HOW TO GIVE A BETTER PRESENTATION

How to Give Better Presentations Based on a lecture by Dr. Edward Tufte James Hayes-Bohanan, Ph.D. Associate Professor, GeographyRevised: June 29, 2004

This page is meant to help people of all kinds to make better presentations. This includes students making presentations in class, professors teaching a class, people presenting research results, and professionals presenting ideas in a business environment.
The ideas here are based on those presented by Dr. Tufte in his course "Presenting Data and Information" on March 9, 2000 at the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston. As an indication of how well he implements these ideas, he kept the attention of a crowd of 500 people through FIVE HOURS of lectures. He dimmed the lights and played a lullaby at the end, and nobody fell asleep. Now, THAT is an effective presentation!
A few days after I created the site, musician and music professor Livingston Taylor was a guest on WBUR's The Connection. His topic: The Art of Live Performance. Visit the program web site to hear the one-hour program and/or to explore some written material on the subject. Taylor and host Christopher Lydon explore many of the ideas below - especially about respecting one's audience - in the context of musical performance.
1. Show up early Showing up early can lead to a variety of improvements in the presentation. First, it can help the speaker to solve unexpected problems with lighting, room assignments, equipment, and so forth. Second, people tend to trickle into meetings, but to leave abruptly, so the time leading up to the presentation is a good time to get to know at least some of the audience members in advance, to develop rapport with them, and to promote one's cause (see item 2). It is also a chance to distribute handouts (see item 4).
2. State the problem Early in the presentation, the speaker should let the audience know what problem needs to be addressed, and how the information being presented will be important in that process.
3. Particular - General - Particular Give the audience a very specific story or example with which they can identify, and then show how that relates to a more general concept. Then show them how that concept can be applied in other particular situations. By presenting both the general and the specific, a speaker can help motivate the audience to listen to the presentation (or to read -- this can be applied in written reports as well).
4. Leave traces Give everyone in the audience at least one piece of paper, both to jog their memory later and -- more importantly -- to convey some credibility. For this reason, the paper should have the speaker's name on it, so that the audience knows the speaker is holding him- or herself accountable for the information.
The information density of the paper handout can be great. That is, a large amount of information can be included, particularly if it is designed well. See Dr. Tufte's books (below) for suggestions.
5. Match the audience Think about what the audience reads, and try to match the information density of that material. That is, if the audience is used to reading high-density material, do not bore them with cartoons. The opposite is true. As a faculty member, I would suggest a corrallary rule, which is to encourage students to increase the level of the material they read.
6. Avoid overheads, PowerPoint, and bullet lists This is Professor Tufte's idea, and I am still struggling with it, because I use all of these. I do not fully agree, but his reason for this suggestion deserves careful consideration, although it tends to contradict point 5 above. People have become increasingly accustomed -- perhaps addicted -- to receiving information in very small packets. Political soundbites, three-column-inch stories in USA Today, 21-minute television "news" programs, and 30-second advertisements are just a few examples. Collectively, these contribute to a softening of analytical abilities a tendency to oversimplify complex problems. Overuse of bullets can contribute to a tendency to skim over details and complexities. Providing more nuanced information in writing (see item 4) can help the audience to probe more deeply.It is ironic, of course, that Dr. Tufte suggests avoiding lists in presentations, as part of a list in his presentation. It is good to have foibles!
7. Respect the audience Do not oversimplify; it shows disdain for the audience. Whatever group is in front of you (or is reading your written work), it has been winnowed down from all the world's people by a complicated and elaborate process. This audience deserves your utmost respect and should be treated with the respect afforded your peers. Dr. Tufte gave the example of a technical manual he was helping to edit. One of the authors told him, "We had to dumb this down for Suzie Secretary." Once Dr. Tufte observed the contempt this writer showed for his audience, he was better able to understand why the manual was so terrible.He added that some lawyers lose cases because jury members feel they are being talked down to.
8. Use humor, but use it wisely Humor that is carefully woven into a presentation can be like a bell that the speaker can ring from time to time, keeping the audience's interest building rapport.
Humor that is disrespectful or reveals prejudices such as racisim, sexism, homophobia, or religious intolerance must, however, be avoided at all costs (see item 7). It can alienate audiences without good reason. Audiences should be alienated only on the basis of the content! (See item 10.)
9. Avoid "he" when referring to people in general About half of all people are female. The use of Man, he, him, and so forth to refer to people is alienating, archaic, and imprecise. Some people continue to use "he" only because of the awkwardness of using constructions such as "he and/or she" or "one." Although some such constructions are still required in written work, Dr. Tufte indicates that such constructions as
"Each student should complete their reading."
are acceptable in spoken English, and have been recognized as such by the Oxford English Dictionary for 250 years.
10. Believe the presentation The presentation will not be convincing if the speaker does not exhibit conviction. Although it is important to be respectful of the audience, it is not useful to "soft pedal" or conceal one's views. State the case clearly and offer the strongest support for it. People can then choose to agree or disagree on the merits. Step out of the "stage" persona to talk directly with the audience.
11. Finish early The greater one's preparation (see item 12), the shorter the presentation can be. Audiences rarely leave a meeting saying, "That was very good, but I wish the speaker had gone on for 20 more minutes." Finishing early leaves more time for questions, and shows appreciation and respect for the time the audience members have taken to attend.
12. Practice A good presentation is hard work. Spend time researching, writing, and honing the presentation. Talk in front of a mirror, a friend, or a pet -- both to get more relaxed and to reveal redundant or problematic passages.
13. Hydrate Two of the most dehydrating experiences in modern life are flying in airplanes and giving presentations (all of that water vapor escaping through the open mouth really is important). People who fly from place to place giving presentations or who give presentations often should continually replenish fluids. Water is best, juice is next best. Alcohol and caffeine cause further dehydration, and should be offset by even more water. Water is useful during the presentation, to preserve the voice.
14. CONTENT Points 1 through 13 are of no value apart from the quality, relevance, and integrity of the content being presented.

