Three!

Had read somewhere that 50% of MBA pass outs will change their jobs within first 2 years.

Well, it has been 3 years now, and for now I seem to be firmly entrenched within Cognizant.

So there have been good bosses, friendly colleagues, decent money and some travel opportunities which have made these 3 years more than pleasant.
What also made this journey interesting is:

1. The colleague who uses jargon in every sentence

2. The guy who said women should not play sports and then was found cheering the women's basketball matches

3. The guy with the heavy bong accent

4. The folks from Chennai who were out of their wits understanding the bong accent

5. The female colleague I kept referring to as "him" in a call

6. The cleaning lady who almost abused me for soiling her just wiped, spick and span
floor

7. The cafeteria lady who always smiled when giving me a larger serving.

8. The guy who said to his recently promoted boss "NOW you will get respect when you come to speak"

Tips to make good presentations

I have been reading some material on making good presentations and below are an assortment of things I recall

1. Do not dim the lights during the presentation - the presenter is as much part of the presentation as are the slides, so presenter should be clearly visible to the participants. Also I have noticed the audience might tend to drift and catch a nap if the room is dark

2. Try to keep the slide simple e.g. only one or 2 graphs in a slide,

3. Question the habits - do we really have to use the corporate template?, do we really need that company logo on each slide?

4. Avoid bullet points, try to use format as per the following image

5. When showing logos of other clients as success stories, do not pack the slide with logos. Keep 8-10 relevant logos. Suggestion to have 3 rows on the slide, top and bottom rows to have the 10 logos and middle row will have a simple statement like "Our success stories"

6. Graphs and chart - Use just 2,3 colors on the slide. Ensure that there is good contrast in the background and the colors in the graphs, this improves readability. I prefer white as a safe option. When displaying bar graphs, show data only for relevant values. e.g. if you have sales figures for last 15 years, show only for 1st, 5th, 10th and 15th year - just 4 bars to read rather 15 where one may not be able to read all the values. Highlight the bar with a different color if you want to talk about it say "sudden growth was had in 10th year" - keep other graphs in gray and 10th year graph in blue

7. Avoid animations and transitions that MS Office offers so easily

8. Avoid slanted or curved text, have text horizontally aligned, it makes reading easier.

9. If you have a heavy content side, try to have a narrative in the title or a seperate block to tell the audience in one line what you are trying to tell them on this slide

I'll try to add more - these really are not my suggestions, just observations.

Readers are requested to add their observations on good presentations

Blue Mug

I saw this play on Saturday - "Blue Mug". Starring Konkona, Ranvir, Vinay Pathak, Rajat Sharma and couple of others. The first three are superb and your really get to see them in their elements on stage.

Throughout the play and even at the end, you will wonder what is this play all about - there is no single answer. My take is that the play is about the collection of our memories - right from childhood - some pleasant, some innocent, some fearful - and how we look upon them today.
And then there is the aspect of what would happen if we didn't have any memories.

We have seen Rajat Kapoor's work of having plots that don't follow a sequential narration. Some might think that is his style, I personally think that is his limitation - that he cannot "tell" a good story. He seems to leave the pieces lying around - after all it takes some effort to weave those pieces together.

Humor and punch lines keep you interested throughout the no-interval 75 minutes. It isn't a comedy play though - Do watch it - It will give your brains a nice work out

Ciao