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Are you reading this Malcolm Gladwell?
One of the first things we teach people facing an upcoming presentation is to forget about learning to present altogether, and instead, just remember how they used to tell stories as a kid. A good story allows both you, and your audience to internalise the content.
Sometimes people use this to a fault though. The story should simply be there to allow the audience to store the fact you have already delivered in an easier to recall fashion.
The story must not be the fact itself.
This is the flaw of many presentations, and even more business books. Authors often rely far too heavily on in-depth analysis of a few select case studies - and case studies lie (or at best present half truths).
For every case study you give proving one thing, I'll show you two that say just the opposite.
More facts please...!
Posted by Rich...! | Permalink
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» BOOK REVIEW: Blink from 800-CEO-READ Blog
Title: Blink Author: Malcolm Gladwelll Tag-line: The power of thinking without thinking Pages: 254 Dog-ear score: 11: 254 (4.33%) My first thoughts after reading this book, is that it seems to be something of a contradiction. Gladwell analyzed every... [Read More]
Tracked on 13 Mar 2005 22:06:04
» BOOK REVIEW: Blink from 800-CEO-READ Blog
Title: Blink Author: Malcolm Gladwelll Tag-line: The power of thinking without thinking Pages: 254 Dog-ear score: 11: 254 (4.33%) My first thoughts after reading this book, is that it seems to be something of a contradiction. Gladwell analyzed every... [Read More]
Tracked on 13 Mar 2005 22:12:15
Comments
Hmmm. "For every case study you give proving one thing, I'll show you two that say just the opposite."
And "More facts please...!"
But if my case study contains facts, and you then outbid my facts by a factor of 2, we're going to be in fact overload very soon.
I am going to stick up for Malcolm G here. I think what he does do is make us question a lot of the apparent certainties about how we think and make decisions.
Some folks want more certainty; I think we often need to be better at living with uncertainty...
Posted by: Johnnie Moore | 13 Mar 2005 23:42:28
You should never let the facts get in the way of a good story...
Posted by: davidcoe... | 14 Mar 2005 12:21:12
Fair enough Johnnie, except that he is presenting these as verbatim facts, and the proof just isn't there.
Incidentally, and I understand that the timing of this recommendation is probably a wee bit iffy, if you would like to read a book that gets it right, consider:
The psychology of judgment and decision making - Scott Plous
It's seriously good reading. Oh, and David, you're probaly right...!
Posted by: Rich...! | 14 Mar 2005 23:16:53
Fuck, one day I'll learn to spell/type...!
Posted by: Rich...! | 14 Mar 2005 23:18:12
If he is reading this then I think he should take some of that book money and find a decent barber, or weedwacker. Nothing personal, just some constructive criticism.
Posted by: Advice | 15 Mar 2005 00:43:59