माय फर्स्ट प्रेसेंटेशन

i m going to take my first presentation in eiilm . we are divided into ten group of ten member each .
our topic is ketan parekh .
actually how should i have given my presentation ,i m quite worry about it . first of all i should have been friendly with my friend in my group .
here i am going to add some of his introduction .


On 17/12/2004 the Hon’be Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ahmedabad has issued a Non-bailable warrant against Shri Ketan Vinaychandra Parekh connected with the security scam of 2001 in court case No. 1375/2003.
The personal description of the accused is as follows:
Name : Shri Ketan Vinaychandra Parekh
Age : 42 years
Complexion : Whitish
Height : 5 feet 11
Scar on Forehead, Squarish Jaw Bones, Well built
If the whereabouts of the aforesaid accused person is known kindly inform the nearest police station or contact SCRB,
Shillong at 0364-2224181 or SP, SBI, BS&FC, Mumbai

Ketan Parekh was a Mumbai-based stock broker. He hails from a well-to-do Gujarati family involved in share trading, and Ketan was involved in the shares scam of 2000-2001 on the Indian Stock Market.
At 41, Ketan Parekh heads the IT team at Sharekhan, and also manages to set aside an hour every day to chat with his wife. Rishiraj Verma brings out the man behind the CTO who also spends time praying to God every single day.
The ‘first job’
Meanwhile, in 1990 Parekh crossed the ‘first job’ milestone. He started working with a financial services firm then known as Money Care. “It’s now called Saurashtra Capital Services,” he reminisces. Parekh was happy to get a job in the field that he had studied in. After seven years with the firm, he had gained knowledge not just about the business, but also about the processes pertaining to the firm.
And it was “at Money Care itself” that Parekh had his first brush with IT. He had a lot of options at this company and he chose to work on user implementation, which led him on to IT.

