Presentation - Amazon Web Services



PresentationWhat is the difference between email and presentation?EmailEmail is used to exchange information between sender and recipient(s).Email is edited before it is sent to the recipients.Email does not anticipate reaction in real time.Email is read at recipient’s discretion.Email provides a consecutive communication context.PresentationPresentation is used to exchange information between presenter and audience.Presentation is edited before it is delivered to the audience.Presentation should anticipate reaction from the audience in real time.Presentation is received at the same time when the presenter delivers the content.Presentation is delivered in a close-end fashion. Not really ‘consecutive’, despite some possible “follow-up’s”.Main differencesSynchronous vs. asynchronousControl (for the sake of time)Synchronous vs. asynchronousIn a synchronous communication, the main limit is the time allocated. Within limited time, the presenter has to properly deliver the content to the audience, to answer expected and unexpected questions, to leave as few as possible any open issues. What is more, you deal with live audience who reacts to you right then and there.In an asynchronous communication, the time limit is always lax compared with synchronous communication. You do everything at your own pace before transferring your content to the recipient. The recipient does not typically react in real time, and never in front of you. In other words, you see no one but air before you.Features of synchronous communicationTime limits (total time, time allocation)You have 45 (or any other number) minutes for your presentation. Usually, a Q&A session is included.InteractionDelay: You are talking to a live audience, they may be a quiet, cooperative crowd, or they can be an inquisitive and rowdy crowd. You may get to use the Q&A time for further elaboration of prepared content; or you may use up all the Q&A time still with tons of open issues that need to be followed-up.Immediate feedback: The puzzling expression on the audience can serve as deterrence just like excitedly burning fire in their eyes can as encouragement. If it is a web of puzzlement that you see, what do you do? Slow down? Or get out a plan B with reduced depth yet still complete content? What if the expression that you witness is that of a impatience, do you have extra content, with more depth, details to keep them with you?The primary goal is to completely deliver the prepared materials. Any lingering information not delivered represents incompleteness. The whole presentation may fail because of the incompleteness. Are you going to be able to bring the same crowd, highly targeted, put together with great administrative efforts and cost, back at the same room to hear your message again, only for the last five-minute worth of information.ControlFrom the above discussion, we learn that the first thing to watch out in a presentation is the control of time. You have to deliver a completed presentation in a set time frame.If there was no delay caused by questions from the audience; or, the impatient look had prompted you to fly through the content. Great! You completed the delivery at the very least. You avoided the number one bane to a presenter, an ‘incomplete’ delivery. Controlling the questions, or anything, that could disrupt the full delivery is a primary concern. You have to know how not to digress by questions raised, or how to decidedly reject the questions that are not related to the current theme or subject. No less important is the ability to detect and to table some in-depth questions to a later time, using a different forum to close out the issue. In other words, to maintain the integrity of the current theme and the chosen depth in the time allocated is the aspect of the ‘completeness’.A plan B content, we’ll address Plan B later, can be invaluable in both a not in-depth enough and a too much information scenarios. Integrity and completeness of your delivery depends greatly on control.One time delivery (Q&A, follow-up)Since there is a hard stop to the delivery with no follow-up; it is thus very important that the delivery is complete. Careful planning is crucial to fulfill this goal. Q&A can be leveraged as an extension used to supplement your content, but there will be no guarantee that the session will be steered in the desired direction. Ultimately, you should leave Q&A to the audience; allow them to guide the questions. So, plan to have the content of your delivery as a complete package, which we shall address in a later section when dealing with content. Any information that comes up at Q&A is additional rather than indispensible to your content. You only have one chance deliver it.What do you have to look out for in Presentation?So what are the things that you should be focusing on when preparing for a presentation? We will deal with these below.SubjectA subject may be chosen for you, but you need to determine how deep into the subject you should go. In other words, you have to define the scope of the content first. This, of course, should be considered along with the