Lessons from Senior Executive Seminar

Attended a seminar by the senior leadership of the company the other day. It was really inspiring. Some of the lessons learnt:

Regarding giving a good seminar and presentation:

1. Ask what the people are expecting from this seminar, take aways
2. Be cheerful, crack a few jokes on yourself
3. Presenting accelerators, ensure you set the context, why you are doing this, who else has done it in the industry.
4. Share your motivations of being there
5. Ask the name of the person contributing from the audience.
6. Mark: Show why this is the best place to be in the world.
7. Excite about the company and the work.
8. Show future opportunities, take examples of some people who make it really big
Regarding the work, life and decision making:
1. Think well before you join a firm, the reason for doing work
2. Develop a keen sense of business understanding wherein you fill in gaps/unknown parts and create/understand the big picture yourself. Requires really fast and out of the box thinking.
3. See beyond the words, what is not being told.
4. Understand the psyche of the other person who is talking by being observant and thoughtful.
5. Read and consume Annual reports, educate yourself to understand how companies work and what makes them click. The secret sauce of how things get done.

Learning from Product Demos.

Yesterday there were detailed product demos where each product manager was presenting their product in the 30 minutes slot given to them. Some of the Dos and Don'ts which I picked up from that session were:

Do's:
1. Keep a flat and strong voice, everybody can hear comfortably
2. Keep the tempo slow so that everybody can understand. You can speak slightly slower and with modulation in your tone.
3. Have less content on slide and more figures or diagram to show thereby making presenting easier.
4. Always helps to mention what you are planning to cover and going to present?
5. Have an agenda at the beginning and time taken for each item.
6. Have a demo scenario and highlight the points taken from that scenario.
7. For showing change, show before and after analysis

8. Make a demo video/ppt instead of showing application.

Don'ts:
1. Should not say "..aahh.." or take long pauses. Speak slow and ensure you have the speech practiced before.
2. Do not speak numbers or figures without showing on the slides.
3. Do not shift too many screens

Quick analysis

Today was reading the Stanford week of some students. I wanted to be part of their life or lead their life. Reverse engineering the feeling, I realised that because of following things I want to be in their shoes:

1. Decide their own course of action and day

2. High flier - meeting big people, attending seminars, brainstorming, always active and involved.

3. Hopes of a brighter n financially better future.

Now knowing this, can I project these in my life. I think very easily.

1. Got to be doing something of my own or quickly reaching a place where I can do stuff at my pace

2. I think I am already doing that. Have to consciously believe in that. I am in fact doing real work of getting startups off the ground.

3. Need to plan n build qualities for a better financial future. Lets see.

In fact, mine can be better as I don't have that big a loan, already have a job, though have a smaller chance of expanding my circle.