Cutting down a presentation

For a wide scope of positions, giving presentations can often be expected. When you’ve worked long and hard on a project, getting the green light to present to the company’s executives is one of the highest rewards.

But then you find out there is a strict time limit or some other limitation meaning you will now have to drastically shorten your presentation, without losing the effectiveness. What do you do?

If you’ve really done as thorough of a job as you think you have, condensing your material shouldn’t be a problem. The most important thing to remember is your audience and what point you are wanting to bring across.

If you’re presenting to a group that wants the brass tacks, no “interesting facts” or extra supporting statistics that you have already proved a point without the extra little bits… You will literally go through and cut out anything that can be taken out, anything that won’t add to the main focus of the presentation.

What about if you’re talking to a bunch of account executives? They aren’t going to want to hear about what they will see as pointless details, they want the cost, the timeline, and the expected result. Period.

By keeping your target audience and target outcome in mind, you can save yourself a lot of time and hassle. You should have confidence in your presentation no matter what fillers you have to cut out, because you’ve already worked hard and got the job done the right way.

                                   

Presentations and Public Speaking

I have already, briefly, written about the public speaking class that I took over this last summer. It basically sums up my public speaking experience in that 8-week class. During that time we were assigned many different types of speeches to present to the class. The one thing that stayed consistent throughout the entire class, no matter the speech type, was that we needed an outline or some form of notes. 

Having these notes typed up and ready to go prior to our speeches was required for the class, but it was also to get us into the habit of using them. For the most part everyone had their notes/outlines ready to go but when someone didn’t have them, it was obvious during their presentations.

They were disorganized, jumping around with no clear direction, losing their place, and more often than not, they would go way over their time limit. Because of the disorganization, it was very difficult to understand the point they were attempting to make and made the whole speech seem like a waste.

By having an outline prepared, with clear and distinct purpose and points to keep you on track and moving, you are more likely to give an effective presentation.

We also had a few instances where an outline/notes were prepared but they hadn’t practiced their speech. The entire presentation would be choppy, with the majority of the time them staring at the outline and just reading off of it.

Using a detailed outline that has been practiced until you only need it as a guide instead of a crutch is imperative to giving a good speech. 

Emotional appeals, ethical or not?

According to our book (Business Communication Essentials by Courtland Bovee and John Thill, pg 227) an emotional appeal “calls on feelings or audience sympathies”.

So, for an example, it would be like having the parents of babies that died due to drop side crib accidents tell their tragic stories in an effort to get that crib type banned. While that is an extreme case you can also use one of the examples from the book on page 228, “being separated during the day is stressful for both parents and children”.

These examples are both used to pull at the “sympathies” or emotional state of the audience, just as the definition states.

When it comes to the question of whether or not these types of emotional appeals are ethical or not there is no clear cut, yes or no answer.

I had this question asked to me in a different class that I took over the summer (public speaking), and while the classes were different I’m finding that my answer hasn’t really changed much, I just have a different text book to look at.

When it comes to these appeals (persuasive) there are to approaches, emotional and logical. Since I’ve already said what an emotional appeal is, then all that’s left is the logical. Which to me seems pretty self-explanatory, relying on logical facts for which to base your opinion/case on.

In our book it basically says that very few persuasive appeals are one or the other, instead mostly they are a combined usage of emotional and logical thinking. When used in this manner to balance and support each other, then the emotional appeals are much less likely to be seen as unethical, because they are being presented with logical facts.

I can see where in cases where only emotional appeals are used, it could become unethical for the simple reason that there are no hard, real facts there, only relying on pulling at the heart strings of the audience.

Deemphasizing bad news vs. deemphasizing unfavorable data via distorting graphs and charts: same or different?

This week I’ve been asked the question of, “Is intentionally deemphasizing bad news the same as distorting graphs and charts to deemphasize unfavorable data? Why or why not?” which isn’t exactly something that I would put much thought into, so I had to go to my trusty text book.

Chapter 8 of Bovee and Thill’s Business Communication Essentials: A Skills-Based Approach, is all about delivering negative messages. On page 198, they talk about how you don’t want to overemphasize bad news, but you also don’t want to overly deemphasize bad news.

So using this information to look at the original question asked, I see deemphasizing bad news vs. distorting graphs and charts to deemphasize unfavorable data as very different things.

Data on charts and graphs are supposed to represent facts, and if these are altered in an attempt to downplay how bad things are, then they aren’t displaying the facts in the most clear and concise way possible which could lead to misunderstanding and confusion. If I worked for a company where the higher ups used such tactics, I would feel lied to, like things were being hidden from me and in a company setting that would be very bad for business and, to put it bluntly, who would want to work for an untrustworthy company?

Deemphasizing bad news, responsibly, in a business setting is still stating the facts, possibly in a more positive light. It could also be used to keep moral up and encourage a change wherever possible to make improvements throughout the company.

So, to me, not only are these both very different but they also have different effects in a company setting. One positive and one negative.