How I overcame a challenging speakeing assignment

p c · Guest

I had an interesting challenge. I was asked to make a presentation at an
all day business meeting. I had no info about the meeting except the
name of the meeting place.

The presentation I was to be part of was prepared by someone else in
powerpoint. He gave me a copy of the powerpoint and told me I would
do the second part starting at a certain slide and he would end the
presentation with the final summary slide. The powerpoint had useful but
boring info.

I realized that I had no choice and I had to use the powerpoint without
change. I wanted to find more info about the purpose, the agenda and
the audience but the people who were in the know were not around.

Eventually, I got a copy of the agenda two days before the event and I
tracked a person in charge of the event who was able to tell me the
purpose of the meeting.

To prepare for my presentation, I decided to use stories for the opening
and closing of my presentation, come up with a key message for the whole
presentation, and come up with key points for each slide I had to use.

The meeting was to start 8 am. The meeting location was 3 hours away by
car (in the Tropicana, in Atlantic city). I drove to the hotel the night
before and arrived around 9pm. I discovered that they had not made
reservations for me. The hotel was fully booked so I had to find room in
another hotel nearby. I wasn't very impressed with the organizing of
this event.

Next day, I showed up at the meeting. I am the new guy at the company
and one of the reasons for my being there was for people to get to know
me. The attendees were members of the Logistics company that manages
services for my employer, reps from other companies that did business
for my employer (through the Logistics company) and resp from my
employer from departments involved in the process. I was introduced to
the VP and president of the logistics company and sat down.

When my time came to speak, I opened with a humorous story. After the
punch line, I paused and waited for a reaction. There was a moment of
silence. I saw a couple of folks thinking trough punch line to "get it."
Then everyone burst out in laughter. Then made a point and continued
with the presentation of the slides as planed. For ending, I used a joke
which I delivered as a humorous story. After the punch line, everyone
burst out loughing immediately, some folks went on for a "long time". I
continued with the point and ended with an illustration that further
brought out the key message.

My evaluation. I overcame the challenge, delivered a memorable speech,
and made an impression.

Best regards
...PC
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Joy · Guest

"p c" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
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John Fleming, DTM · Guest

On Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:32:41 -0400, while chained to a desk
in the scriptorium p c <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:

Colin William · Guest

"p c" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote ...