Best Presentation Skills

Professionally speaking, presentation is like showcasing the products / services to gain customers trust and achieve business goals. Whether it’s professional or student smart presentation can be like a golden key to unlock any door of opportunity.

To help polish presentation skill of any individual, following points are presented.

1. Will

2. Knowledge

3. Confidence

4. Frame of reference

5. Body Language

6. Aid

7. Feedback

1. Will: In vocabulary of presentation ‘will’ slows level of interest. The passion of doing the best creates more energy and flow of creative ideas shape the ultimate vision. This is how one gets ready for a smart presentation. The power of ‘will’ mobile audience realize The importance of what is being presented. And if seen in wider perspective without better will and level of interest better results are not expected.

2. Knowledge: Knowledge off course would be second most important thing when thinking of smart presentation. Market intelligence, adequate knowledge of presented product and services , competitive edge , basic fact and figures and client’s / audience expectation are the key areas to work and before presentation. It can be called home work or research. Good and complete knowledge not only satisfies but also boosts up the confidence. As discussed in point are ‘will’ can be a very good tool to drive any individual to have right knowledge.

3. Confidence: When your are ready by ‘will’ power also empowered by knowledge, confidence males its way by itself. Even than it’s gernally observed that many individuals feel fluctuated during presentation. This can hurt the performance very seriously. ‘Lack of confidence’ is a fear and it be eliminated by the following tested tips:

a, Practice with dummy presentation (could be import of mirror)

b, Ask yourself to break the barrear

c, Don’t feel underestimated

d, Compete with your best performance (Make Strategies )

e, Keep an raising the bar.

4. Frame of Reference: To rightly understoned the audience type will make the sailing smooth and more comfortable. Normally, there are five types of audience:

a, General audience (They could be like common people)

b, Collage audience ( They are the people of your calibor)

c, Expert audience (They are professional in the some field)

d, Novice audience (They are people who don’t have knowledge about your product and services)

e, Mixed audience (The include rest of four type)

For each type of audience presenter should have completely different set of rules to get the objectives. For instance a phasma personal will present his product to a doctor differently than to a drug store. It’s not the short cut but the effective way to hit the iron at the hottest spot.

5. Body Language: Actions speack louder than word’s is so true when seeing a smart presentation. Positive body language entitles tone, confidence, reflenes and facial expressions. The balanced and perfect blend of all ingredients of positive body language will leave the lasting impact.

6. Aid: In executive presentations, aids are slide projector or power point in both cases slides should be designed so professionally and presentation should have fair idea of how much time will it take for each slidxe and whole presentation. Other visual aids are board and markers / Chalks , charts and interments and they normally preferred in academic environment. Above all visual aid helps the audience satch the idea rather quickly and also help then to remember it longer.

7. Feedback: Rest of the six points for smart presentation are from your side but the last and most important point, to ensure your presentation went smart, is feed back and this is always from audience. If inquisitive minds are found by the end of presentation is a green signal. Moreover if your audience paid nice attention and concentrated an what you delivered is another plus and is should be taken as reward of your hardwork.

Working intelligently an above discussed point with surely provide your with very golden key to unlock the door of any opportunity and some times to build the door of opportunity and good luck.

Misunderstood Magic

Aesthetically speaking, industry that deserves the most investment and gives the best profit is none other than ‘Human Development’ as enlightened minds produce enlightened societies.

In May 2006, I interviewed Dr. Naim Siddiqi- a well known psychologist having ten years of experience in different capacities in UK and currently serving in Agha Khan University Hospital, Karachi- on behalf of ‘The Mediator International’. My objective was to not only discuss the social problems and hurdles in social development but also come up with a road map of solution that best suit our society. Dr. Naim intellectually unfolded the root causes and suggested amicable solutions in light of logic and wisdom.

