Real life incident 1: One month back a colleague came to me and said "I have to make an important presentation but I do not how to make 'business' presentations. I have extensively researched the industry and I have all that my boss needs. But I don't know how to show it to him. They should understand within those 30 minutes that I am the man for the job." He knew everything about his work . He is not an MBA but a technical guy. If he is not able to 'present' what he has done, he won't be able to get that coveted job. Real life incident 2: There was a hardworking marketing manager in a company (sorry I can't reveal his name either). When other colleagues doing similar projects were working 5 days a week, this man was spending the weekends working. His intentions were right and he was committed. But in the fortnightly project presentations to the seniors, he used to falter. He was never able to 'show' what he was actually doing on the fiel...

HUGE VIRUS COMING! PLEASE READ & FORWARD ! Hi All, I checked with Norton Anti-Virus, and they are gearing up for this virus! I checked www.Snopes.com, and it is for real. Get this E-mail message sent around to your contacts ASAP. PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS! You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any message with an attachment entitled 'POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK,'regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which 'burns' the whole hard disc C of your computer. ... If you receive a mail called' POSTCARD,' even though sent to you by a friend, do not open it! Shut down your computer immediately. This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital...

When I asked people a few weeks back what they hated most in a presentation, I got interesting answers. One of them was by Dr. Singh and he said; "I do not like when the presenter is talking to the slide and not to me." Does it not ring a bell? Many a times you as a presenter end up making this mistake. You look at the slide and start talking. How does the audience feel when you do this? They are offended. They hate it. Hate it enough to remember it and share it with me when I approach them with a survey. Why does it happen? It happens when you are not prepared with your content. When you have not rehearsed well. When you prepare the slides a night before and don't even remember the order in which you put your slides. This forces you to keep looking at the slide so that you don't forget. The obvious solution is to rehearse well and go. But let's accept the fact that you know what you 'should' do. Yet how often do you follow that. How many times have you ...

SlideShare is an excellent resource if you are interested in becoming a better presenter. By signing up for free, you can upload and share presentations. More importantly, you can view hundreds of presentations which get uploaded everyday. While most of them are mundane, some are really excellent. You can learn a lot from them. I stumbled upon one such presentation from Dan Roam yesterday. He has entered it as a part of the World's Best Presentation Contest which SlideShare is running currently. Here is the presentation. Though slightly long it is worth a watch for its unique design. Even if the content does not interest you, watch it to know how content can be made exciting by taking a different creative route altogether. Healthcare Napkins All View more documents from Dan Roam . This presentation might or might not win. Does not matter. I want you to see it because it is innovative. As presenters, our biggest challenge is to find new and unique ways to present informa...

As a presenter you want to do well. You want to be understood by your boss. You want to impress him/her with your presentation skills (and your work). But how can you do well? You don't even know what your boss likes and does not like? Do you know what your boss hates in your presentation? And why should I restrict it to your boss? Even your colleagues and clients hate the same things about your presentations. But what are those things that they hate in your presentation? Do you have the answer? To find this out I asked this question to people from different fields of work: "As an audience, what do you hate most in a presentation? " Most of these people work in corporate India as managers and make (or see) presentations day in and day out. I asked HR managers, teachers, investment bankers, IT professionals, entrepreneurs and even a doctor who delivers a lot of presentations across India (and abroad). The answers were diverse but on a closer scrutiny one can find common ...

The biggest presentation contest of the world is back. SlideShare World's Best Presentation Contest 2008 was an extremely popular event. No doubt, this year it is going to be better. You can enter the contest by making a presentation on anything you like. It can be related to business, technology, something creative, something educative or just about yourself. What you present and how you present matter equally. So open your PowerPoint (or Keynote) and get going. The contest is open till September 8, 2009. After the presentations are uploaded the people will vote for them and that voting will go on till September 15, 2009. Top voted presentations will then be rated by the judges. Results will be announced a week later. Among the prizes on offer are a MacBook and iPhone 3GS! You need to have a SlideShare account to enter the contest. SlideShare World's Best Presentation Contest 2009 View more documents from Amit Ranjan . Out of this world graphics will not succ...

Do you remember any presentation which you attended 5 years back? If you do, then what do you remember from that presentation? and more importantly, why? I remember two such presentations. First by GSK Consumer Healthcare and second by Hindustan Lever (now HUL). Every year scores of companies used to come for campus placement to my MBA institute and from the 30 odd presentations I sat through I remember these two vividly. Companies which come to campus share information about their company, their achievements, why we should work with them, the compensation, etc. The presentation is the first interaction between the company and the students and hence it is very important for them to make a good impression on the students. GSK Consumer Healthcare I remember GSK's presentation because the presenter gave me the book 'Freakonomics' for free. In the course of the talk the presenter kept asking us questions. This was his method of increasing audience interaction. All his quest...

It is a common practice in organizations to have a logo on each slide. Many a times the logo is part of the 'corporate template' which a manager cannot do much about. An extreme case of this can be found in some consultancies where they put the client logo and their logo on each slide. If you also have a habit of putting your organization's logo on each slide, then you need to take a pause here and think; "Why am I putting the logo on each slide?" I would go a step further and ask you "Do you even need the company anywhere on the slide? I am of the opinion that you should not put 'anything' on your slide without a justification. A justification to yourself. Why should the logo be there? What value is it adding to the presentation? I read a post of Michael Hyatt where he says, "Instead of placing your logo on every page, you should use “bumper slides” with your logo on the first and last slide only. Other than that, it should almost never appea...

Last week I happened to see a presentation which a senior manager regularly delivers when he inducts new employees into his organization. The data was impressive. The organization has grown many folds over the last three decades in terms of number of people. Starting from 5 in 1979 the head count now stands at 8420! A remarkable growth. Here is the data which I culled out from the slide (the numbers have been modified slightly to maintain confidentiality): Now the question is, how do you present this 'data' so that it excites the new employees. If your objective is to wow them, then you need to present this data in an interesting manner. How about trying something like this? Is this not the most obvious choice? Yes, it is. Now try to deliver the above slide. Loud and clear, as if you were making the presentation in reality. "Friends, we started in 1979 with a team of 5 and today we are at 8420! Isn't that something great?" Yes, that's great. But it can be bet...

Another month passed by. This year seems to be flying fast. Last month I wrote a lot of posts on Presentation Design and PowerPoint Tips. There were some on Content (Presentation Planning) and a couple of posts on Delivery. One post which was liked by a lot of readers was 'The Legend of Subodh Ranjan Saha'. I did not expect such a response for this post when I wrote it. This post has also become the most read post of the month. This post, like many, find its origin in my personal experiences. But this one dates back 12 years when I was in High School cracking exams with the help of my Mnemonics. And today I feel the same Mnemonics can help teachers, trainers and managers in making their presentation memorable. Do read the post if you have not till now. I am sort of a presentation critic. I evaluate every presentation which I come across. I usually make a note of the good and bad points. My post on 'Charts Champion: When Legends Fail' was inspired by two charts which ...