Things you should never ask me

When I’m drunk, I can be a bore. I know it, and other people know it too. Perhaps you are one of those who know. If so, I apologise.

I can also be a bore when sober, but I don’t think it’s so bad then. See, when I’m drunk, I even start to bore myself. I go off on a topic and talk about it too forcefully for too long. My mind suddenly realises that I’ve gone on too long, but my mouth keeps talking. My mind hears me making the same point repeatedly in only very slightly different ways, but my mouth insists I continue.

It usually only happens when I am talking to one other person. I don’t think that I bore groups particularly, mainly because I’m not conversationally dominant enough to browbeat a whole group of people into submission.

So, as thanks for reading my blog, I’d like to offer YOU some advice on how to not end up on the receiving end of my drunken monotony. If you are talking to me at a party or in the pub, discussing weighty matters, and you suspect/know I have had a few drinks, never ever bring up the following topics if you want to escape alive:

• The state of English cricket
• The European Union
• The need (or otherwise) for manned space exploration (especially with regards to Mars)
• Sanctimonious hypocritical lefties (e.g. most of Labour, Polly Toynbee)
• The smoking ban

If you do wish to discuss any of the above topics, please feel free to firmly interject if I have been going on too long. I won’t take it personally – indeed, I shall probably thank you.

Having partially wised-up to my ranting topics, I will politely refuse to engage in any conversations regarding abortion or fox hunting.

What makes a good business presentation?

What makes a good business presentation? I’ve sat through many a lecture and presentation, and certain things keep bobbing to the surface that make for a good presentation, and a bad one.

Last week I went to a presentation by the acoustics team – one of many specialist teams at the engineering consultancy I work for. Their aim was to give people from the other disciplines an overview of what they did, and hence why it might be relevant to our clients and our projects.

I think they did it back to front, and here’s why:

• You know how people say that when selling you should focus on the benefits rather than the features? The first section was all about the features – all about the British Standards they assess to and the planning regulations they address.
• Only then did they move on to the benefits. Some real life examples of projects where they had had a significant input to the design. This was much more interesting than the first part.
• At the end – after the questions – they wheeled out the single best and most useful part of the talk. Some simple models (as in actual physical models) that really neatly demonstrated how noise problems can be made much worse (putting noisy machinery on things that reverberate) and much better (the effect of noise insulation). This should have been done first, to set the context.

So, the ingredients were right but they were not mixed together properly. It went features-benefits-context when it should have been context-benefits-features. So if you feel you aren’t getting your presentations right but are sure you have all the ingredients you need – ask yourself if you are stirring  it all together correctly.

Finally, I’m moving closer to the view that Powerpoint is not just a crutch for poor presenting, but an unsullied evil that should be entirely expunged forthwith. Both the presenters were experts, and this was clear when taking questions and doing the demonstrations – clear, confident, interesting. The bits done to the Powerpoint slides were presented haltingly, and with little flair or interest. If you have to do a talk, know your subject, rehearse it several times out loud, and ditch the slides.