I recently had the opportunity to go to Rotterdam and do a presentation about marketing one of our new products. On the slides I used pictures of a beautiful red grand piano vs. a traditional upright piano, to represent new technology vs. existing technology. Little did I know what would happen later … That evening our hosts took us to (of all things) a dueling piano bar. And guess what color the pianos were? I lost count of how many colleagues approached me to ask me if I noticed the two red grand pianos, and if I had planned the whole thing. Well I certainly noticed, and no, it was… Read More
Continue ReadingSometimes it’s like climbing Mt. Everest
Sometimes I struggle with designing a presentation. It happened to me last week when I decided I needed to do an “overview” presentation on one of our products. Maybe the problem was that we had initially proposed too many options, so I felt I had to re-explain everything, or maybe it was the fact that I did not know this particular group of customers very well. Regardless, designing this presentation was like climbing Mt. Everest; slogging uphill all the way. I changed the main message 5 or 6 times, going back and forth between a couple of ideas. I also changed the opening visuals more times than I can… Read More
Continue ReadingAre you blending your presentations?
Two of the most common presentation types are informative and persuasive. The main elements in an informative presentation are facts, figures, features, graphs, and charts. The goal of this presentation type is to educate the audience; an example of an informative presentation is a lecture. The main elements in a persuasive presentation include stories, analogies, examples, quotations, and metaphors; the goal of this presentation is to get the audience to do or feel something. Examples of persuasive presentations include sermons and motivational speeches. (and hopefully sales presentations) The majority of presentations in organizations (for both internal and external purposes) contain mostly informative presentation elements. This can result in a presentation… Read More
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