Secrets of a successful power point presentation

I do not consider myself to be a very good presenter, but over eighteen months I have observed closely some of my illustrious colleagues making some presentations and would forward share some of my observations.

You may not have mastered the contents of the presentation, but that is no cause for worry. You just need look at the bullet points; you may not even remember them, just look at the screen and parrot it out. The secret lies in making gestures and reading the bullet points with some emotions. Imagine yourself to be Shahrukh Khan and the bullet points to be the dialogues, once in a while also turn back and face the audience.

There can be some miscreants who might imitate you and make efforts to distract you. But you need worry if you have specks. Just remove them and chances are their actions would be so blurred that you won’t be able to make out of much. In this way you can create an illusion of making eye contact, one of the pre-requisites of good presentations and mitigate chances of distraction.

Numbers are always attractive, make efforts to include them. It doesnot matter whether they are essential or not, you need to include them as chances are that evaluator/ your boss would definitely like them.

When it comes to queries, you need to be confident. It doesnot matter whether you know the answer, even if you are unaware of the answer say something. If the person who asked the question doesnot seem satisfied, say the same thing albeit different words, chances are he will either act as he understood (no one would say out rightly that you are wrong) or will ask the same question again. If he does ask the question again repeat the same answer again as if it was obvious. This time he is bound to keep quite.

Whenever you get a query that seems difficult to answer, act as if you did not get the question. Repeating the question gives you some extra seconds to think over your response. If you still don’t have a convincing answer you can always say that you too had the same doubt and have been thinking over it since long (act as if you mean it, one of my friends did it very convincingly in of his presentations).

Make gestures while you speak, people look at you and standing stationary increases chances of them eloping to their dream land. Every good speaker has his customary gestures, you too need to develop some trademark movements.

Memoirs of childhood (continued)

Another favourite time pass of mine was visiting movie theatre. At that time multiplexes were unheard and prices though were still substantial, limiting my excursions. The cheapest shows were the morning shows but they attracted a different set of patrons, I too very much interested in having a peek but alas age was the main barrier.

I got my first desktop in 1996, which was a HCL 486 model. There was nothing much you could do with it accept play some card games, I even learnt Dbase programme at that time (I was an obedient son and did as my father told me). My first visit to cybercafé was in 1999, it was at that time that I created my first email account on hotmail. I wanted to carry on many more experiments but again company of my father acted as the main deterrent. Of course I visited the café many times later and did tinker with the net to my full satisfaction.

I guess I can go on and on as there are many others marked out incidences but I would end the post here.

Memoirs of childhood

When I look back at my childhood, I reflect back on the easy going life of 90s. I vividly recollect having shifted from Jamshedpur to Mumbai in 1991. At that time my dad was an employee in an PSU bank, which necessitated this transfer.

90s can be identified with introduction of cable television. I remember at onset we only had five channels, all under ZEE umbrella. But spending endless hours in front of the television was a novelty atleast in the begining, when I was small and had all the time in the world( I still have a lot of time and I have found out newer ways of wasting them). How can I forget Cartoon Network, which was newly introduced at that time, Swat Cats, Tom & Jerry, Captain Planet were some of my favorite shows that I followed religiously. WWF was another craze at that time and so was collecting cards of these stars which we used to gather diligently( I cannot imagine myself doing such things now but I guess I would say the same thing about my current time passes ten years from now).

Life was also cheaper in those days. I remember having bought a sports shoe, somewhere between 1993-1994. It had cost my father 130 bucks, relatively cheap even by show room standards, but I can distinctly recollect only branded shoe available at that time was Action shoes of the Bata brand. Miser as I was I went for the cheapest shoe(The last shoe of mine bought 3 years back set my pocket lighter by 250 bucks from a Delhi street vendor, I suppose street offerings are still relatively cheap.).

At that time, Maruti 800 was a luxury, with majority preferring to go with a second hand Maruti. I remember my father's colleague had bought one for 85,000 bucks in 1994. It was only 3 years old and was considered relatively new. At that time Maruti 1000 was a rich man's car with only one such that in our colony which was relatively affluent. (to be continued)

What after MBA?

This is a question I believe is close to hearts of most final year b school grads. If you happen to be in a above average b school you do have options other than typical sales job which any MBA grad is flooded with during placement season.
When I talk about myself, there seem to be atleast some options. I can get into a marketing job by working for a well known marketing company, one of the better employees atleast going by feedback from some of my acquaintances. I can also can into a bank or state government job or NGO or a research agency of repute. All these jobs have their own pros and cons, but evaluating these options and deciding upon the right one is a daunting challenge.
There could be four broad criteria for evaluating the options, salary, job quality, future prospects and last but by far the most important, interest. I believe most of us including yours truly focus too much on monitory aspect of job comprising on other important aspects. I believe this is the main reason for many MBAs leaving their first job in first year.
Has therefore a MBA graduate become too greedy? I believe the answer is a probable no. Unlike West, where work experience of atleast three years is a necessity, in India even a fresher can easily get into a premier b school provided he cracks the entrance exam. Because of his lack of experience, he is unaware of his interests and ends up joining company paying a higher salary.
So does that mean that people with work experience are in a better position and last longer in their job got after finishing MBA? There is no statistic to prove or disapprove this theory. But as per my interactions with some of my more experienced colleagues, I believe they too are only marginally better off than their novice counterparts. They might have a better idea of their job aversions but that doesnot help them much in deciding their future. The reason for that being plethora of options available offering them diverse job profiles and the limitation of work experience. Their job only gives them exposure to certain aspects. Therefore I believe that also place monitory criteria as utmost importance as this is the most tangible criteria.
So does that mean money is the most important criteria? Well if you are not sure of what is the that you want, then I believe this is the best option as normally a company paying high salary would also have high expectations and would give work commensurate to that experience , going by trends I believe in future too would it would remain the driving force in placement process.

MBA- Mediocre but Arrogant

The title aptly defines what an ideal MBA graduate actually is. Unlike a CA who studies heads & tales of finance for atleast three years, MBA graduate studies a plethora of subjects in a short span of two years, first year of which is spent in learning the basics.But ask a MBA graduate about his expectations, he expects nothing less than a becoming a manager, a challenging job and also a fat paycheck, without really thinking whether he actually deserves it.This brings me to next most important question. What the hell have I actually learnt in these couple of years that a guy already working in the organisation for a couple of years doesnot know? Realistically speaking, nothing much except for making some power point presentations and some fancy terms. In real terms I dont think I will add any real value to the organisation.This brings me to next big question. If the course doesnot add any real value then why did I opt for it? The answer to this question should be answered by the companies that hire people like us and also give them prefrential treatment even at cost of many deserving candidates already working in the organisation. Another cause of concern is that most of the CEOs are themselves MBA from reputed institutes, bieng fish from the same pond, they know exactly what goes underwater. They still choose to promote these MBA whose half baked bookish knowledge acquired haphazrdly are not of much use.But one thing which I believe everyone including critics of MBA degree would agree with is that IQ level of a MBA graduate from good b school is definately a notch higher than a normal graduate or even a post graduate. Majority of bright students either go abroad or do MBA, which explains the reason for higher IQ trend. This also explains the reason for prefrential treatment meted out to these graduates. But if these corparates could stop patronising this degree, then automatically students would also join corporates directly without wasting couple of years. This would be a win win situation for both the parties, companies can train the fresh recruits according to their requirements which they already practice.I do think that this bubble of MBA would also soon burst, but I also believe that some other bubble would also replace it just as easily.