“…so basically, you just drew some squiggly lines.”

Another lesson from this year’s IBC tournament: In the final round, one of the competitors on the Washington (I believe) team decided to explain the concept of the “bullwhip effect“. She showed three different graphs showing how the data fluctuates as information travels up the supply chain.

Knowing full [...]

Sound professional. NOT Ghetto.

“Ummm…”

This one was hard for me to get over. Since I talk so much, I tend to say “ummm…” to fill silence. This is something I’ve seen very good presenters do just because it’s so natural. However, if you keep this in mind and are aware of it, you can minimize it. [...]

Hands in Pockets (picture from SUU School of Business)“Excuse me sir, are your hands cold?”

At the IBC competition this year, one of the guys from the Queen’s team was answering a question and he had his hands in his pockets. The head judge looked at him and said: “Excuse me sir, are your hands cold?” [...]

“Don’t worry, keep going…”

One day when I was in college I had to make a presentation with 2 guys (Dilip and A). Dilip was a good speaker and very charismatic; A was an extremely shy guy who never really spoke, but was brilliant. D and I hadn’t prepared anything beforehand and were just going to [...]

“Is there a lawyer in the house?”

A team was making a presentation at the IBC (International Business Challenge) competition a few years ago. At one point there was a legal issue in the case and obviously, since they were not law students, they didn’t have an answer to a question a judge asked. One of [...]

A Nervous Speaker (picture from St. Edmund’s College)

“There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting and public speaking.”-Jean de la Bruyere

“Why doesn’t the fellow who says, ‘I’m no speechmaker,’ let it go at that instead of giving a demonstration?”-Kin Hubbard

Someone the other day asked me about [...]