Okay, okay, so July isn’t really the end of the year… but I founded this company at a certain time of year, so it’s the end of my financial year coming up. And – like pretty much all trainers and training companies – we find that the amount of work we do over the summer drops off to more or less nothing, as clients have too many people off on holiday.
So for us, this is the end of the year. I’m taking some down-time to recharge (except that I’ve got a book launching in the middle of the summer! Oops! :) )
So as it’s the end of year for me, I thought a reflective post might be in order – the kind of post most people put up in December! It’s a little bit self indulgent too. For give me, please, I think I’ve earned it!
What have I learned?
New software comes and goes. Canva, for example, is set to change things up a bit, based on the idea that it takes good design and pretty much automates it. There’s no excuse for not being able to create visually appealing slides. But there never was. It’s not about the software – it is, and always was, about the will to use that software. Bad presentations have been made because people were too lazy, too frightened or too selfish to make better ones. Yes, I said it.
But of course I don’t mean it – what I really mean is that people are too over-whelmed with ‘real life’ and their ‘real jobs’ to worry about “just the presentation”. I have news for you… for most of us now, the presentation is (part of) the real job.
Time to man up. Presentations are part of the working world – not a time out
What else?
I’ve learned that even the most terrified of presenters can turn the world around and that the most confident of presenters sometimes just turn their own worlds around. But you knew that already, right?
Something else I’ve learned is that a lot of people are moving more and more towards trying out (and using) online presentations. The motivator seems to be that it saves time and travel costs. If they worked, they might, but I’ve sat through dozens and dozens (and dozens and dozens!) this last year where either
- the technology hasn’t worked perfectly
- the presenter wasn’t sufficiently on top of their technology for it not to get in the way
- the presentation wasn’t sufficiently interesting to stop people multi-tasking and having the presentation open in the background while they did their “real work”.
Is that your experience too?
I’ve also learned that – sadly – people still talk bollocks. Just because the presentation isn’t the place for detailed, referenced, robust analysis does not mean there should not have been, detailed, referenced, robust analysis first!
Making a presentation out of (just) your opinion is (just) oratorical masturbation
Again, I’m overstating the case just for a dramatic headline (so sue me!) but you get the idea, I’m sure. The number of people who know enough for just their opinion to be worth an hour of my time is a lot smaller than the number of people who think it is! ;)
And in the end?
And finally I’ve learned that there are some astonishing people out there. People whose ideas, and whose work, is changing the world. Sometimes in big ways, often in small, but always for the better. You are why I do what I do.
I’ve worked with people who are bringing solar-powered lights to parts of Africa with no electricity. And solar-powered pumps to places with no water. I’ve worked with people who are revolutionising the tech market-place and people working with new drugs for cancer – and even the common cold! I’ve worked with people who are trying to motivate and inspire their teams and I’ve worked with people who are just trying to pick their teams up off the ground after a devastating loss of budgets, staff and hope.
I’ve worked with people trying to explain the most arcane of changes in the law and practice for looking after children. I’ve worked with people who just needed to be heard as they recovered from devastating abuse and I’ve worked with people just trying to earn an honest buck.
Thank you all. It’s been a cracking year!
