Presentations..

I don’t know if this has happened to you, it has certainly happened to me.You are attending a presentation. The speaker is giving you information on a new product or a new technology, or on some system or some marketing information. The presentation is great with lots of charts, tables, pictures etc. The presenter has nicely divided the presentation under various headings each explaining different aspects of the subject. If you are already familiar with the subject, you do not have much problem following it. If the topic is new, you start paying more attention. After few slides, you start feeling little uneasy. You look at others – everyone seems to follow the subject without any problem. So, you hold back yourself from asking questions thinking that others might think you are stupid. As the presenter moves from one aspect to another, you have difficulty in linking them. You try to use your imagination and try to create the linkages between various entities being explained. Then, suddenly, one brave soul starts asking questions to the presenter. Ah..!, you suddenly realize that others are also sailing in the same boat as you. After few more questions, some of the aspects become clear. As you start asking more and more questions, the presenter starts feeling little uneasy because he is running out of time. So, he tells you that he does not have much time left and skims through rest of the presentation. You use your extra-ordinary imagination and try to make sense of the entire presentation. You assume many things that are not explicitly spelled out by the presenter. There is a high probability that your assumptions are wrong!. As one of my managers said, assume means – ASS-U-ME!.

Assume for a moment that you have not seen a car in your entire life. And the presenter is explaining about various parts of the car – the steering, wheels, brakes, accelerator etc. He gives detailed specifications for each of these parts. So, what happens after the presentation is, even though you have understood various parts of the car, you are not sure how the action of the steering is ultimately connected to wheels. How the engine is connected to other parts of the car etc. What is missing from the presentation is – interconnections( i,e relationships ) between different entities.

I should admit here that I have done the same mistake before. We tend to get into details when it is not needed and pay little attention to linking the concepts together.This is especially true if the audience is new to the subject being explained. If you are presenting to management for funding, you need to present detailed data. But, for a general audience these details are unnecessary. I think the key is to remember – find out who the target audience is and present the concept keeping them in mind.

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