Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Cluttered ppt is an awesome ppt

We all have heard from our managers (lecturers) the idea to make a good presentation is to keep it simple clean and in bullet points. In MBA jargon, all bullet points no gas. However, the above is only true if you had no other work and hence prepared in extensive detail. But, modern hip-hop MBA’s like us don’t have time to spend on intricate details. And hence the small bullet point presentations are useless.

The art of making a great ppt lies in impressing upon the audience that you have greater knowledge of the subject that is being discussed. For this absolute knowledge about the audience is of paramount importance. Your senior manager (or lecturer) is generally a workaholic, sleep deprived, sex deprived gentleman with a weak eyesight. It’s important to exploit all the above weaknesses to create a classy presentation designed to kill. There is no greater presenter than one who can put his evaluator to sleep. Since all these evaluators are themselves hot shot MBA’s with largely inflated ego’s, nobody would ever accept the fact that he slept and hence would have no option but to appreciate the presentation. Here are few brilliant insights on how to become a great presenter–

1. If you are a pretty girl or your group has one, start with a deliberate technical glitch which looks genuine. For example taking a random.swf file to a place where you are absolutely sure that no flash player is in sight. The teary eyed female would arouse sympathy. The sympathy would immediately turn to appreciation when you bring to notice that you had the brilliant foresight and had kept a somewhat cruder ppt form ready. This way you will create an initial impression even before starting.
PS : In case you are ugly fat male, do not even try this stunt. You would arouse extreme anger instead of sympathy and your presentation is ruined at the first instance

2. Take a note pad with you. The notepad would basically have gibberish but it should seem you have made presentation notes based on some brilliant research. Insist that the light be kept open so that you can read it out. This would mean that your workaholic boss with a weak eyesight would not be able to read your presentation.

3. Make the first slide as cluttered as possible. Put all kinds of smart art, weird figures, random charts copy pasted. Refer all of the material. Curve arrows going from top to bottom work best to confuse the tired mind of the evaluator and would put him off to sleep. Random charts that are copy pasted should be barely visible from the place where the evaluator is sitting.

4. The second slide should only have figures. You can copy paste the balance sheet of the biggest company which is remotely associated with your topic. If you are the king of the freeriders, you can also put random data like CIP = 100% which is loosely interpreted as Chutiaps in this presentation is equal to 100%. Nobody would ask you to explain such data so chill.

5. All the evaluators were born in the time of Shakespeare and hence are unaware of the latest colloquials and language. Throw in as many such terms as possible. Here, your daily viewing of HIMHM, Friends, Prison break, BBT would help. For example, in a class ppt a dialogue like “ According to the great Barney Stinson, Lorenzo Van matthean is the most awesome” would drive your classmates to splits. Your professor who would have no idea who Barney Stinson is, would give a sheepish smile assuming Stinson to be some modern day philosopher, physicist etc. He would act casual and wont dare to ask who is being referred to. Other quotable characters are Sheldon cooper of BBT and Joey of Friends. Football Fans can try geeky names like Bixente Lizarazu, Ole Gunner Soljskaer or Van goner hasselink.

6. Never ever mention any word that is remotely linked to the subject expertise of the evaluator. These sex deprived workaholic’s only get orgasms after listening to such things and would rape you within the next two minutes.

7. Keep a stop watch to repeat the following lines religiously after every 90 seconds –
• For Marketing ppts – “Providing customer value is the most important. Customer is the king”
• For Finance ppts – “Providing shareholder value is the most important. Shareholder is the king”
• For Consulting ppts – “We did a thorough analysis. Consultant is the king. ”
• For HR ppts – “Providing people value is the most important. People are the king”

8. Give 3-4 random solutions to the problem that was given. Since we are awesome MBA’s, these solutions would come straight to your mind when you hear the problem. Dedicate the next two months(entire duration of the project) to justify these solutions. Find out (google) exactly the same number of advantages and disadvantages to all. No less no more. In case, your audience was not confused before it will be now.

After sufficiently confusing the audience, open the forum for questions. Only one question would arise “So what is your final recommendation”. Pick any one, state its advantage and then say but in case (Now return to point 8 and get into an infinite loop). Finish it by picking the one which would have the following characteristics –
1. In case you are a sales guy, you will get the sale
2. In case you are a consult, your company will be hired
3. In case you are a fin guy, the least amount of work will be given to you.
4. In case you are an HR guy, the solution which results in your increase of salary should be chosen


This my dear friends will make you an awesome presenter.

2 comments:

  1. And what if you have people like Prof. Suneja in the audience??? :)

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  2. Chuck that, Nidhi!
    I'd be more worried if you as an audience member turn 'hostile'...
    ;)

    ReplyDelete