He started with explaining psychology as “knowledge and study of human behavior and the way to implement that on society” According to him psychology was extremely important in human development because unless we studied, analyzed and understood it, we could not shape current and coming generations. “We must have right idea that where something is going wrong, if we wish to correct it”, he stated. With this he added that it does not mean that to address any social problem we should always have formal psychological knowledge. Traditional wisdom incorporated too much of formal psychology as those bedtime and other stories told by our Nanis & Dadiz included moral that was reflected in children’s personalities either at that time or in future. Dr. Naim doesn’t think it logical to label a psychologist and leaving that traditional wisdom part credited less.

He stressed on working innovatively to utilize available resources to develop such system that could benefit the nation. When asked about ideal social system his reply was ‘Justice’. According to him it was justice as a main ingredient that was missing from national curry and resultant was bad taste. Justice is the only thing that could put our nation on the right track. When inquired about details he explained it and supported with a small (big in meaning) example of queues out side banks where utility bills are submitted and anyone who has relations with either bank manager or even a peon gets the work done and emotionally hurts rest of the people in queue. He said it was very common practice in our society and reflected the general behavior. Whether that was recourse allocation, upbringing of children, employment, merit evaluation, day to day living and listening to the people’s problems or anything if the perspective remained justice centered, no issues could touch alarming stage he added.

Continuing with ‘Justice Centered’ philosophy he explained that youngsters had great potential to work beyond the limits but when they see they can not get their goals by right and honest means, they go for short cuts and this is how crime rate increases. He further prolonged the topic and said when these practices continued they reached their threshold level and from there either situation aggravates as we experience these suicide bombings in recent years in Pakistan or there is always a possibility and hope for things to neutralize. For that he believed that elite class was responsible to great extent as they had the power to which they used their way and some how did not let justice rule all over. Other factors that play as hurdles in social development were deplorable literacy rate and dire basic public service conditions according to Dr. Naim.

For past many years Pakistan is struggling with sectarian violence and religious extremism that is damaging the international image of the country and also disintegrating our society internally. No doubt some NGOs and individuals are doing concrete efforts to neutralize the conditions but still many leaves are left unturned and adequate planning is desperately required from government to completely get rid of this large scale activity. I had a long discussion with Dr. Naim in this regard as well and found his view purely rational and well justified.

“I am not a religious scholar but have my personal views”, he emphasized. There was a school of thought that believed religion should be in everything and another had opposite views but there was some sort of intermingle between the two in our society he assumed. He asked if there were religious parties who preached other than five time prayers and other ibadaat that were no doubt important but much needed to be addressed like taking care of your neighbors, keep away from bribery, do not break laws and other social duties. “It is some how portrayed that only Ibadaat entitle whole religion that promotes extremism”, he mentioned. He referred a religious scholar proving islamically that to break red signal was actually a sin because when driving license is acquired the licensee submits his will to abide by traffic rules and to break the rule is a sin. Similarly he put forward those so called babas in discussion as their practice of brain washing the innocent people and looting money from them and involved in some indecent activities as well. In this regard he discussed the story of patient, a teenage girl, at his charity clinic who was brought there by her mother. The mother wanted Dr. Naim to convince the daughter to go to ‘Pahar Ganj’ in Nazimabad, Karachi to aastana of that baba (The place where that so called religious baba treated his patients). When he inquired the girl why she did not want to go there the girl revealed, “He touches my private parts”. Dr. Naim could not believe the response of the mother as she said, “Doctor sahib jahan bala hogi baba wahan haath to lagain ge na”. (The baba will obviously touch that part where he knows the problem is).He said that the mother who had sacrificed her daughter’s dignity was an icon and such were used by those so called babas. He said his professional colleagues will not appreciate much but he was willing to invite those babas and quakes to discuss and tell them the CMD (Common Mental Disorders) in humans and the ways to treat them with mental therapy and some medication. To address this issue collaborative efforts were required and those will those efforts would keep them off from getting involved in ill practices he clarified.

