and we can do away with all the bad flags like San Francisco, Milwaukee, Cedar Rapids. And finally, when we’re all done, we can do something about Pocatello, Idaho, by the North American Vexillological Association as the worst city flag in North America. Yeah That thing has a trademark symbol on it, people That, that hurts me just to look at. Thank you so much for listening

Kate: Okay I think last time we said we were gonna rate, um, these talks. What do you give that out of 10?

Thomas: It’s like a 9.9

Kate: That’s a 10 for me. That is phenomenal. I think I don’t have anywhere that I wanna say, like, “Oh, they coulda done, he coulda done better here,” because I think that there is… Because of the complexity, if you change anything, I would be very concerned about breaking any of that magic. It all came together just so beautifully.

I know you didn’t like some of the labeling. It didn’t bother me. Um, but th- that was just absolutely phenomenal that, yeah, I am so surprised in a really good way at how much I enjoyed that

Thomas: And do you now care about flags just a little bit more?

Kate: Not really, no, but I understand why people do. I am curious. You do need to bring up the Brisbane flag. I need to see it

Thomas: You wanna see the Brisbane flag?

Kate: Yep, go on. Do you have it?

Thomas: yeah, look, I thought you might ask. L- l- let me just know if you’ve ever seen this before

Kate: Oh, wow. Why has it got pretzels on it and medical things? What?

Thomas: Ja

Kate: That’s bizarre. Actually… Oh, I have seen it. Mm. No, I haven’t, but it looks like the Brisbane City Council, like, logo that I get on my rates bill. Love it so-

Thomas: city hall on it, and it’s got this, that same blue and yellow grid

Kate: the yellow

Thomas: Yeah, there’s a lot of symbolism in this, like the knots represent that it’s a city… It’s got a river city port. The, um, the waves are the same. The medical thing is to do with Sir Thomas Brisbane, who the city’s named after.

Like, I can’t remember it. You, you kind of have to read the Wikipedia article on what any of it means,

Kate: Yeah. It, I don’t like it. It’s, um, it breaks all the design rules, which I now know about.

Thomas: And if, and if, if I knew it and I saw it and I was like, “Oh, there’s kind of cool elements in that,” I, yeah, I get it. I would it, fly it, I don’t know. But I don’t wanna display that

Kate: It’s not something that I resonate with as someone who has lived in this city for my entire life. Yeah

Thomas: Mm. Let’s go back to the talk. I’m really curious, what was the message of that talk for you?

Kate: Is that flag design is more important than we realize, and that you are more invested than you probably do realize

Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. You know, I, I think, like, I paused halfway through that message of flag design principles apply to everything, and then I really did like that message of, yeah, if you see a flag and you like it, fly it. Um, and he showed that s- uh, flag of Pocatello at the end, which how would you describe that?

Kate: Like a grade four PowerPoint

Thomas: Yeah. So in, within two years, Pocatello changed their flag.

Kate: Oh wow

Thomas: TED Talk on the process they went through, and the new one is… It’s, it’s pretty good. I don’t think it’s the best flag, but it is a lot better than that. And something like five or six US states have also changed their flags since this talk, and a lot of them cited Roman Mars, uh, this talk in that movement.

So it’s– I mean, I think about this talk a lot. Clearly, people think about this talk a lot, or it’s, it’s inspired some change

Kate: And I mean, that’s, that’s the whole deal, right? Like, that’s, um, that was the whole thing with TED is, what is it called? Like, ideas worth…

Thomas: sharing

Kate: Ideas worth sharing. Yeah, that is clearly an idea that was worth sharing that has created change. That is the ultimate outcome for any talk that we give. I think that that, yeah, is, is the pinnacle of, of a successful talk.

Thomas: Mm.

Kate: That’s amazing

Thomas: Yeah. And like you say, it’s a perfect talk. I would love to see– This is the only TED Talk Roman Mars has given as best I know. I would love to see a, like, 2026 version of this talk as well. Um, just maybe things that have, not the design stuff has changed, but the effect that maybe, um, you know, the– I’m sure there’s anecdotes around these cities and states that have changed their flag, um, that would be wound into it. Um, I mean, he’s got, what, 10 years more of his radio experience too, so he probably does slightly different stuff. But it’s, up there as one of my favorite all-time talks

Kate: Oh, I see why. Yeah, phenomenal. That, yep, amazing, good. Love it. I’m surprised in a very good way

Thomas: Yeah, if you’re just listening to this, um, or, you know what? If you’re watching as well, I encourage you, we’ll put a link in, in the show notes. Go and watch this talk without us rudely interrupting. It is so immersive. You get to see the audience, you see the slides and the pictures that he shows as well. Um, it’s… Look, it’s worth it. It’s definitely worth

Kate: It is,

Thomas: got anything more there, Kate?

Kate: uh, I would echo that, that it is worth watching this one to actually see it for sure

Thomas: Yeah. All right. That’s, that’s all we’ve got to say about Roman Mars and why city flags might be the worst designed thing you’ve never noticed. Thank you so much for hanging out with us today. Head to presentationboss.com.au/podcast where you’ll find link to the talk and the resources from the show today

Kate: If you have any sort of talk, it doesn’t have to be a TED Talk of course, but anything that you’d like us to break down on the podcast, please send us the link. Our email is podcast@presentationboss.com.au

Thomas: If you found value in today’s episode or you enjoyed it, you liked our commentary, or you think this podcast is worth sharing, please do recommend us to a friend

Kate: Have a great week