BACKGROUND
Birthdate: January 15, 1965
Place of birth: Mumbai
Family: Father - gold and silver business, mother - homemaker, wife - homemaker, one daughter
Idea of a great vacation: Chilling out at a place where I can eat, sleep, watch TV, talk to my wife and daughter and go to the gym
Likes: I like my job very much. I've got all things in place, my family, my work and my passions
Dislikes: When a person doesn't own up to his responsibilities, I get angry. Earlier, there were lots of dislikes, but time has calmed me down

This CTO knows what he wants; be it his work or any other aspect of his life
Music: Bhajans devoted to Lord Shiva and slow, old music
Film: My likes have changed over time. Earlier I was a Jackie Chan movie buff, but I don’t watch movies any more
Book: Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson. Currently reading The World is Flat by Thomas L Friedman
Wish the most in life: There are many wishes. I need to be a better human being. I want to help people grow so that they can help me grow in turn. I’d also like to lose a little weight
Miss the most in life: Nothing. I’m happy with what I’m doing
Most memorable holiday: In Mauritius. We were working for 14 to 18 hours a day for nine months. My wife came down and I managed to go home early everyday. Those four days were the best holidays. I’ve been to chaar-dhaam, which are among the four key religious places in India, and this journey made me notice the real beauty of India
Colour I like: Blue
Favourite spot in India: Siddhivinayak temple
Message to fellow IT heads: Today, the world is about mapping business with technology. Technology is not a business driver, it’s an enabler. So focus on letting business drive technology and not the other way round.

Ketan formed a network of brokers from smaller exchanges like the Allahabad Stock Exchange and the Calcutta Stock Exchange, and used benami, or share purchases, in the name of poor people living in the shanty towns of Mumbai. Ketan rose'Bold text to fame at the same time as the worldwide dot-com boom (1999-2000) and he relied primarily on the shares of ten companies for his dealings (now known infamously as the K-10 scrips).

Ketan had large borrowings from Global Trust Bank, whose shares he was ramping up so that he could get a good deal at the time of its merger with UTI Bank. He got a Rs 250 crore loan from Global Trust Bank, although Global Trust’s chairman Ramesh Gelli, who was later asked to resign, repeatedly asserted that the amount was less than Rs 100 crore, which was in keeping with the Reserve Bank of India's normal amount. Ketan and his associates obtained another Rs 1,000 crore from the Madhavpura Mercantile Co-operative Bank despite the fact that RBI regulations ruled that the maximum loan a broker could obtain was Rs 15 crore. In addition, Mr Mehta's best friend, Mr Pravin Ruparel was involved with Ketan's Business in 1996.

Ketan's modus operandi was to ramp up the shares of select firms in collusion with promoters. Interestingly, around the time when Ketan started taking long positions in his favorite K-10 scrips, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) concluded a 3-year old case against Harshad Mehta, who had colluded with the managements of BPL, Sterlite and Videocon to ramp up their shares.

In Ketan's case, SEBI found prima facie evidence of price rigging in the scrips of Global Trust Bank, Zee Telefilms, HFCL, Lupin Laboratories, Aftek Infosys and Padmini Polymer.

With the prices of selective shares constantly going up due to his rigging, innocent investors who had bought the shares at high prices, thinking the market as genuine. lost heavily. Soon after the discovery of the scam, the prices of these stocks came down to a fraction of the values at which they were bought, causing even banks to lose large sums of money.

At the time, a group of traders known as the Bear Cartel (Shankar Sharma, Anand Rathi, Nirmal Bang) were making money from falling stock prices. Bears sell stocks at high prices and buy back at low prices. Around February end in 2000, this cartel placed sell orders on the K-10 stocks and crushed their inflated prices. All of Ketan's borrowings could not rescue his scrips. The Global Trust Bank and the Madhavpura Cooperative went bust when the money they had lent to Ketan sunk with his K-10 stocks.

The information furnished by the Reserve Bank of India to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) during the investigation of the scam revealed that financial institutions like Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI Bank) and Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI) had extended loans of Rs 1,400-odd crore to companies known to be close to Ketan Parekh.The Money Bureau

Rumours of an income tax raid on Ketan Parekh resulted in the stockmarket getting smashed on January 11, 2000. The Sensex fell 222 points. Eventually, it turned out to be an income tax survey that found Rs 92 crore (Rs 920 million) of undisclosed money. Parekh paid an advance tax of Rs 13 crore (Rs 130 million) and all is well; at least for the time being.

