A couple weeks ago I wrote an article called “The Big Presentation.” It was in response to this question.
“Our company is really struggling. I have to give a presentation to upper management about new ideas or new ways to try to help grow our business. I’m afraid if it doesn’t go well, our department will face serious cuts and people will lose their jobs. Any suggestions?”
Having sat through hundreds, if not thousands of business presentations, I offered a different approach to the questioner’s presentation. An approach based not upon technical presentation skills. One not based upon showing how many facts, statistics, and upward pointing trending arrows or bullet points you could force on a PPT. slide. But one that ended with a challenge – to everyone in the room- to try to think different. Act different. Be different. Not your typical presentation.
SO EASY
It’s really easy to give gutsy advice. Especially if you don’t have to do it yourself. Then, a short time later (as these things mockingly go), I had the opportunity to make the same type of presentation myself. To a budget committee. Budget=$$$$$$. Important in any business.
TO BE A HYPOCRITE
I was going to be a hypocrite and whip up the same old boring corporate PPT gobbledygook-crapola that’s expected. But I went back and revisited my answer. Pondered it. Pondering is not my strong suit so … I decided to take my own advice.
Taking your own advice is always scary. I mean really, the last person I want to take advice from is me.
HERE’S THE MARKETING & PR KILLER
But there was one major catch. I had to review an entire year’s worth of work and accomplishments of the department in … FIVE minutes (my allotted time). FIVE MINUTES. If you’re in Marketing or PR you know the new media and social media developments over the last year have exploded at supraluminal speed. You have to go 186,000 MPH just to do an even barely adequate job. So, I compiled the facts and stats. The work on Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Friendfeed, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Blogs, Social Media News Room, E-Zines, Widgets, Blidgets, Idgets, etc. When I laid it all out on slides I ended up with 110 of them. That’s right. 110 slides. FIVE MINUTES. Even Einstein, relativistically speaking, couldn’t make that math work using the same old approach.
WHAT TO DO?
There was only one answer. Experiment. With the very same new media tools and thinking that have exploded over the last year.
THE PRESENTATION BEGINS
Then – the day was upon me. I started out by informing the budget committee that I could not possibly finish the presentation in five minutes because — I had 110 slides. They took it stoically (if you don’t count the gasps of horror, tears or heads down on the table). “But,” I went on, “I could do it 5:06.” (Five minutes and six seconds.)
CLICK & GO
The presentation below is best viewed in Full Screen mode (click on bottom right of screen) and with the sound on.
TITLE OF THE PRESENTATION?
SHORTENED URL: http://bit.ly/tuAJX
FULL URL: http://app.sliderocket.com/app/FullPlayer.aspx?id=a4379fa5-4464-4d46-9c6b-273c56db163c
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Lessons Learned from Hollywood STORY Guru Robert McKee