1、There are three steps to making an IBM presentation:?(1) plan itPlan It offers advice on organizing your message, sharpening your focus on what you want to say, and arranging it in a manner that audiences can follow.(2) prepare itYou will find instructions on how toPrepare It is a resource for const

2、ructing graphic support materials in FreelanceGraphics (PowerPoint is also supported).include elements such as text, charts and graphs in a style that will beconsistent to all our audiences - an "IBM look," in much the same way that our advertising and marketing materials have a distinct a

3、ppearance.(3) present itPresent It offers tips on how to deliver what you've prepared effectively toan audience. Presentations are not about showing a series of slides; they areabout you, communicating a message, with visual elements in a supporting role.Where to beginHere's what you do firs

4、t: Stop. Take some time. As Thomas Watson Sr. used to advise, famously: Think.You are about to mount an argument. What do you need? Don't succumb to the temptation of collecting every apparently relevant item into a jumble and then trying to reshuffle them into a coherent order. ("Jim has a

5、 nice chart on this, and Lisa has some good market data, I'll get those.") That's the flawed technique behind many of the more overblown, leaden presentations you've ever dozed through. That's working backwards. Instead, start with nothing. and work forward.In her book Secrets o

6、fPower Presentations , Micki Holliday suggests answering the following questions as a first start to organizing your presentation:? What does the audience need to know? What does the audience want to know? What are the possible benefits of a successful meeting for this audience?("What's in

7、it for me?")? What questions might the audience have?Ask yourself this: What is my point? Every presentation is an attempt to communicate something. It may be a complex topic, with lots of supporting data, but fundamentally there will always be something simple you want to say. It might be &quo

8、t;IBM understands your business," or "This technology is the best for our requirements" or "We need more time to do this job right.Figure out what you're trying to communicate, in its simplest,clearest, mostconcise form. Write it down, in one sentence. Doesit makesense? Doesi

9、t really cut to the heart of what you need to convey? If not, rewrite it.If you only could deliver this one sentence to your audience, with no charts or any supporting information, would this be the one you'd choose?Composing this basic sentence might take two minutes, or it might take an hour.I

10、t doesn't really matter which. Just get it right. Without a clear point of view, you are navigating without direction.Get it wrong, and you'll struggle the rest of the way.Get it right, and the pieces will begin falling naturally into place behind it.Build your caseOK, you're clear about

11、 the point you need to convey. But it's safe to assumethat your audience is not prepared to accept your messageon faith. After all, if everyone in the room already knew what you wanted to tell them, and agreed with it, there would be no point whatever to your standing up and talking.The purpose

12、of your talk is to move your audience to your point of view. So you will have to build your case. You need to organize your argument.Makea rough flow chart of the information you are going to present. Just sketch it out on paper - this isn't going to be a chart you'll show, and you'll pr

13、obably have to revise it a few times anyway.The organizing principle behind this is a pyramid: each statement you makewill have one, or more likely several, supporting pieces of information under it.As you build your presentation in this outline form, a pyramid will form, with your basic statement a

14、t the top and everything else arrayed beneath it. Don'tworry yet about the order in which you'll actually present each item. Just get them all down on paper to look at.The Pyramid Principle book listed in our recommended reading list is devoted to this method of organization, and it's a

15、useful resource. But the basic idea is really common sense, merely a way of laying out your information so you can arrange and, later on, present it logically.Let's take a look at a hypothetical presentation and how you might organizeits various elements, using this technique.From the top downLe

16、t's assume your basic point is: IBM's solution is your best option, becauseits combination of products and services is integrated and flexible, and because we understand your business challenges.Now, put yourself in your audience's position. They want to know why they should believe this

17、. They expect proof.You have, let's assume, four reasons. First, IBM products work together. Second, IBM offers the flexibility of open systems. Third, IBM services tie everything together. Fourth, IBM has experience in the customer's industry.This is the heart and framework of your pitch. L

18、ay it out graphically.IBMds 鳥elution i。yeur b«Bt option,七曰占口"曰 i+s 8Ebin"GH cxf pgdu和and services ig irrteoted and書告xibl% and匕。加9E物上 unde咋也Hdycur business chslenges.You now see that you're going to open by stating your main point, and you're going to proceed through your prese

19、ntation by offering facts and data in these four areas. Don't worry yet about which will come first.Take each of your supporting arguments and do the same again. Build another pyramid under each of the four. Under "products work together" you might have information about each of the el

20、ements in the solution: servers, middleware, storage. You might want to talk about inter-divisional efforts in IBM to integrate technologies across our product lines. It would look something like this:Fallen PyramidsSomepeople find it helpful to use a pyramid on its side, with the topic in the left-

