Giving stylish presentations in digital era

Giving stylish presentations in digital era

Rhenald Kasali, Contributor, Jakarta

In 1998, as soon as I returned to Indonesia after spending six
years studying in the United States, I was assigned to teach in
the Master's Program for Management at the University of
Indonesia.

At the time, none of the lecturers used a projector and most
of them were content with transparent sheets. A technically more
advanced colleague used color transparent sheets to make his
lectures more interesting and to lend a smarter style to himself.

As a lecturer in this program, I obtained teaching materials
from Prentice Hall, a textbook publisher, in the form of color
transparent sheets. The use of these transparent sheets could
make a distinction between "branded" and updated lectures and
those that belonged to the category of "fungible commodity".

Unfortunately, I found this device quite troublesome as I
would need an assistant and a secretary to arrange my files after
I used the sheets for my teaching. Otherwise, I would have to do
this job myself. Generally, however, seminar participants or my
students would not leave the seminar or the lecture hall right
away. They would usually stay a little longer to spend some time
with me or to ask me questions.

Obviously, arranging the sheets in their original order in a
file would mean wasting some 20 minutes. Then I also would have
to arrange different files from different presentations. Clearly,
this mounting job gave me a real headache. Although in a way
these sheets facilitated my teaching and presentation, they also
caused a new series of inconveniences.

Things changed for the better soon enough, though. It struck
me one day that my professor at the University of Illinois used a
device called an LCD. It was then just a piece of bluish glass.
This glass piece was connected to a computer and was placed on an
overhead projector (OHP). However, when I tried to use this here
the picture was sometimes not clear enough. After some time, I
decided it was not much of a help and stopped using this LCD.

In early 1999, a sponsor invited me to give a presentation at
a seminar to be held in 10 cities. This sponsor was a big firm
and was very much committed to this program. They advertised on a
massive scale, which cost no small amount, to draw the attention
of participants. They expected my presentation to be not only
informative but also entertaining, so that the participants would
be glued to their seats until the end of the program.

It was then quite hard to find an excellent device for
presentations. Luckily, a colleague from Datascrip -- a company
specializing in the distribution and sale of office equipment --
was able to lend me one. It was heavy and bulky enough, the size
of a suitcase. I tested it out during a few lectures. When I felt
accustomed to it, I tried it at a seminar and found it quite
helpful.

I proposed to the sponsor that this device be used at the
seminar planned for 10 cities. My proposal flustered the sponsor
and the organizing committee as this device (Infocus projector)
was generally unknown.

There was still a handicap, though. In those days, laptop
computers still did not come with a disk player. Besides, the
memory was still limited. To rerun particular material, for
example, hotel staff had to do it manually. Obviously, this was
really troublesome as the presentation could not proceed very
smoothly.

After using this device in two or three places, we found
another constraint. The screen onto which the light from the
projector was limited. As the size was small, what was on the
screen could not be clearly seen from a distance. To cope with
this hurdle, we sewed ourselves a broad screen, which we fixed
onto two small-sized PVC pipes, each at the top and at the bottom
of the screen. So, before the seminar began, a team member had to
take the cloth screen to a laundry to be pressed. It was really
funny but this actually happened in those days.

During those less sophisticated days, technologically
speaking, that is, what was important for me was how to get a
more functional projector to replace the modest role of an OHP.
Although it was heavy and bulky, I did not mind having to pay for
its rental. The result -- a more impressive presentation -- was
worth the money.

It is a different era now: the digital era. Presentations are
much easier and much more efficient than they used to be and, of
course, in some ways are more entertaining. Most hotels own an
infocus. Their screens are sufficiently large. The audio quality
is quite good. Laptop computers now come with various features
and audio cables can be connected directly to them. The days of
arranging and rearranging my files are long gone.

In the present digital era, with the help of digital
technology, not only are you provided with an array of facilities
and conveniences, but you can also very easily turn yourself into
a presentation star. It is quite easy for you to make yourself a
branded presenter. This device can create an experiential
atmosphere during your presentation as it can mesmerize the
audience with, among other things, photographs, moving images or
even a motion picture, and all with a very high audio quality.

Certainly technology has advanced at the pace of business in
the way we view these Powerpoint presentations. These days,
projectors have become smaller, lighter, sleeker and able to
produce a better quality pictures on large screens, and that
means more people at a time can have a good view.

What you have to bear in mind now is that you can no longer
plan and design your presentation alone. You need a team that
will help you and "prevent" you from becoming absorbed in
operating highly sophisticated digital devices with numerous
features.

Basically, you must remember that these devices are not
everything. They are simply auxiliaries. Eventually, the main
content of your presentation, with useful messages for the
audience, matters most.

-- The writer is director of the Postgraduate Program at the
University of Indonesia's School of Economics