Day 77: 5 Minute Freewrite - Prompt: If you have any thoughts, please let me know

chuazm (57)in #freewrite • 8 years ago

".....if you have any thoughts, please let me know." the presenter said, standing there arms behind his back looking at me nervously.

"Thank you very much, I will get back to you shortly". I never do.

I'm so sick of these. These dull, mundane presentations. So many hopeful people, some with at least some decent ideas, but most with horrendous presentation.

At this point, they all sound the same.

"Bla bla bla bla...thank you so much for listening."

"Bla bla bla bla...that's the end of my presentation * insert lame joke * I guess I should go now."

At this point, they all sound so repeatable. This is why the job of a decision-maker is never easy. Hearing the same rote memorization day after day listening to hour long pitches.

However, there is one presentation I could never forget. He not only sold his idea, but he sold himself as well. And I made sure he succeeded in life.

Instead of going through slide, memorised text, slide, memorised text. He completed his idea in 15min.

"Is that it?"

"Yes"

"Ok thank y.."

"What do you think?"

"..."

"What is your opinion on what I just explained?"

"Oh, you're actually expecting a response?". That's fresh. I almost forgot these presenters were actually people capable of conversation.

"Well", I continued, "I think that..."

This, in my opinion, is how presentations should go. Not a one-way vomit of words but a two-way conversation. I do a lot of presentations to clients in my previous job, and we also receive a lot of presentations from vendors.

It really is a breathe of fresh air to actually have a real conversation instead of leaving things to email. We as a civilization seem to have forgotten that even at work, conversations can take place outside of just memos and emails.

The story above is for the Daily 5 Minute Free Write challenge by @improv and @mariannewest. It's quite a fun challenge, especially when using a tool like THE MOST DANGEROUS WRITING APP which was introduced by @maverickfoo. The app forces you to continuously write for the set amount of time or everything you wrote will disappear after a few seconds! Try it out!