Week 5 - Effective Presentations

It drives me crazy for presenters to flood their presentations with poorly constructed slides.  Each slide should convey a point and be visibly appealing to hold the audiences attention.  Too many times the fonts are crazy and too small.  Never think that the sound options for PowerPoint are necessary for business presentations, or at least not on every click of your mouse. 

This session reinforced the simplicity of slide information and the need to make your slides relevant  and appealing.    Andy

Week 4: OOPS I Missed It...sorry

Sorry folks. I somehow let this slip through.

The most relevant of these courses for my students was the IT for Business. Lots of times I get called in to come up with solutions for businesses and my students will be also doing this. My biggest question though was where do I get a cool Fez like Tarek was wearing. I think I would look dashing in Fez, much like the Doctor from season 5 for all my Whovians out there.

Week 5: Target Audience

So far this has been the most useful one for me and my program.

One of the things I have to talk with my students about is, "Who are you talking with?" This is an important question for Emerging Technologists (ETs-and yes we phone home to talk to our Moms :) ) because we sometimes speak over the heads of our clients and supervisors. For Digital Natives technology comes easy to them. So when they have to discuss it with Digital Immigrants they sometimes skip over things because to them this should be common knowledge. When I give them scenarios to play out they often involve someone who is over 35 and has a very basic knowledge of technology. This prepares them for the type of work they will be doing in the future.

Week 5: Target Audience + Effective Presentations

One of the most useful things that I learned while getting my Ph.D. was to identify the target audience and then tailor the presentation for them.  At first, the constant bombardment of questions from professors during the presentation seemed, at best, downright rude.  After a while I realized that they were doing it for my benefit.  Each person always asked similar types of questions so I was able to anticipate and put extra slides at the end of my presentation just for them.  That always went over well and showed that I was prepared and knew what I was talking about.

I might add identifying target audience to my lab sections.  One of our labs is a water analysis lab.  After we do our typical report meant for chemists I could have them prepare a second report meant for elementary students.

Week #5 - Communications - Laura Bowen

Week #5 - Communication - Laura Bowen

  After looking through the Communication module, I found the section on effective business websites very useful.  Even though I couldn’t get the technology part of it to work, I thought the resources were very helpful. It was much easier to go to  Wordpress.com and work from there instead of following the tutorial on HP.  I think this would be a excellent class activity - having students set up a web-site for a fictitious business.

      In my FSSE class we have an assignment about email etiquette so I really appreciated the section on business emails.   I know that I  assume everyone should know how to write a professional email. But,  I’m sure that my fellow bootcampers and instructors are well aware this is not the case for many students.  I am continually surprised by emails I receive from students.  So, for young entrepreneurs, I think this section would be an essential lesson in professionalism!  

 The section on target audience was weak.  It discussed how to build a survey to determine your target audience but it didn’t elaborate on what to do with the information once you got it or the best ways to reach your audience.  I might be expecting too much from these tutorials, but it seems like they would give you some resources so you could continue with your goal to reach your target audience?  

BeachBrenda_Week 5_Communication: Professionalism in Email

I completed the professional email segment in this Communication module.  More than anything else, I wanted to see what issues HP has identified as the roadblocks to effective email communication. As I was working through the exercises, it occurred to me that this segment is definitely not designed for people with advanced degrees or for people who entered the professional world before emoticons, texting slang, and being overly familiar with business contacts was standard procedure among many people who are trying to start out on a career path.

It just occurred to me –I’m a slow learner—that what we’re actually supposed to do after this five week boot camp is develop a single lesson using the information we’ve gained. I was all set to develop an entire course with segments related to each of the modules I completed. Ha! As if I could do that in the time between now and next week. So, what I think I am going to do is focus on this email professionalism segment, because I have noticed that many of my ATC students could use a little coaching.

Reflections week 4: CRM - Ron Gaines

This week I completed the Customer Relationship Management module.  I have some experience with SalesForce; however, I appreciated the simple exercise emphasizing the fact that you can use Outlook as a simple and easy to use CRM tool.  Outlook is a program that most of my students already have on their computers and mobile devices. I downloaded the worksheet that outlines simple directions for using Outlook for CRM and I plan to use this in the classroom. The "plant exercise" was frustrating to complete; however, I think this was the point. The exercise was a good example of the frustration that many CSRs and Sales Reps experience when trying to keep up with contact information, appointments, and follow-up calls. The module is very similar to all of the other modules.  It is not an exhaustive study of the subject; however, it is a good introduction.