書摘:Power Presentations(5)

WINNING STRATEGIES FOR POWER PRESENTATIONS; Jerry Weissman Delivers
Lessons From the World's Best Presenters by Jerry Weissman

For your brainstorming, as your version of Mr. Allen's hotel scraps,
you can use 3-by-5 index cards, a whiteboard, Post-it Notes or one
of the many software products on the market, among them Inspiration,
MindManager, and Microsoft's Visio. Whichever vehicle you choose,
consider any and all ideas--but resist your results-driven instinct
to impose structure during your free flow. If you impose structure
too soon, you impose censorship and could lose a fresh idea. Save
the structuring for "after" the brainstorming is done.

Here, too, we find a lesson in the methodology of Woody Allen and
Federico Fellini. Each of them is noted for his creativity in post-
production, the period "after" the writing and the shooting, when
the director assembles and structures the film, However, Mr. Allen's
assemblage of his 2012 production "To Rome with Love" did not
impress A. O. Scott, the "New York Times" critic. Mr. Scott called
the film a "genial tangle of stories (which Mr. Allen seems to have
unpacked from a steamer trunk full of notes and sketches)."
Apparently, Mr. Scott saw the documentary, too.

Mr. Fellini took post-production to a new level of creativity. He
cast actors who looked best for the filming and other actors whose
voices sounded best for the sound track and overdubbed them during
the editing process.

Let your mind do what it's going to do anyway--during your
brainstorming--then do your structuring afterwards. Use the right
tool for the right job and in the right sequence.

Follow Woody Allen's advice, "It's not rocket science, this is not
quantum physics. If you're the writer of the story, you know what
you want your audience to see because you've written it. It's just
storytelling and you tell it."


CHAPTER SEVEN

What's Your Point?

"Leave Pointlessness to Woody Allen"

Existentialism is defined by Wordnik, the online dictionary, as "A
philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the
individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, and
regards human existence as unexplainable."

Woody Allen, who has made frequent references to the philosophy in
his films--name-dropping its advocates, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and
Sartre--is reported to have once said, "I took a test in
Existentialism. I left all the answers blank and got 100."

In his 40th film as a director, "You Will Meet a Tall Dark
Stranger," Mr. Allen turned to the subject again, if not in
philosophical quotes, in theme. As a matter of fact, the only--and
most pertinent--quote he used is by William Shakespeare. At the
beginning of the film, an off-screen narrator speaks these famous
lines from "Macbeth:" "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing."

The tale that Mr. Allen then goes on to tell is about two couples
whose marriages break up because each of the members strays in
search of a better partner. But in the end, all four searchers wind
up in circumstances worse than they had left; their failed searches
pointless.

In his review of the film, Mick LaSalle, the movie critic of the
"San Francisco Chronicle," wrote:

"Allen once again contemplates the pointlessness of existence, but
this time he has an additional idea, one that has an effect on his
movie's story and structure.... His goal is not to make you walk out
thinking, 'Ahh, yes, perhaps there is no moral order to the
universe. Very interesting.' His goal is rather to make you walk out
thinking, 'Huh? What was the point of that?'"

"What was the point of that?" and its companion phrase, the
teenagers' frequently-uttered, "And your point is...?" are the very
last words you want your audience to walk out thinking at the end of
your presentation. How many times have you have been in the audience
to someone else's presentation and muttered those disdainful words?

You can avoid that reaction in your audience by following the advice
of author Stephen R. Covey, whose bestselling "The 7 Habits of
Highly Effective People" identifies Habit 2 as "Begin with the End
in Mind." Start the development of your presentation with the last
sentence; then build up to it with strong, powerful ideas and words.

Woody Allen can get away with pointlessness because he goes for the
laughs; you are going for the gold. Make your presentations full of
sound and fury, signifying "everything" that you want your audience
to do.


CHAPTER EIGHT

Spoiler Alert

"What's Your Point?"

Should drama or film critics reveal the ending of a play or a movie
in their reviews--especially when the ending is a surprise? Should a
review of "Citizen Kane" reveal the identity of "Rosebud"?

Terry Teachout, the "Wall Street Journal's" drama critic, thinks
not. In his review of the hit play at New York Lincoln Center, "War
Horse," he vowed silence twice, citing "critical etiquette" and "the
drama critic's code."

Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, the co-chief film critics of the
"New York Times," disagree, and their opinions about revelations
provide an important lesson for presenters. Mr. Scott has no qualms
about letting the cat out of the bag:

"Anna Karenina dies at the end. Madame Bovary too. Also Hamlet and
just about everyone else in Hamlet."

Nor does Ms. Dargis:

"Seriously, if you don't want to know what happens in a film, book,
play or television show, you shouldn't read the reviews until after
you've watched or read the work yourself (I rarely do.) Because no
matter how delicately a critic tiptoes around the object, she
invariably reveals something that someone resents, whether it's a
bit of plot, a line of dialogue or...a shameless finale."

Other critics hedge their bets by adding a "spoiler alert" to their
reviews, advising readers that vital plot information is to follow.

Surprise revelations are all well and good for plays and films
because the suspense keeps theater audiences glued to their seats
and movie audiences buying tubs of popcorn, but suspense is not good
for presentation audiences. They have neither the time nor the
inclination for such tactics. The last thing you want your audiences
to think is, "What's your point?"

In the previous chapter, you read about how important it is to state
your point clearly in presentations. Here we raise the bar: State
your objective at the "very beginning" of your presentation--within
the first 90 seconds. With all due respect to Mr. Teachout, you must
be as open about your point at the start of your pitch as Ms. Dargis
and Mr. Scott are about endings. A playwright or a filmmaker can
wait until the very last scene to reveal that the butler did it; you
do not have that luxury.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Get to the point!