Archive for the ‘Presentations’ Category

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Social Networking Presentation Made Simple

Friday, August 27th, 2010

A PowerPoint presentation from the the Dachis Group aims to make your understanding of the social networking revolution that much easier. The Dachis Group, based in Austin Texas has the mission:

“to help businesses create and capture value from emerging trends in technology, society and the workplace. We call this approach Social Business Design: the intentional creation of dynamic and socially calibrated systems, process, and culture.”

Phew!

Their mission isn’t any easier to understand when it’s portrayed with a PowerPoint presentation slide.

It just goes to show that no matter the level of innovation involved there’s much more to presenting with PowerPoint than meets the eye. Simple design, simple text and an easy colour palette are the foundations for a good presentation. A coherent message is also another good thing!

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Spymaster’s PowerPoint Presentation Skills Exposed

Thursday, August 26th, 2010
Director of National Intelligence

Lt. General James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, briefs his new team.

He might be a super-sleuth but spymaster Lt. General James Clapper still couldn’t stop a copy of his first PowerPoint presentation reaching the Washington Post.

The new Director of National Intelligence, the fourth person to have the job in five years, used the presentation to brief his new staff.

The presentation provides a clear insight into the mind of the new spymaster. He’s a hierarchy chopping administrator; a manager with an organizational re-structuring mission.

Regrettably, there’s nothing in the presentation that smacks of spying or national secrets. No salacious details. No inside information.

In essence, the presentation is pretty much like any other piece of corporate PowerPoint from any business in the Washington area. There’s a corporate template. Bullet lists are plentiful. There’s a ton of text on many of the slides in the deck and there’s an organization chart!

What is different however, is the use of visual imagery in the presentation. The new Director doesn’t use flashy media or attractive colour schemes in his PowerPoint, but he does use cartoons and he’s clearly not afraid to poke fun at himself.

Jokes aside, and there are a few in the presentation, there’s a hint of steel.

Noting that he’s the fourth Director in five years his reference to the “we-be” factor in the organization was telling. Personnel who reckon on being here when the Director arrives and being in post when he leaves are in for a surprise!

Over to you, Sir.

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Presentation Management-Speak Hides Drug Development Message

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Integrating JChem and Marvin with an ELN from ChemAxon on Vimeo.

Amsterdam was the scene last month of the ELNs (Electronic Lab Notebooks) & Advanced Laboratory Solutions conference. Dr. Ian Berry of Evotec (UK) Ltd was a key presenter with his presentation titled, Integrating JChem and Marvin. It wasn’t the best title for a presentation; more of a subject description really.

Management speak was a problem with this presentation. The presenter’s easy-going style, characterised by him swallowing his words at the end of sentences, was nothing compared to his presenting language. Here are some examples:

“An intuitive system”

“off the shelf, integrated system…”

“fairly agnostic…”

“drill down…”

“agnostic to the cartridge…”

“out of the box…”

Jargon is one thing–particularly at this very specialised conference. But management-speak?

In a seemingly never-ending litany of management-speak the Evotec presenter took his audience through an unremarkable PowerPoint presentation; unremarkable in that it was just like so many other PowerPoint presentations that are inflicted on audiences in offices every day. It featured the standard “about us” slide at the beginning, a corporate template and plenty of busy, wordy slides.

The scale of the management-speak was such that the Evotec Principal Software Developer’s message was dangerously close to being lost. And that wasn’t his aim. The best bit? He took a question at the end of his presentation, proving that someone was clearly paying attention. Well done.

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Arresting Presentation Ends in Charges and Bail for Audience

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
Roodhouse, Illinois

Mayor Joe Snyder's Town Hall presentation ends in woman's arrest

Beleaguered Mayor, Joe Snyder, had the perfect answer for a questioning member of his presentation audience. He had her arrested.

The Mayor of Roodhouse, Illinois was presenting with colleagues in the City Hall. At every juncture, his audience protagonist and local resident, Terry Garner, insisted on asking a question. The offence?

Apparently the Mayor had requested that questions be asked at the end of the presentation. When audience member Terry Garner persisted in asking questions during the presentation the Mayor had her arrested in the meeting room.

She was subsequently charged and required to post a bail of $100–now that’s some severe penalty for asking questions in a presentation.

Perhaps the Mayor and his colleagues might want to re-examine how they engage their audience with questions and answers without actually arresting them during their presentation.

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Real Madrid Presentation Unveils German Zidane

Thursday, August 19th, 2010
Footballer Mesut Ozil

German player Mesut Ozil is compared with Zidane at Real Madrid presentation

A presentation at the Bernabeu stadium compared the new Real Madrid signing, Mesut Ozil, with the former France and Real Madrid legend, Zinedine Zidane.

Germany World Cup wunder kid, Mesut Ozil, has signed for Real Madrid from his old team, Werder Bremen for the bargain basement price of £12.4m. How the German club must be kicking themselves to have allowed his contract to nearly run out!

The presentation itself was the usual showy performance that clubs make for the media. The standard presentation prop–the player shirt–was used to good effect and will, no doubt, be a top-seller in the weeks ahead.

In his presentation Ozil noted that he felt entirely flattered with the comparison to Zidane. No doubt it’s a comparison that’s going to take some living up to. His presentation also noted the importance of Jose Mourinho, the Real Madrid coach, in his decision to sign. These presentations were full of flattery! Let’s hope that it doesn’t end in tears.

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