IBM演示技巧教程
There are three steps to making an IBM presentation:



Plan 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.


Prepare It is a resource for constructing graphic support materials in Freelance Graphics (PowerPoint is also supported). You will find instructions on how to include elements such as text, charts and graphs in a style that will be consistent to all our audiences - an "IBM look," in much the same way that our advertising and marketing materials have a distinct appearance.


Present It offers tips on how to deliver what you've prepared effectively to an audience. Presentations are not about showing a series of slides; they are about you, communicating a message, with visual elements in a supporting role.
















Where to begin


In her book Secrets of Power 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 it for me?")
• What questions might the audience have?


Here's what you do first: 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 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.

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 "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, most concise form. Write it down, in one sentence. Does it make sense? Does it 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. It 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 case
OK, you're clear about the point you need to convey. But it's safe to assume that your audience is not prepared to accept your message on 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 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.

Make a 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 probably have to revise it a few times anyway.

The organizing principle behind this is a pyramid: each statement you make will 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 at the top and everything else arrayed beneath it. Don't worry 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 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 organize its various elements, using this technique.
From the top down
Let's assume your basic point is: IBM's solution is your best option, because its 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. 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. Lay it out graphically.



You now see that you're going to open by stating your main point, and you're going to proceed through your presentation 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 elements 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 Pyramids



Some people find it helpful to use a pyramid on its side, with the topic in the left-most box, and building the pyramid out to the right, instead of below it. If you use this method, you'll notice that the pyramid more closely resembles a classic outline structure. Unlike an outline, however, the relative equality of the boxes make it much easier to restructure and re-order your presentation and establish new relationships to item without altering the entire organization, as often occurs when creating an outline.


For this example, we don't need to bother creating all the pyramids that build downward, but you will want to do this for your entire presentation. Organize all the information that you might want to include. You will then have a pyramid that encompasses everything you need to convey.

Now, play with it. Look at the big picture. See what's most important. Take out things that, while you might think they're important, just won't resonate with or be understood by your audience. Move things around. Add or delete, but keep the organizing structure intact.

Once you have a pyramid that seems to represent your theme and the various points you need to get across, you're ready to start creating the materials you will actually show people: bullet points, charts, graphs. Instead of organizing on-the-fly, you've organized first. Congratulations: you now have a clear picture - literally - of what information is relevant to your presentation, what points it supports, and where it should go. Unfortunately, many people don't bother to begin with this formal, 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 ready to show, the underlying organization 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 outline and prepare a presentation.


IBM演示技巧教程