This isn't the first time that the Sensex fell on "Parekh rumours". The rumours that have come and gone have included Parekh in a payment crises (this has happened several times), various bulls and bears tussles with Parekh and a rumour that rediff.com columnist Sucheta Dalal was planning to expose a scam in the next day's newspaper. The result is always the same: the market gets smashed, a panic follows, small operators and day traders are forced to exit from their positions (they normally exit from long positions at the slightest hint of a problem), some big operators (who know the truth) buy stocks at bargain prices and subsequently pull the market up rapidly.

And these are not all of the Parekh rumours. The market loves discussing him. The Sensex does get linked to Parekh's acquisitions of a jet (false) and a new car (true). Day traders also monitor Parekh's travel plans and keep a track on his business meetings and holidays abroad. And, of course, Mumbai's 'Party of the Millennium' was Parekh's bash at Mandwa across the city's waterfront.

Show of strength

Who is this man who can cause the Sensex to tumble? Ketan Parekh came into prominence only these last two years, and has since built a solid reputation and substantial wealth. He makes day traders feel ecstasy and paranoia. "KP's in it," is often the only reason to buy a stock. His killings in Zee Telefilms, Pentafour Software and Ranbaxy are legendary.

What he can do to a stock is evident from three examples. He bought into a small software company Aftek Infosys at Rs 30, 40 levels about a year ago and there hasn't been any looking back for the stock since then. It now trades at Rs 2,400 levels. The company is expected to grow at a fantastic pace and the stock has entered many a mutual fund portfolio. But Parekh was there first.

Pentafour was another case. In June 1998, the stock was hammered to half the price in a few days on bad publicity. Parekh entered and pulled it up, also selling the idea to most fund managers. The company performed well thereafter.

Ranbaxy was different. KP's reputation was strengthened further with this stock. It was a unique case as the participation of smaller traders/investors was high. The company was changing and was on the last leg of developing a new drug delivery system in mid-1999. The stock had risen from Rs 500 to Rs 750 and declined back to Rs 550 from April to June 1999. This was one story where every BSE liftman and panwallah around Dalal Street made money as the stock scaled a high of Rs 1,264.

After the Ranbaxy killing, the bull trained his guns on Global Tele-Systems and Himachal Futuristic. Both stocks are up five times since their August 1999 levels. By now, Parekh had leader status and the crowd bought shares in which he was interested.

Who is KP?

India's two major business newspapers call him the Pentafour Bull and the One Man Army in their market gossip columns. The market, with its fancy to cut redundancy, calls him KP or associates him with his firm NH Securities.

Not much is known about the man. But a recluse he isn't. He meets people, including the press. But there is one cardinal rule: No pictures, please. We suppose he takes the Wall Street wisdom too seriously -- get your picture on the cover of BusinessWeek or Fortune and the end is near. And Ketan Parekh obviously doesn't want to retire early.

This chartered accountant by training is a down-to-earth man with an extremely sharp mind. Ask him how the market is and don't be surprised by a J P Morgan-type answer, "It will fluctuate." If you know him well, he will give you a tip too. If you are strong-hearted, you buy the share and forget it for a while. You will see some really wild swings, but in the end you will make big money.

His market style and personality are often compared to Big Bull Harshad Mehta. But there are some stark differences.

First, Mehta was a poor man's son. Ketan isn't. His family has been into stockbroking for some time, and he is related to many big brokers.

Second, Harshad operated in a closed-but-liberalising market and with other people's money (as it transpired later) as the last recourse. Parekh works in a more mature market with electronic trading, higher volumes and a stronger institutional environment.

Stories have to be created and sold aggressively to institutional investors for everybody to make money, which Parekh has done successfully. Unlike Mehta's aggressive publicity campaigns, Parekh is silent.

What are his stocks?