available time, the type of audience, and the intention of the presenting party (you and your organization). What are indispensible? What are appropriate? Do you want to deliver technical details to sales representatives? Will the technical expertise reflected in the audience sneer at the simple features list? Do they care about the sales projection? Are they are more concerned with the relation between your product and their peripheral product? After you answer these questions, you will then define the scope of your presentationAudienceWho are they? What are their job functions? Will they dance to rhetoric? Do they enjoy swimming in numbers and research reports? Where are they from? Are they inquisitive? Or they are other quiet people that you are so used to?Know your audience definitely helps to set the scope of your subject.TimeMain Delivery: How much time do you have? It is a rare luxury that you can determine the time needed to deliver the content that you desire. You typically have to work with insufficient time for the content in your mind. In addition, there are the dead time, such as house cleaning chores and chit chats to warm up your audience.Q&A: How much time should you reserve for your Q&A? One third of the total time should be reserved, typically, if you look for a rule of thumb. So, in a one-hour presentation, you should reserve at least 15 minutes (20 is better) for Q&A. But in a longer presentation, the total Q&A can take less time as a percentage of the total time allocated. So, in a two-hour presentation, a 30-minute Q&A may be enough. That would be one-quarter of your total time. You will have a better gauge once you know your audience better. The more inquisitive the audience is, the more time you should set aside for the Q&A, and vice versa.But wait, that will eat into your main delivery, since you really can’t assume that you will have total control over the Q&A. Never forget about this and the antidote is to ‘control’ as mentioned above. Table the ones that fall outside of the scope, or provide some follow-up opportunities after the presentation. Only deal with the out of scope questions after you’ve been exhausted the ‘legitimate’ questions. Legitimate questions are those that fall perfectly within the scope of the subject or those that are appropriate extensions of your scope.In sum, there is never enough time. This is one of the most important factors in every presentation.ShowmanshipGet them, keep them with you, impress them – ultimately, put your ideas into their heads.How do you get your audience excited with the topic at hand? Yes, they should be, by virtue of their being present in front of you. Nevertheless, most of us underestimate our potential of dampening an excited crowd to a smoldering pile brimming at extinguishing. There is no more embarrassing way to close out a presentation with an ostensibly interest-lacking audience nodding their agreements because of their autonomous body function.The tone of your speech, the pace of your delivery, the stance you take, the jokes that you crack, and the ever important eye contact with the audience all play important roles in this delicate dance.You may snap a finger, dance your hands in the air, trot down to the audience, and whip up rhetorical questions to rouse the audience. Do whatever it takes to keep them with you in an alert, attentive state.You should relax yourself before you can expect to loosen up anybody else. You should command some authority before people will buy your story. And authority you must have, for without it, you are not going to sweep the people in front of you off their feet.All in all, a good presenter is essential a good actor. Look at your favorite actors/actresses, and think why you would like to go back to them time and again.Tools involved in PresentationSlides (PowerPoint)The omnipotent tool of choice is of course the PowerPoint. Use the slide effectively takes some skills though. A loud picture does not necessarily help deliver the message. Instead, it is the loud slide that turns off your audience the fastest.Keep it simple: Simple is beautiful. Use bullet points instead of sentences whenever possible. Use key word; single word impresses people, helps them rally around that single key word whereas all the relevant details will creep into view without further invitation. Action word excites people, drills deep into people’s brain. So use action words liberally. Human brain has unbelievable potential if it is allowed to function fully. It will keep track of the few words easily. It will also do a whole lot more in the background, linking the details delivered in your spoken words to the key word and store them away. Too much information, on the other hand, runs the risk of inundating your brain with noises where useful information may be crowded out.Use contrasting color for fonts against color of background. Refrain from using animation excessively.Bring your point up one at a time: I know it takes some time to get it done right, but one point at a time will help your audience focus on what you say at the moment. Their eyes will train on the single new item