bullet point hell

I once read something a highly successful alum had written about IIM grads. It went something like this.

“The most important thing we learn at IIMs is the art of making a presentation. It is unfair, the kind of advantage we derive in the corporate world from this single attribute.”

Hard to believe. If what’s on offer everyday here is anything to go by. The truth is, in IIMs, presentations suck! Period.

(Note: I am referring to presentations, not just ppt slides, but the whole process of presenting anything to an audience. The difference is massive)

Lets accept it. We make bad presentations, backed by ppts containing slide upon slide of bullet points coupled with gaudy templates and microscopic font narrating extremely verbose stories. We stutter from one bullet point to the other spending a niggardly amount of time on each before we look to the next point on the slide to rescue us from moronic silence. In short, we suck.

I know what you’re thinking.

‘Nobody cares. Who the hell will put in effort for such a silly class presentation? OF COURSE we can make a good (nay, excellent) presentation if we really wanted to.’

I know a presentation with something at stake will definitely turn out better than the ‘read paragraph – convert into 3 bullets – read out bullets in class’ type of junk we regularly churn out. But let’s be realistic with ourselves.

After 2 years of this crap, we aren’t going to wake up one day and make an outstanding presentation. We might accomplish a decent one, but definitely not anything that’ll leave the audience wanting more.

Have a look at the presentations handed out by the alumnus visiting the college for summer ppts. They WANT to make a good impression, being an alumnus and all that. They WANT to make their company look good. They WANT people not to fall asleep. Surprise! Surprise! They suck too. And this is going to be us in the very near future.

At this point of time you’re probably thinking about the handful of people who do make good presentations. DON’T. Because the argument is for the batch as a whole. At the end of the day, its the majority that matters.

Think about it.

PS: Will come up with another post on this topic soon. Promise.