He picks out-of-favour stocks that are expected to grow rapidly. These are also companies that investors think lowly of or have doubts about the business, accounting standards and management. He was the first to see the software boom spreading over to second-rung software companies in 1998. His first killing came in Pentafour which had been consciously avoided by most institutional investors. Parekh came and sold them a solid growth story and the rest is history.

Ranbaxy had moved in a narrow trading range for five years. There were pending warrant conversions and institutional investors feared that the management came and sold at higher levels. Parekh spotted the change in management and the company's new drug discovery system becoming successful. He sold this story again and reaped a rich harvest.

Global, Himachal and DSQ Software will not fit in the universe of an institutional investor, but for Parekh's presence. The country's largest mutual fund, UTI's Unit Scheme-64, had Himachal Futuristic (1.48 per cent of the portfolio), Ranbaxy (1.39 per cent), Pentafour (1.35 per cent) and Global Tele-Systems (1.05 per cent) on September 30, 1999.

Parekh is also one of the few brokers who understands the power of online trading. Most operators work through a large team of trusted dealers and jobbers. (Word should not spread that he is buying or he would not be able to acquire enough shares.) An operator would also need to indulge in buy and sell orders so that his dealers remain quite confused on whether he is in or getting out.

Every big broker has enough enemies. These are the people he has crossed or the people who crossed him on his way to the top. Alleges one of his adversaries, "Most of these rumours are spread by the KP gang so that they get to smash prices, enter at lower levels and then pull the market up."

Does he always succeed? There are two ways of judging this. One is the level that a stock reaches and then declines. BPL is a good example. The stock went to Rs 600 levels; it is currently at Rs 270 levels. That has happened in many companies. The other is of a stock just not moving up after he buys it -- that happened in MTNL some time ago when it would find some new seller to stanch the stock's rise. This is an aberration when you compare stocks like Aftek, Himachal, Global, Zee and Pentafour which are on a continuous upswing and an investor getting in at any point will be in the money.

KP travels a lot and meets company managements regularly. He likes buying a substantial stake in relatively smaller companies by a private placement (like in Aftek) and then waits for other players to catch his fancy. He has also bought a stake in many unlisted companies. As is the way of the world today, he is building a nice portfolio of Internet start-ups too.

He is big for the market and getting bigger. But investors and speculators are not complaining. Nor are institutional investors and the government unhappy. The current level of the Sensex and the hope in every eye near an online terminal of ten-baggers are this man's doing, at least to some extent.



THE CRASH THAT SHOOK THE NATION
The 176-point[1] Sensex[2] crash on March 1, 2001 came as a major shock for the Government of India, the stock markets and the investors alike. More so, as the Union budget tabled a day earlier had been acclaimed for its growth initiatives and had prompted a 177-point increase in the Sensex. This sudden crash in the stock markets prompted the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to launch immediate investigations into the volatility of stock markets. SEBI also decided to inspect the books of several brokers who were suspected of triggering the crash.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ordered some banks to furnish data related to their capital market exposure. This was after media reports appeared regarding a private sector bank[3] having exceeded its prudential norms of capital exposure, thereby contributing to the stock market volatility. The panic run on the bourses continued and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) President Anand Rathi's (Rathi) resignation added to the downfall. Rathi had to resign following allegations that he had used some privileged information, which contributed to the crash.The scam shook the investor's confidence in the overall functioning of the stock markets. By the end of March 2001, at least eight people were reported to have committed suicide and hundreds of investors were driven to the brink of bankruptcy.


The scam opened up the debate over banks funding capital market operations and lending funds against collateral security. It also raised questions about the validity of dual control of co-operative banks[4] . (Analysts pointed out that RBI was inspecting the accounts once in two years, which created ample scope for violation of rules.)

The first arrest in the scam was of the noted bull[5], Ketan Parekh (KP), on March 30, 2001, by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Soon, reports abounded as to how KP had single handedly caused one of the biggest scams in the history of Indian financial markets. He was charged with defrauding Bank of India (BoI) of about $30 million among other charges.

KP's arrest was followed by yet another panic run on the bourses and the Sensex fell by 147 points. By this time, the scam had become the 'talk of the nation,' with intensive media coverage and unprecedented public outcry.