21、most box, and building the pyramid out to the right, instead of below it. If you use this method, you'll notice that theFor this example, we don't need to bother creating all the pyramids that builddownward, but you will want to do this for yourentire presentation. Organize all theinformatio

22、n that you might want to include.You will then have a pyramid that encompasseseverything you need to convey.Now, play with it. Look at the big picture.pyramid more closelyresembles a classic outline structure. Unlike an outline, however, the relative equality of the boxes make it mucheasier to restr

23、ucture and re-order your presentation and establish new relationships to item without altering the entire organization, as often occurs when creating an outline.See what's most important. Take out things that, while you might think they're important, just won't resonate with or be unders

24、tood by your audience. Move things around. Add or delete, but keep the organizing structure intact.Onceyou have a pyramid that seemsto represent your theme and the various pointsyou need to get across, you're ready to start creating the materials you willactually show people: bullet points, char

25、ts, graphs. Instead of organizingon-the-fly, you've organized first. Congratulations: you now have a clearpicture - literally - of what information is relevant to your presentation, what points it supports, and where it should go. Unfortunately, many peopledon't bother to begin with this for

26、mal, structured approach.Although you haven't even created your first slide, the most critical (and often botched) work in creating your presentation is complete.If this all seems too plodding, too restrictive and structured, don't worry:it isn't. By the time you have a presentation read

27、y to show, the underlyingorganization will fade from view, leaving behind merely a framework that helps your audience focus more easily on your message, and enhances your own mastery of the material, since you understand thoroughly how it all fits together.Now, let's take your graphical, pyramid

28、 outline and prepare a presentation. audience follow your message and quickly understand various types of information.： IBMIBM Presentation Central:Blue-anlblack template with imagePresentation subtitle 訐 mI this infomiatiQnWhere to beginVisual elements such as graphs, charts, and text can enhance y

29、our ability to communicate, helping yourUsed thoughtfully, they can be valuable tools.Used indiscriminately, or constructed poorly, however, they can actuallydetract from your message. They can clutter your presentation and confuse your audience.This template will facilitate the preparation of your

30、presentation and will help to continue establishing you as one of the best expressions of the IBM brand.It reflects IBM's corporate design style, which also influences our advertising and marketing materials. It is straightforward, clean, and simple.It's flexible enough to accommodate a vari

31、ety of uses. Some may use it with little or no graphic elements, while others might need to convey far more complicated data.It's simple to use. Although communications specialists and graphic designers have worked to create this template, anyone in IBM should be able to use it without any speci

32、al skills or software beyond what is already available.Don't automatically assume you need to use presentation software to make your presentation!Some of the most effective sales jobs are done just by speaking directly, sincerely and informatively about the subject, without hiding behind charts.

33、In Say It With Presentations, noted presentation designer Gene Zelazny givesthree basic types of media you should consider if you need visuals to help convey your message:Lap visuals,so called because each memberof the audience receives his or herown copy of the materials at the start of the meeting

34、, if not before. Best for small groups, their use can open up discussion and help everyone participate as equal partners. The downside is that they may read ahead and start asking questions you would prefer to deal with later in the discussion. And you can also miss opportunities for eye contact if

35、everyone is looking down reading.Easels or white boards. Great for increasing interactivity among 15 or fewer people, since you're recording the audience's ideas as they comeup. Downsides: Avoid spending all your time with your back to the audience; perhaps deputize a member of the meeting t

36、o help write down points so you can concentrate on their comments and reactions to you and each other.On-screen presentations. While less personable than the other two methods, this is by far the most polished and suitable for large audiences. Since this is also the medium with the greatest pitfalls

37、, this is the type of presentation we'll be working on in this section.Title screenBy using a standard title chart and following the style consistently, we will add a professional touch not only to our individual presentations but collectively to all of IBM's face-to-face communications.The

38、title slide is a straightforward element, and generally requires only that you include your name, IBM organization, and speaking topic in the places provided. However, the template allows for other elements that might be required, and it's important to follow the guidelines if you will be using

39、these.More text (if you must)The template also provides a format for longer blocks of text. You should useblocks of text very sparingly. Yes, once in a while there might be a longer passage that is relevant, and valuable. For instance, you might have a quote from an analyst or customer that is parti

40、cularly striking:'Since w ovisourced our ST to 但M Global Services, our costs sre 比町 profits are upf iVe beep prcvnofed fo the board of directors, my kids are gating higher grades at school, and th& wester has been muc方匕由fw一hanfc ¥嗎 A delighted Forture 500 CIOTHr | Ftmh whf »H，| 懺h3

