As well as being a platform for JKers to rant, ruminate and reflect on the worlds of technology and PR, 'Whatever...' will periodically be running guest blogs from friends who live beyond the (fire)walls of Johnson King Towers.
Here's that man Nick Booth again, veteran tech freelancer and PR trainer, on the challenges of keeping it simple, stupid…
There are nearly three million Welsh people living in their homeland. And that’s in an area the size of Wales!
OK, that’s a stupid intro, but it makes two important points about modern presentations. It’s obligatory to pack them out with facts and figures. And everything, from rainforest destruction, through disappearing polar ice caps, to the size of Mike King’s garden, has to be measured in units of ‘Waleses’.
Am I alone in being fed up with all these meaningless statistics?
Or maybe I’m just jaundiced by my own bitter experience of giving presentations.
Once, I was giving media training to a huge IT corporation whose name I’d better not mention. The theme of my training was to be ‘Keep it Simple’, the idea being that people never remember much from a presentation, so just spoon-feed them little nuggets, and leave them wanting more. They said they liked it. Hoorah! But when I sauntered into their offices for a run through, I encountered a sight that would make a bishop kick in a stained glass window.
Ten marketing clones were there to meet me. And it soon transpired they all wanted some input into my work. Keep it simple became “Let’s Keep It Simple”, at the suggestion of a man in chinos. A power suited women then changed it “Let’s Keep Simple-izing” as it sounds more American and dynamic. More changes were made, until the title eventually became “Let’s Keep Simple-izing the Process to maximize competitive advantage”.
But that’s not half as bad as the presentation I did for a large telecoms company. There, they chucked out all the feedback I got from their channel partners telling them how they could improve their service. And instead they insisted on 50 almost identical slides, with stupid charts on them that looked like squashed spiders.
I’m not the world’s greatest public speaker. Indeed, on youtube.com, I’m described as a “funeral warm up man”. But honestly, Bob Monkhouse couldn’t have brought that material to life.
At the end, someone complained about all the charts. The very same person who’d insisted on them in the first place, who by then had realised the need to cover her posterior in front of her boss.
So you see, statistics are very useful. You can use them to protect yourself. And to kill others in a dog eat dog corporate situation. Blimey, I’m really glad I don’t work for a big company…
However, if you do work for a big company, and want some no nonsense media training, do contact me.
Comments