CHAPTER 1
What Is Presentation?
- Communicating with presentations
- How this book is organized
- Storytelling, slides, and delivery
- The three principles
In late 2003, I was working for a consulting company as an analyst. The firm specialized in policy advising. Our clients were Russian ministries, senators, regulators, and formerly state-run, now privatized, companies. My job was to write reports to support decision-making processes. I had almost no contact with the clients, and frankly, I didn't suffer much because of that. I was quite happy just writing. But then came “the day.” One of the firm's partners (to whom I am now very grateful) decided that it was time for me to see the big world. I had to present one of my recent reports before the firm's client.
NOTE I tried to transform my report into a presentation in a PowerPoint deck. It was a bullet-point, teleprompter-style nightmare, which is becoming rare nowadays. I remember my boss telling me to use more pictures. In 2004, “pictures” came mostly from a clip-art gallery, which came by default with Microsoft Office. Also, I had zero design skills and my taste wasn't exactly ideal. So, yes, there were a few pictures, but frankly, it would have been much better without them.
I spoke for about 30 minutes and it all went very well, or at least I thought so. Unfortunately, it turned out that the client didn't quite share my view. He didn't understand why the report was prepared, what the findings were, and why we wasted so much time and money. My bosses had to improvise another presentation on the spot, one which, happily, did the job. The client calmed down but asked that they never delegate any presentations to me again. I was so frustrated that I promised myself to master the skill in the next few months.
This is how it all started. Two years later, the client (albeit a different one) asked for me to present whenever possible. Four years later, I'd read Jim Collins's book Good to Great and decided to do for a living what I found I could do best—give presentations. Next year, I published a presentation called “Death by PowerPoint,” which to my utter surprise went viral, having been viewed by more that one million people as of now. It was the greatest reassurance that the path that I've chosen is the right one. I'm currently teaching presentations at one of Russia's best business schools, doing corporate workshops, practicing as a consultant, and occasionally working with Mercator, Russia's leading producer of corporate films, business presentations, and infographics.