For some reason, I love personality tests (well, not all—it really is a jungle out there). I recently bumped into a good one called Personal DNA, which also makes a nice graphic illustration (DNA profile you could call it) of your personality.
Mine looks like this:
…which makes me a Benevolent Creator. Try it out yourself at http://www.personaldna.com/ and let me know how you fared :-).
In nine days—on April 6—I’m going to China to study challenges and opportunities for Danish companies that are doing business in, well, China. In total, about 30 students have been selected to go on this trip, where we—in teams—will work on solving a business challenge facing a large Danish company’s Chinese operations. I haven’t met my team yet, but I am sure it will be fun, challenging, and fascinating to work with them.
I have been selected as the official photographer for the trip (our photos will be distributed to media/press)—and given my keen interest in photography, I am, of course, very happy about that.
What I really wanted to post to my blog is the preliminary programme which came out a couple of days ago, so here goes:
I will post in more detail on each event as we move along in the programme, but I am not sure how often I will get internet access and how much time I will get for blog-posting.
You are following the China Exposé.
Dr. Jay H. Lehr in his memorandum on presentation technique:
Let there be an end to incredibly boring speakers! They are not sophisticated, erudite scientists, speaking above our intellectual capacity; they are arrogant, thoughtless individuals, who insult our very presence by their lack of concern for our desire to benefit from a meeting which we chose to attend.
To the point. Full paper here.
My friend Stefan has a bunch of good links to video resources, where you can watch great presenters owning the room. You should go check it out.
In addition, one of my favourites is Steve Jobs. He is so good, and he has it all: Enthusiasm, Connection, and Sincerity. And—his visual aids are wonderful. (Slides from a visual display workshop I held can be found here.) You can find a lot of Steve’s presentations as web casts on Apple’s website.
This is the fourth and final post in a series on presentation technique discussing your mental state while presenting—whether you own the room or not. Prior posts are How to Get a Standing Ovation, Go Own the Room: Enthusiasm, and Go Own the Room: Connection.
Sincerity is where I think most people fall to the ground. It is hard to fake, and it is not easily broken down into components that you can manage and measure (as for instance with Connection). However, it remains important if you want to own the room when you present (it remains important throughout all of life).
What, then, is sincerity all about? How do you come across as a sincere person? The easy answer, albeit not necessarily easy to implement or live by, is to be sincere. Do not underestimate the difficulty in being sincere – day in and day out you are confronted with dilemmas and tough choices that can compromise your sincerity—selling a product you don’t believe in, telling a white lie, doing something you’re not passionate about. It is small things, often, but they are there—day in and day out. And, eventually, larger dilemmas will appear, and it will make it all that more difficult.
My short answer to all of this is: Don’t compromise. Never. All you have is your word, your values, and your will, and the only one who can take these away from you is yourself. Don’t.
While your values and will are more or less tools (to use a very inappropriate word) to keep you on the track you want to be on, your word is something you share with others. Values often change as you grow up, which is natural—and not even close to what I will call compromising. Your will is how passionate you are about these values. Your word is what you tell others. Always keep your word—it is your bond, be true and live by your values with every will possible.
If you do this, which is difficult—please don’t underestimate its difficulty—I promise you that it will shine through when you present, be it in terms of presentation technique or when you present yourself through out life. Go own the room.
This Sunday, the CBS Case Competition 2006 started. I am in the organising committee and have been writing the case for the past half year, so it was of course a great relief to finally get everything kicked off. This week is tough—as if the weeks up to this one had not been. Sleeping hours is down to 2-3 hours per night, but it is fun, and we’re very happy to host teams from the entire world in our competition. Read more about the competition at our website, where you can also get the latest news all the time.
Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday included a number of social and networking activities for the participants in the competition. We invited them to Kronborg, salsa dancing, welcome dinner at the Carlsberg museum—and much more. Wednesday morning, my co-writer Thor and I revealed the case and the case company—Danfoss, who we’ve been working together with in order to create a real life, real time case for the participants. You can watch a short video interview with us here.
Right now it is 2am Thursday, and I am standing by in case any questions arise, when the participants are solving the case. They have to hand in their final presentation Thursday evening. Friday, the participants will present their recommendations to a jury, including, among others, three members from the case company, the CEO of the Copenhagen Stock Exchange, and the Chairman of LEGO. The finals will be streamed live over webcast at live.casecompetition.com.
Friday evening, we host an award banquet at the National Museum in Copenhagen.