introduced on the slide. This helps reinforce the idea because there is minimum distraction. Again, you want to allow the brain to work to its full capacity.Never clutter your slide: Keep the slide clean. A ‘loud’ slide does nothing but to distract. This is the number one most offended rule that I’ve seen in presentations delivered here in Taiwan. Use handouts to help supplement your information if you must saturate your audience with it. Just do not distract them from what you have to say. They have only one chance at your presentation. That means you only have one shot to bury the main ideas into their brains as well.Use examples: Nothing is more impressive than the real thing, or its proxy. Use examples, in charts, graphs, quotes, pictures, and videos, whenever you can. Hold no reservation at using opinions, sayings, and activities from third parties - reliable third parties, if I may emphasize.Handout and souvenirGather information that you will lightly touch upon in presentation in detail and incorporate it in your handouts. They can be tremendous tools helping your presentation to be complete. Lots of what you said in outline, overview can be born out in the handouts. Additional information such as further reference can be added there too. All in all, you decide what is pertinent to be included in the handouts.Souvenir, if any, to be distributed liberally for cheer or as a reward to one who gives a loudly answered sporadic question. This little gimmick always helps to keep the audience interested. In facing a big audience, this can also serve as a focusing aid to help rein in people’s attention.SampleThe real thing: If you are doing a product introduction, a sample of what you are talking about certainly helps. Other props that can help you convey your message could be looked at too. YouBeing the one that sing and dance in front of everyone, you deserve the most attention in preparation stage. Your attire, your voice, your manners, your body language, and your jokes all count. So, fix a smile to your face, comb your hair, shave, match the color of the tie to your suit, to your shirt (yes, make sure that both socks are of the same color!) If you need water, bring a bottle to the podium. Time your speech, pace your words, tone your voice. Together, they are all important parts of your presentation. You will be light, courteous, serious, jubilant, sincere, and proud; you will keep constant eye contact with the audience. You will be firm when informing a persistent inquirer that the question he or she raises has to be tabled because of time, relevance, or lack thereof. You will be encouraging, pouring non-stop praises over the person who interacts well with you.Eye contact with the audience - every one of them, always! Or look around when facing a big audience. Never fix your eyes on the prettiest lady or the most handsome head in the crowd for too long. You’ll get lost more often than not.You may walk down from the podium, if you will. Just remember one thing, do not block the screen.A remote mouse, or a clicker, so they call it, which doubles as a laser pointer, to move the slide and to highlight the point is also recommended.PreparationHow much time do I have?Rule of thumb: 2/3 for presentation, 1/3 for Q&A. The longer the presentation time allowed, the smaller the portion of Q&A can be set aside. In other words, for a 60 minutes session, set aside 40 minutes for your main presentation, and the remainder Q&A and some house cleaning chores. In addition, use two or three minutes to warm up the audience. But for a two-hour presentation, a 30 minutes Q&A would be adequate. Who are the audience?Colleagues, customers, general publicJob functionSalesTechiesOthersGeographic distributionTaiwanAsiaWorldHow deep should you go into the subject?It depends on the following:Your intention/goal:One-way information conveyanceTraining Actual Show and Close deal (persuasion)Your audienceYour potential customersYour colleaguesYour ad hoc customers (trade show)Sales typeTech typeDo I need props?Use props whenever possibleIs there Q&A?Q&A is an important aspect of presentation because it will help you better gauge the interest of your audience:What they are interested in (expected)What other things that they are interested in (unexpected)Lead to other opportunitiesBetter chance to convinceDo I use a script or an outline?An outline is a minimum, so that you have all the important points covered. Detailed script can help you manage the time much better especially when you deal with a relatively new topic. Do plan to use a script if you are a novice in presentation; you will find things are easier to control that way. But it is personal, so choose one that fits your style. Just make sure that you have placed proper time marker for yourself, mentally or physically.Do I use jokes, time checks, and other aids?Jokes help breaking the ice between the audience and you. In addition, they help in bringing people back from wherever they were to the present, some say. Use them, as long as you don’t think yourself as a stand-up comedian, you should be fine.Time checks, is needed. Find a clock somewhere in