Presenting anyone?

A note on good presentation skills, quite liked it. Shall try and incorporate these elements in future. That's if I get to make any presentations outside of class, now that the a-presentation-a-day course is over!

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs kicked off Macworld 2008, he once again raised the bar for presenters everywhere. While most deliver information, Jobs inspires the audience. The 10 most motivating elements to incite listeners are

1. Set the tone.

."There is something in the air today," Jobs projected to the crowd to open the Macworld conference. By doing so, he set the tone for his presentation and hinted at the key product announcement- the ultrathin MacBook Air laptop. While every presentation needs an angle, it doesn't have to be unveiled right away. Last year, Jobs waited until the 20-minute mark. When the time was right, he noted, "Today Apple reinvents the phone." Once you identify your angle, make sure to weave it throughout your presentation.

2.Demonstrate enthusiasm.

It's impossible to deny Jobs' passion for computer design. Next time you're crafting or delivering a presentation, think about infusing it with your personality. Most speakers get into presentation mode and feel as though they have to strip the talk of any character. Remember, your audience wants to be vowed, not put to sleep. The audience will follow your lead. So set an enthusiastic example 3. Provide an outline. Jobs set expectations by noting, "There are four things I want to talk about today. So let's get started..." Verbally opening and closing each of the four sections helped to make clear transitions between talking points. For example, after revealing several new iPhone features, he said, "That [the iPhone] was the second thing I wanted to talk about today. Number three is about iTunes." Make lists and provide your audience with guideposts along the way. 4. Make numbers meaningful. When Jobs announced that Apple had sold 4 million iPhones to date, he provided context for the figure. "That's 20,000 iPhones every day, on average," Jobs explained, "What does that mean to the overall market?" Numbers don't mean much unless they are placed in perspective. Connect the dots for your listeners. 5.Try for an unforgettable moment. This is the moment in your presentation that everyone will be talking about. Every Steve Jobs presentation builds up to one big scene. In this year's Macworld keynote, it was the announcement of MacBook Air. To demonstrate just how thin it is, Jobs said it would fit in an envelope. Jobs drew cheers by opening a manila interoffice envelope and holding the laptop for everyone to see. What is the one memorable moment of your presentation? Identify it ahead of time and build up to it. 6. Create visual slides. While most speakers fill their slides with data, text, and charts, great presenters do the opposite. There is very little text on a Steve Jobs slide. Most of the slides present one idea for the audience to walk away with. This is further supported by see-and-say syncing. For example, when outlining, "The first thing I want to talk to you about today," was accompanied by a slide with the numeral I. When he discussed a specific product like the iPhone, the audience saw a slide with an image of the product. Inspiring presenters are short on bullet points and big on graphics. 7. Give 'em a show. A Job's presentation has ebbs and flows, themes and transitions. Including video clips, demonstrations, and guests creates the feeling that the presentation is more of a show than a lecture. Enhance your presentations by incorporating multimedia, product demonstrations, or giving others the chance to say a few words. 8. Don't sweat the small stuff . Despite your best preparation, something might go wrong as it did during the Apple CEO's keynote. Upon attempting to show a few photographs from a live Web site, the screen went black. Jobs smiled and said, "Well, I guess Flickr isn't serving up the photos today." By moving forward and recapping the new features he just introduced, it was no big deal. Don't sweat minor mishaps. Have fun. 9. Sell the benefit. While most presenters promote product features, Jobs sells benefits. When introducing iTunes movie rentals, Jobs said, "We've never offered a rental model in music because people want to own their music. You listen to your favorite song thousands of times in your life. But most of us watch movies once, maybe a few times. And renting is a great way to do it. It's less expensive, doesn't take up space on our hard drive..." Your listeners are always asking themselves, "What's in it for me?" Answer the question. Don't make them guess. Clearly state the benefit of every service, feature, or product. 10. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Steve Jobs cannot pull off an intricate presentation with video clips, demonstrations, and outside speakers without hours of rehearsal. Jobs rehearses the entire presentation aloud for many hours. You can see he rehearsed the Macworld presentation because his words were often perfectly synchronized with the images and text on the slides. A Steve Jobs presentation looks effortless because it is well-rehearsed. Use this 10-part framework to wow your audiences. Many observers claim Steve Jobs has charisma. True. But he works at it. Nothing in his presentations is taken for granted. He studies the art of telling a story to inspire his audience. You must do the same to electrify your listeners. [About the Author: Carmine Gallo is a communications coach for the world's most admired brands. His book, Fire Them Up!, contains insights from top business leaders who inspire through the language of motivation.] Taken from yahoo group

OOPS! Yet Again, It is!

After a long period of individually answering people ki 'Main Finals mein baith raha hoon kya?', I guess it's full and final, that it's OOPS! yet again. I would've been thrown out by now I guess, if the place reps noticed that I didn't submit any CVs for the process in the first place.

It comes now, since I'm COMPLETELY done with all curricular requirements of my diploma, including the last exam, the last class and the last assignment. Funny, I'm still in college, perhaps not yet ready to accept the change that stepping out of college life is going to be, for me!