41、 I。/MiBHIf you are going to make your audience read something, makesure it's worth their time and effort. More important, makesure it's worth your time, since you don'thave much available and you've just turned some of it into a small reading assignment.Don't overdo itBefore you

42、begin, keep in mind some key points:Visuals are not your presentation. You are the presentation. Your audience has not gathered for the purpose of reading your Freelance (or PowerPoint) pages; they have come to hear you communicate. Use visuals to support your message.Less is more. A graph that show

43、s (for example) levels of customer spending on certain technologies can reveal at a glance trends in the market, but it remains your task to explain that data's relevance to your audience.A single, well-constructed graphic, supported by your thoughtful explanation, is more effective than a serie

44、s of charts that the audience must decipher.Projected visuals have severe limits.They are constrained by theresolution of a computer screen, which is far lower than the printed page. They are limited further by being projected onto a screen that peoplemust read from a distance. For this reason, we w

45、ant to keep visuals simple and bold. More complex graphics are better suited for inclusion in printed materials.Let's take a look at the main elements of the IBM Presentation Template thatyou might need to include. More possibilities and variations are available inthe presentation templates them

46、selves. But understanding which you need, and when, is the first step.Bullet-point textYour audience is ready to listen and to look, but they don't want to read long passages of text on a screen. And you don't want them too, either readingtakes their attention away from what you are saying.T

47、he most effective way to use text is with short phrases that can be read at a glance. Presented this way, text can remind people of your key points, or help them follow the progress of your presentation. Here's an example of text poorly used:9>iEiiie» un lorFpotfuci ManeI9M eServers offe

48、r a 20 percentprioe-performance日dge over Ihe compelitionIEIM eServers offers low&r total cost of ownership, due tci adTanced management capabilities舊M eServers support Linux 3rd open standards, offering greater fie xfoility to expand and Tor ths fuL reThat isn't a bad-looking page, and it is

49、n't too difficult to read. But it can be improved. This would be even better:gnjlneif UN I 酬 =Mal N6EIBM eServers Price-performance edge: 30%1 Advanced maerne nt = lower total cost* Linux & open standards = flexibility01fKlfeH ttTFmifcftup j FrwriTNief AE-flr |。力The first example tries to pr

50、esent your message. The second example merely provides cues to the messages you are discussing. It engages the audience's time only for a moment, and demands that they listen to what you're saying as you explain the points.Of course, even when you reduce your message to a bullet-point phrase

51、, you can still defeat yourself by cramming too many onto a single page. That's why you should limit any page of text to no more than five items (and even five is pushing it). You'll see that the template reflects this limit.This limit of five is not a matter of how much text will fit onto a

52、 page while remaining both legible and visually pleasing, although these are important considerations. Rather, it's a question of how much information someone can easily retain at one time, especially while listening to you speak.But what if you have more than three or even five points to make a

53、bout IBMservers? Perhaps you want to talk about the technologies that give our servers their price-performance edge, and cite somebenchmark studies as evidence. You have more to say about management capabilities, too. It simply won't fit into five lines.No problem. If you examine your informatio

54、n, you are likely to find that it will arrange itself into groups of details that support more general points. (If you'd prepared your information carefully, according to the pyramid structure described in the 'Plan It' module, this should already be clear.) The solution is to create ano

55、ther page which focuses in greater detail on one of your topics. In our current example, you might progress to this:IBM eServers: price-performance edge Advariced processors , Mainframe-like tectinoloQiesBenchmarks;惟 Sun, HPHere again, you are giving your audience a limited, manageable amount of inf

56、ormation at any one time. If you have benchmark data (in this example) that simply demands a graphic treatment, don't cram it onto this page unless it's a very simple graphic. Make another page, devoted to that.Whenyou've finished with your information about price-performance, return to

57、your list and the second point. Your next page might list the key points about IBM servers' advanced managementapabilities,followed by one with more detailon Linux and open standards.If those other topics don't have as much supporting detail, you might simply show your first page about IBM s

58、ervers again, perhaps with your next point highlighted:IBM eServersPrice-perforrnance edge: 30% Aduanced mam gement = lower total costLinus &. open standards = flexibilityYou would then proceed to discuss the advanced management features. Your audience has a clear and quick visual cue that you&#

59、39;re moving on to the second point, along with a reminder that a third one will follow.It's perfectly okay to repeat pages in this manner. Repeating pages can helpyour audience follow the presentation, without requiring a lot of theirattention to do so. While it's true that "less is mo

60、re" on any single page (and even for visuals in general) so long as your pages are brief and direct, repeating pages in order to highlight the progress of your presentation is an effective use of supporting visuals. In this instance, more can be more. Justdon't get carried away: you don't need a line on the screen to summarize every single thing you're go