the room, scan it from time to time. Or, take off your wrist watch and leave it at the podium so you can see the time without the tale telling gesture of raising your arm.Use your hand and a (laser) pointer to help the audience focus on the point on screen.Content developmentPurposePersuasiveInformativeSalesTechnical knowledgeInternal reportingDetailsMain pointsContent difficultyUse time to frame your contentContingency Plan (back-up plan, plan B)More detailed backupBack up to one level higher (rougher, more overview . . . etc.)Logical OrganizationTheme/subject (set the title)High level title, with appropriate supporting pointsDivisions (feature/function/steps/time; main/sub~~use logics, order of importance, temporal order)Start with good and concise introduction that incorporates an overview.Give reasons to justify the presentation.Narrow down to the appropriate difficulty level.Use logical persuasion.End with a summary and a climaxKey words (feature/function/action)Feature list (most prominent to least important)PropsCharts (numbers/figures/graphs)Never use busy charts.Use blow-up when appropriate.Flip between charts if necessary.Bullet pointsAlways use bullet points.Use first single (key) words; then, phrases; lastly, sentences.Use short sentences.Color and size your fonts properly so the audience can see them effortlessly.No saturation (keep it simple)Clean backgroundNo unnecessary graphicsAnimation to help focusDetails in handouts Script/outlineScript to control content for time and completenessOutline to control content for time and completenessPlan B contentSuperficial In-depthRehearsalIs the meeting room available for rehearsal?Is the meeting room equipped with all necessary equipment?How do I do with time?Is the prop adequate?Taping to help me fine-tune my presentation?articulationSpeed: slow is preferred.LogicalCalm: only show emotion when appropriatePace: should be constant, even.Proper emotion (excitement, question, and plain statement)body languagesNo slouchingHands – gesture when needed, don’t over use.Wink – to gain approval implicitlyFrown – use sparinglySmile - alwaysMoving about – advisable if this can get you closer to the audienceeye contactsSmall group (less than 15) – eye contact with everyone, not intensely, but steady, non-shiftingLarge group – divide the groups into smaller group of two or three, gaze into the chosen ones, alter the chosen ones if time allows.resumption after interruptionHow to recover when you forget? It is possible that you get distracted during a presentation and you lose your place in your presentation. Don’t panic; use the following steps to help you recover:Retrace: Step back to your outline, and remember what you’ve covered. Ask a question to the audience to buy time for you to get back on track.Ask the audience directly, they will help you.DeliveryHouse cleaning check list (cell phone, sound check, white board, etc.)Eye-contactTime checkQuestion handlingSample sentences to use in presentationIntroductionHello, thank you for coming. My name is John Hicks, Product Manager of XYZ, I will introduce to you the . . . I would like to start by walking you through a brief history of . . . , followed with the overview of the main points that we will cover today.Hello, I am John Hicks, your host for today. I’ll work with you on learning the inside secret of ZZZ chipset, which we have been working on for the past eight months. A brief history of the development of the chipset will be covered, followed by the features of the chipset, and the strategic benefits that the chipset provide will take up the third part of our presentation. We’ll then close with the roadmap of the chipset so you can all go home with a solid knowledge of ZZZ. Hi, my name is John Hicks, I’m very honored to talk to you about the features of ZZZ motherboard that ECS is releasing in this Computex exhibition. The main design of the boards will take up the first part of the presentation, to be followed by the strategic direction that we target this board at. And we’ll conclude with an open Q&A to answer your questions.Welcome to ABC, my name is John Hicks. I’m responsible for the development of the A53 gadget which is the star of today’s presentation at ABC.Now, I would like to point out that ABC has been working on . . .I was tasked to study the best way to utilize our budget in education. And I’m here to talk about the finding of my study. To start off, let me touch upon how we spent our money on education in the past.As you all know that the first three quarters have been a series of disasters for our product in the market place. I like to begin with some summary statistics to level set everyone. TransitionNow that we’ve talked about the first phase, we’ll move on to the second phase.So, it is time for us to turn our attention to the following point.Now, we come to the most important part of our presentation, the marketing aspect.After the memory aspect, we now turn to the most exciting part of the XXX – the speed.Secondly, (thirdly . . . etc.) we’ll turn to the cost aspect.Standardization makes the third section of my presentation, and I’d like you all to see