An oops in undergrads, and then in summers, and now again at the finals, feels funny to have never really worked in a formal situation before and being still not willing to do it. Not that I have anything against jobs, or people who take them up, I somehow never fit that bill.

For this onelife, to experiment a little bit, I've given myself the position of Founder and CEO of Onelife Knowledge Services Pvt. Ltd. Fancy name na? So what are we to do with this?

We'll run the portal called lifeinlines.com integrating multiple input mechanisms to make it simple for anyone to archive LiL moments from his/her life. A fast paced life, 2 years just whizzed by, as the best daze of our lives, but if you were to look back a few years later, would have some photos, videos, and memories that would grow more and more vague with time. Moving ahead in the corporate world, keeping in touch with others, and sometimes even with yourself, is going to turn difficult.

So at lifeinlines, as you live through the million LiL moments, you can express, capture and eternalize your ideas, thoughts, emotions, reactions, memories, pieces of wisdom..... your life as it turns out, using any channel as our website/an email/a gtalk messenger/SMS/MMS/a phone call and all this would build an archive of your life, complete with images, videos, voice narrations, other files and of course text. It comes with multiple privacy levels so you can keep things to yourself or share with whom you want to.

Call it your personal scribblepad, or a mini 'Dear Diary' or a Micro-blog. but it's going to be a lot more than all of these put together.

Now, it's meant to be a description of what I'm doing, not an advertisement,

Then we got to know that web 2.0 is falling short of content creators and observed that there's so much knowledge disseminated in dialogues and speeches in so many situations, so we're trying to build the tech and human interface to bring these two together. So what'll happen is if you're speaking at a location, you call our number from your cell phone, record your entire session and this would be archived on the web as an audio file.

We can also arrange for it to be transcribed, edited and published on the web, under your rights, for a share of the revenue it can generate. The aim is to bring high quality tacit knowlege to the public domain. A LOT of such knowledge lies in the minds of people and shall probably be lost forever, since most of them will never get down to blogging, or writing a book or too many articles for whatever reasons of his own. The long tail of demand for quality content on the web, should take care of the costs incurred in this exercise. And then, unlike usual one off interviews in traditional media, we can collect questions for these people on the web, and arrange for monthly telephonic interviews, getting all the questions answered, bringing out a little more of what's lying unaccessed in the back of their minds.

That's the internet and mobile side of it. With our personal interests and the observed gap in that space, Onelife would also provide basic level advisory to young startups - associating with legal, accounts, marketing, business planning, branding, strategy..... providing a one stop shop for startup requirements. And this isn't going to cost a bomb, because we know startups can't pay. If we feel excited about it and fall for your spirit and business, we might just work for a little equity!

It's a funny time, at weird moments, you get ideas about making a visiting card with a photo, and at another times, getting laid back and going by the philosophy of Onelife, you define a company policy that the employees won't work weekends. Might be a foolish idealistic thing for a startup to think, but well, now it's Company Policy.

Though it might be comforting to know that I'll be my own boss, it's even more intimidating for a thoroughly indisciplined soul as me to have to define my own deadlines and stick to them.

But then, it's a roller coaster.. if I'm to have fun at the highs, shall be prepared for the lows as well!

Cheers!

Wanderer

Another facebook App

Which swear word are you?:

They say they'll tell me if I answer 8 simple questions.

I can tell them what they are without asking any questions. But then I don't swear!

wanderer

Facebook Apps

They started as a pain, with a hundred odd pending invites that had to be 'ignored' individually, but now it seems amusing, the kind of questions they ask.

The latest new one I've got,

What movie is your lovelife like?

Finding it really hard to find a bollywood movie without a love life.. they always have a love story esconsed in whatever exotic setting be created.. the war of lakshya or the revolution of Rang De Basanti. So if someone were to have a lovelife in the first place, it wouldn't be too difficult to find a movie that maps to it!

Shit man. it was really hard to find an answer to this one! Will have to move over to Hollywood, will post if I can think of a real single movie!

for the sake of consolations, I can say that I can relate to every movie, only that I'm not the hero, but a bystander, who just happened to be captured on the camera. Or maybe with the love lives of ppl around me, I'm the Hero's friend. or the Heroine's. Bheed mein gumnaam sa khada hua...


wanderer

India 2

In a discussion with an Indian student studying at Waterloo in Canada, the problem with India was turning out to be the lack of innovation and IP creation in the echelons of knowledge.

The Infosys and the Wipros may be doing phenomenal employment generation but are essentially service companies, (I'd admit, it's an unqualified statement I'm making, based on hearsay, and basic reasoning), we agreed that there wasn't enough product innovation happening, or the creation of intellectual property that would be world class!

But then, there was another thought too, that in this piece of land, there are two Indias, India 1 may be service and outsourcing, which is shining, but behind the glema, there's an India Two, only waiting to shine :). It will shine, the day it won't take a 'Discovery' for indians to discover and acknowledge it!

Wanderer