Parc your presentations

With thanks to my friend Lydia Bates, who devised the original formula, I’d like to introduce the acronym PARC. it’s the best ways we’ve found for structuring the process of designing your presentation and documents and, well, any other form of sophisticated communication. It’s designed to make sure you don’t just rush mindlessly into the process of writing your presentation. And, as Lydia says, it’s important you do things in the right direction because most people do it backwards and (wait for it) get something completely different… (go on, work it out for yourselves ;) )

Why’s it important? Because most of us rush into creating the content without planning. And that’s bad – because we don’t know

P = purpose. What’s your presentation for? What are you trying to achieve? What’s it that you’re trying to do? After all, if you don’t know what you’re trying to do, how will you know if you’ve achieved it? (There’s more on this here.)

A = audience. What do you know about them and their needs? What do you know about what they already understand? How do you need to adjust and customise what you say and the way that you’re saying it? Who are the most important people in the room that you really need to influence and who can you concentrate on a little less (within reason and curtesy of course!)

R = resources. What equipment do you have at your disposal? Laptops and projectors? Flipcharts? Audio and video? What about workbooks, handouts, and props? I tend to use lots of things like index cards, juggling balls and so on – but the important thing is to look at what you’ve got. You’d be surprised about what’s available to you as soon as you start thinking big. Are there other people you can call on? Software you know? Websites for images? Previous presentations? Don’t stop thinking until you’ve got a looooong list! :)

C = content. This is what most people rush to but there’s no big deal. If you’ve gone through the PAR bits beforehand, this should be a lot, lot easier! What (exactly) do you need to say and how do you need to say it?