the chart on the screen.We can’t overlook XXX, of course. So it is time for us to find out what…This bring us naturally/logically/inevitably/unavoidably/() to the next point.It is high time that we look at the capacity aspect of XXX.To avoid the disasters that we see from previous discussion, we now look at the potential solutions.To change the course a bit, a look at the XXX is in order.Another crucial aspect of XXX lies in its color.Knowing what we know, we should now deep further.Now, we’ll focus our attention on YYY.A natural thing to think about, after cost, is the size. And this is what we are going to focus our attention on for a while(the next few minutes).ConclusionNow that we’ve looked at the three different aspects of XXX – speed, memory and capacity, I believe you’d all agree XXX is a strong competitor in the market. And I’d like to throw in a piece of good news. XXX is here today, it is in stock over the sixty warehouses world-wide. You can get it delivered to your door in no time after a firm order. So . . .I like to conclude my report(presentation/talk) by restating the benefits of XXX-speed, memory, and capacity. There is no other product in the market today that has the same cost performance ratio. I hope you will find the knowledge you learn today to be useful to you. I look forward to your order as soon as you are back to your office.So, we know the trade-offs of all the options discussed, I’d like to stress that we strongly believed that option A is the most feasible and should be adopted. This concludes my presentation today. If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them for you.That is all that I have to say for today, the take away, again, is that we should start the measure immediately to realize the maximum saving.Thank you for attending the presentation today, I’m now opening up our Q&A session to answer questions.So, moving quickly to market is the main message of the day. I hope you all feel the same excitement as I do, and let’s go out there and start selling. Thank you all for coming.HighlightI’ll walk you through the following points one by one in details.The key here is speed.I’d like to direct your attention to the number on screen. 23 millions! Yes, 23 millions. WOWLook at this (pointing to the slide), we won 23 different awards world-wide. The prestigious Westinghouse Award, the most competitive Edison Excellence, the world clamoring GH Quality Citation and the XXX.The most important part is this – the design.I can’t emphasize enough the importance of the award.Most importantly, with the XXX, we clenched the No. 1 spot in worldwide arena in 2007.We are the one, the only one that is able to achieve this.Mini-summaryHere is a summary of what we just went through in the last five minutes.By now, we’ve talked about the speed, dimension, color, and material; all physical characteristics of XXX.Before turning to the next major part, let me review with you quickly what we’ve covered so far.Here is a place checker. We know now the speed, the memory, the capacity and the price/performance ratio.So let’s recount what we know now.Handling situationsTo redirect the focus back to topic at handThe point you make is important, but it is not what we are here to talk about today. So, if I may, I’d like to table your question so we can go on to the next issue (or answer another question).I don’t have the exact information that you are looking for. I’ll make a note of it and get back to you later. For now, I’d like to continue my talk on XXX.That is a question more appropriate for a different forum. I don’t have a good answer for you, maybe we can take this offline and concentrate on the current issue.I can’t address your question for now, but if you will take it offline, I’ll refer you to more appropriate party to help you.The question should be addressed, not here, rather, by the designing team. I’ll link you up after the presentation.When losing train of thoughtHey, so where are we now. Let’s see, we have price, discount, timetable and . . .I need some help here. Where were we just before I got interrupted? (or Can you help me remember where we were just now?)Did I tell you about the third benefit, the performance?Well, I kind of lost track of where we are at, any pointer?Rhetoric questionsDo you know what the dominating factor is when we think “Performance”? COST!What do you look for when you try to connect the devices together? The same platform, of course.Why bother with the cost? Profit, no doubt!Do we have a successful launch? No, of course not. (Yes, can’t make it any better!)So you all feel the urge to order one? No problem, we have it in stock right in a warehouse near you.Now, which option represents the best value? B, of course, can’t be clearer than that.And which is the suggested measure? To move into European market, that takes no second guessing.PollingSo who among you will go for A? Please raise your hand.Those who think B is the right course of action to take, raise your hand.Can those sit in the back hear me clearly? Please raise your hand if you hear me. ................
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