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.

Sales; Marketing and Begging

While I was hanging around with my friends on beach last weekend when I came across a begger women with a child in her hand (nothing new for any Chennaite). Though they seem unethical; unreal; irritating; pestering, there is just one thing that made me think. The way they market themselves and make a sale. THEY SEEM TO DO ENOUGH BUSINESS ALWAYS!!! RECESSION OR NOT :-D. There are a few points I would like to compare their show with those of sales and marketing experts.

1. Their prospecting mechanism: Though thousands of them are there at the beach they always knew whom to target (No, they did not come to me :-D)

2. They are really good in grabbing your attention. Their message is crystal clear. They know what they want from you (Those huge hoardings or costly celebs are nothing when it comes to grabbing attention).

3. They are always kids or atleast carry kids. Because they know this is what makes you interested. Isn't this simple to demonstrate why somebody should spare a change :).

4. They create a desire by convincing you that its' for the kid who has not had food for the past couple of days etc., (you feel so sorry that you certainly want to help them).

5. If they know you are feeling sorry they hell won't leave you until they make you do the act (with their tenacity and patience) of giving them the change .

6. The best point I learn is that they just don't leave you here. They thank you and wish you good luck in all your endeavors & wish you success right through your life all for just the one or two buck that you spared for them (now isn't that a great deal of value offered?). This is how they satisfy their customers. This makes them lot of return customers even.

If you think I am making sense above then watch closely on the bold fonts, I am talking about the AIDAS formula, the mantra for marketing. Now guys! how many of our sales & marketing experts have
- Good prospecting mechanism;
- A value to create interest and desire in the customer
- Satisfy the customer or how many of us THANK our customer for their business :).

My next steps are to research on this particular arena and start a "beggers training camp". Pls don't think cheap, reports say that on an avg. a begger in an important traffic signal in any of the metropolitan cities of India earn more than Rs. 300/few hours in the evening.

So... Interested to attend?

Brand building is a piece of cake

While searching for something I landed up at the wow brandings web page and got impressed with their example of showcasing brand building concept with a "piece of cake". Brand building has become more important than ever as corporates focus more this arena.

The idea of brand building is to create a identity for yourself among many others. While most organizations attempt to create a individual brand for themselves only those survive who make a promise that is attractive and have goods to deliver the promise.

In this cake theory we see that the creamy layer is the communications efforts taken by the management to attract new customers and the promise made in communication is to be satisfied by the product; people & process. You can learn more on this here.

Bharat matrimony, where the girls in the ad never get married!

Well guys, I have been watching this online advertisement campaign of bharatmatrimony.com (pic in right) for really long time and I see that same girls appear at all advertisements. At times I think, why do these girls again and again appear, "will these gals ever get married" or will they continue to remain as profile.

Though the idea of having beautiful gals seem to be a good enough to attract the guys fishing outside (leave alone the question will the site really have such beautiful profiles lol :D), I just doubt what if it turns out against them and produce negative results for bharatmatrimony.com. After all, having a matrimony site is to get people married asap and not to have them as a client for months and years. The same picture makes me raise an eyebrow!