“Psychologists do not have ready solutions for their patients’ problem but their job is to make patients realize their problems and go for the best possible option and do the medication if case is extreme”, he expressed. The common norm that ‘only mad people need psychologist’ was a very false assumption according to him as it was only the most extreme case. He said that if somebody has a problem with eyesight or limbs we do not call them blind or disable similarly if somebody is struggling with CMDs to call them mad was wrong approach. Unfortunately people did not approach psychologists even in extreme cases he added.

Finally Dr. Naim valued our family support system, and traditional values we carry that incorporate morals and ethics and stressed that if practiced intelligently and honestly, our values will help us transform a very good and stable society. He further said that we needed to be more thankful to God and more content to lead a satisfactory life.

Captions:

“I am not a religious scholar but have my personal views”

“It is some how portrayed that Ibadaat are only part of religion that gives room to extremism”

“Elite class is responsible to great extent in not letting justice rule”

“People go for short cuts when they see problems in getting things in the right way”

“We innovatively need to develop a system by utilizing available resources that could benefit whole society."

“We need to be more thankful to God and content to lead a satisfactory life”

Should Media Show the Reality?

Whether media is free? This is the question that has been circulating in diverse gatherings from civil society to sociopolitical gatherings to media circles. Ironically, every one has different interpretations for the word ‘Free’ and the theory of ‘reflection of society’ (Media reflects the society) is advocated by different school of thoughts as they perceive the word ‘Free’ or perhaps as the word ‘Free’ suits them.

Pakistan Media Regularity Authority (PEMRA) operates on federal level and makes media regulatory policies and makes sure that they are implemented but since media considers itself the fourth power pillar other than judiciary, legislative & executive powers, it has been observed that media in Pakistan often violates PEMRA regulations.

Both electronic and print media have been penalized for misusing their powers, or for not presenting the right picture, but this cat and mouse chase is continue from the day one. And particularly in these days of media invasion, it is an up hill task for any regularity authorities to draw boundaries around media and ensure that they play with in the field.

Apart from this the commercialization of media has brought in more flavors where TV channels particularly are looking for ‘breaking news’ and other exclusive stories to flag themselves supreme and ultimately be the prime selection for advertisers. Every TV channel has to show a ‘breaking news’ almost everyday to be catchy and have more viewership regardless of the impact it could be creating on viewers. And in this race of getting more breaking and exclusive stories they try to take lead from one another.

Consequently, often it has been observed that media gets oblivion of its power and responsibility and telecast events that must be filtered. For instance, when covering a crime event BBC and CNN never show human body parts and extremely wounded people live while on the other hand the situation is exactly vice versa in Pakistan and our TV channels feel pride in showing bloody events and moreover try to access wounded for exclusive interviews. This breaking news chase has recently taken the life of a journalist working in a TV channel.

In the same way, we always see on TV the one who has been rapped but not the ones who rapped and similarly we always witness the one who was killed brutally and seldom find the ones who carry out cruel acts. This is how the reality is shown and proudly presented and commercialized in our country.

To conclude, I must say that media should show the reality but the definition of that reality should be well communicated and regulated by ones who matter or we are going to face some more harsh realities.

The Real War of the World

In my child hood I used to watch the fictious drama series of 'War of The World' in which aliens used to attack earth and destroy peace here....

But now, as I have grwon up, I realize that the War of the World is continue but this time there is a little change in the story, this time around we are being attacked by no alines but humans like us whose sole purpose is to get the power on this earth somewhere in the name of peace and somewhere in the name of religion.

The recent incident that happened in Pakistan northern area of Swat where a young 17-year old girl was lashed publicly in the name of Islam that for suer brutuly hurt Islam's philosophy of peace & love.

I am recalling Sahir Lodhyanwi's followig couplet (Urdu):

Bulaow Khudayan-e-DeeN ko Bulao
Yeh Manzar Yeh Kochay Yeh GalyaN Dikhao
Sana Khwan-e-Taqdees-e-Mashriq Ko Lao
Sana Khwan-e-Taqdees-e-Mashriq KahaN Hein?