Powerpoint the killer application

Powerpoint, with such a wide such usage (and so many boring presentations made anywhere and everywhere) is certainly a killer application.

Whenever I have had an opportunity to present, I follow several simple strategies to save those who are sitting in front of me:

- I always KISS to get up close and personal with the person/group I am trying to communicate (no pun intended!).

- The triple seven strategy. 7 words per line; 7 lines per slide; 7 slides per presentation. Have tried this a few times in my presentation and have found it interesting as I tried ten cut down on those unwanted words to make my slides shorter and sharper. But never really made it as a protocol of my presentation, whenever I feel that the rule does not fit the objective of my presentation I just bypass it.

- Final main strategy (especially for long presentations) is to switch off the lights to save embarrassment of both parties.


"There are atleast million power point presentations are being made right now and atleast 50% are unbearable", Alexei Kapterev aptly says in his below presentation "Death by Powerpoint".

Death By Power Point

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4 P's of effective communication to your sub-ordinates!!!

While working with a team, one thing that I believe makes a hellava difference is effective communication of your thoughts. Recently working on an event I had to pass messages to several of my co-volunteers to get jobs done. This encouraged me to come up with a few points for effective communication that might help me.

Let it be face to face; over the phone; text messaging; emailing; or snail mailing, I am sure these points are very important so as the other party understands clearly and acts accordingly. The pic in right is an example for a funny mis communication (click on it for larger view)

Precise: sharp & shorter messages always gains advantage. A second thought of what we are going to say, A second look into the wordings that you have framed always helps than to give urgent vague or unclear communication that might produce negative results.

Personal: Communication that is personal always has a appeal. For eg, a two liner with "Hi Sundar, happy new year" is far more effective than a flashy greeting email that is sent to hundreds including Sundar simultaneously.

Pleasant: Being pleasant is very important when you are communicating with somebody for the first time or during initial part of your relationship. It helps in building a rapport and stopping conflicts and makes understanding easier.

Punctual: Like anywhere else time is very essential. Today's newpaper is tomorrow's waster paper.

While these points always apply at any point of time, I believe these should 100% be followed to our sub-ordinates or at times even superiors or for that matter to anybody whom we want to have a job done.