Training
A national meeting of the best and the brightest in the field. A day of powerful research on a topic of urgent importance.
All far less meaningful than it could have been because almost every single one of the presenters–to a man and a woman–made three simple mistakes.
–They arrived with many slides, in some cases more than 40, for presentations that were to be no longer than 15 minutes.
–They crammed their PowerPoints with enough words and bullet statements to fill a book.
–They insisted on reading their slides, instead of engaging in a conversation with the audience. Read
Practices Public Affairs Research Services
We often see clients who ask us to defend them against studies that make unsupported connections between their products and health or environmental claims.
Alex Lundry of TargetPointConsulting shows how scientific-looking charts can suggest outcomes that are nonsensical. For example, the universe of data you select is critical. (One of his charts shows that President Obama, when compared to every president going back to McKinley, is the all-time “pirate killer.” His record is sadly diminished, however, when you go back to Jefferson and Madison.) Read
Services Training
Company X has a problem. Their Leader–recognized as trend-setting, dynamo by people in the upper-ranks of his industry–can come across as wooden, even defensive, when making a presentation before large audiences.
This Leader will soon be facing a very large and critical audience–the global meeting of the major investors in his company’s far-flung empire. The case has to be made that these investors need to reach into their pockets and pony-up for a fresh wave of modernization. To make this case, the Leader needs to get off the operational details and shift the thinking of his stakeholders to see startling possibilities.
He needs to be spellbinding. But he isn’t. Read