Examples for group presentations, written assignments

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Examples for group presentations, written
assignments
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Key points

• Central importance of audience
• Have a purpose which relates to audience concerns
  for every piece of information given
• Data collection and analysis
• Integration is the key to an excellent
  presentation
• Organization
• Beginning must feature some basic information to
  give a "snapshot" of your country to your
  audience
• Beyond that, the order in which you present
  material is open

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Key points

• Examples of excellence
• Integration across subject areas, "information
  rich" slides versus "cryptic" slides
• Examples of choices that impaired presentation
  quality
• Extraneous information, unprofessional language,
  inability to interpret numbers, drowning the
  audience in numbers

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Central importance of audience

• Don't think of your audience as MGT 301 students.
  Think of them as hard-nosed business people who
  are considering whether or not it makes sense for
  them to do business in your group's country.
  They also want to be able to interact
  successfully with people from that country
  wherever they may meet them.
• Refer to the downloadable files from the class
  website concerning the group assignment to decide
  what kinds of issues your audience of hard-boiled
  business professionals will likely want to learn
  about.

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Central importance of audience

• Have a purpose that relates to audience concerns
  for every piece of information given. If
  something does not seem relevant to audience
  concerns, eliminate it from your presentation.
• Your job is to tell the truth about what it would
  be like to do business in your group's country
  and to give advice about cultural issues. You
  are not charged with "marketing" your group's
  country to others as a great place to do
  business.

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Data collection and analysis

• Refer to the downloadable files from the class
  website for some guidance concerning how to
  analyze data. Also, refer to the "practical
  applications" section of your lesson notes from
  before the midterm and to the notes from the last
  two classes before the midterm.

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Data collection and analysis

• Integration of insights from across multiple
  subject areas is what produces top-flight
  presentations and top grades.
• For example, weaving together information about
  the financial system, political system, balance
  of payment statistics, the economic fortunes of
  trading partners, and trends in the real economy
  will likely be necessary to assess growth
  prospects for the nation as a whole and for
  particular national industries.

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Organization

• To begin every presentation a map and very basic
  summary information about the country--such as
  population, GDP per capita, etc--should be given
  so that the audience has a sense of what the
  country "looks like". Look to my Japan
  presentation example for some ideas about that.
• Beyond the most basic kinds of information, there
  are lots of ways of organizing your
  presentation that would make sense.

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Examples of excellence

• Mentioning that corruption is prevalent and the
  problems that had caused for the national economy
• Discussing how instability in the political
  system had adversely affected foreigners doing
  business in that country
• Tightly focused presentation on business culture
  that covered the basic information necessary to
  handle greetings, business socializing, and
  negotiations

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Examples of excellence

• Integration of insights across subject area.
• Weaving together insights about the financial
  system, trade and investment patterns, and trends
  in the growth of particular national industries
  to help understand in which national industries
  it might make good sense to invest, and which
  national industries would likely be poor
  investment choices.
• When this is done well a presentation tends to
  receive a top grade.

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An example of a "good" slide

• Recent developments in the Elbonian Banking
  system
• In 1994-1995 Elbonia devalued its currency
  sharply and interest rates rose dramatically
• Non-performing loans rose from 8 to 17 of loans
  in 1995, creating a financial crisis
• The government acquired failing banks and
  restructured their loan portfolios. It also
  opened up the financial sector to foreign
  competition for the first time in 1996.
• Today, the Elbonian financial system is strong
  and stable, with foreign banks having played a
  key role in recapitalizing local banks.
• With the changes in government policy favoring
  foreign participation there are new and
  potentially attractive investment opportunities
  in the Elbonian financial sector. To date
  banking and insurance have been generating the
  most interest from foreigners looking to invest
  in the Elbonian financial system.

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An example of a cryptic, "marginal" slide

• Elbonian banking system
• Currency devaluation
• Non-performing loans
• Financial crisis
• Banks acquired and recapitalized
• Currently sound
• Investment opportunities

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What's the key difference between the two
previous slides?

• The main difference lies in the degree of
  specificity of information provided in the two
  previous slides. The first slide is cryptic,
  while the second slide is much more informative.
  
• Bear in mind that a long series of extremely
  "dense" slides packed with information will also
  tire your readers. Give them an "easy to read"
  slide once in a while as well.

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Examples of choices that impaired presentation
quality

• Extraneous information
• Recipes for baked goods
• The kinds of insects that populate the country
• Explanation of local customs for funerals
• Pictures of tourist attractions
• Explanation of how to change local currency into
  other currencies
• Mechanics of how to obtain a visa to visit country

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Examples of choices that impaired presentation
quality

• Extraneous information
• A lengthy introduction to the EU, complete with
  lots of detail about the EU as a whole, but
  with no explanation of why or how EU membership
  was important to the nation the group was
  examining.
• An assessment of the local internet industry
  which included policy prescriptions for how the
  national government could help that industry
  grow.

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Examples of choices that impaired presentation
quality

• Unprofessional language
• A written report of non-verbal gestures was very
  well put together and useful for preventing
  foreigners from making very rude mistakes.
  However, the choice of language to describe the
  non-verbal gestures could have been more
  professional. Blunt, rude words virtually always
  have a synonym which would be more acceptable for
  a business presentation or business report.

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Examples of choices that impaired presentation
quality

• A clearly demonstrated inability to interpret
  numbers presented.
• This is one of the quickest ways imaginable to
  ruin one's credibility when speaking before an
  audience. Other than totally forgetting who the
  audience is there are few things which can be
  done which would bring down a group's grade
  further and more quickly than doing this.

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Examples of choices that impaired presentation
quality

• Drowning the audience in page after page of
  numbers.
• Business people tend to become bored and lost
  after looking at pages and pages of numbers.
• Some analysis and presentation of numbers is
  absolutely essential, but be careful of overkill
  in how you present numbers.
• The worst example I've seen was 5 transparencies
  full of numbers, many of which the presenter did
  not (and could not) interpret.

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Examples of choices that impaired presentation
quality

• Drowning the audience in page after page of
  numbers.
• Business people tend to become bored and lost
  after looking at pages and page of numbers.
• Some analysis and presentation of numbers is
  absolutely essential, but be careful of overkill
  in how you present numbers.
• The worst example I've seen was 5 transparencies
  full of numbers, many of which the presenter did
  not (and could not) interpret.

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Examples of choices that impaired presentation
quality

• "catalogues" of data
• Sometimes students will get up and go through a
  checklist of very fine grained information with
  no interpretation given of how that information
  is useful.

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Examples of choices that impaired presentation
quality

• For example, one student spent his speaking time
  describing a nation's education system in copious
  detail, describing at what age students graduate
  from primary school and high school, how many
  years they're in school,

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Examples of choices that impaired presentation
quality

• The information the student gave was potentially
  useful if he had correctly drawn the conclusion
  "and that's why the literacy rate has
  historically been so low, but the changes I just
  described are leading to large improvements in
  the literacy rate of younger workers."

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Examples of choices that impaired presentation
quality

• Changes in the literacy rate affect worker
  productivity, so business leaders would want to
  hear about that.
• However, the student didn't drawn any conclusions
  and didn't have any purpose behind giving all
  that information. So, the audience ended up with
  no deeper understanding of whether it would make
  sense to do business in that country or not.

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Concluding points

• Always remember who your audience is intended to
  be and ensure that each point you raise addresses
  audience concerns.
• Draw conclusions for your audience, don't just
  provide long "catalogues" of data.
• Integrate your insights across multiple subject
  areas to tackle more complex issues such as
  economic growth prospects, etc