Guest Blogger Rowan Manahan

July 24, 2009 by Jerry 

rowan_manahanMeet Rowan Manahan, the Founder of Fortify Services, a Dublin-based consulting and career management firm. Rowan, the author of Where’s My Oasis?: The Essential Handbook For Everyone Wanting That Perfect Job, writes a blog called “Fortify Your Oasis” on which he chooses to use a clip art image to represent himself rather his own handsome Gaelic mug. Extending his modesty, he describes himself as a “speaker, trainer, husband, father, storyteller and dancing bear.” Earlier this year, Rowan wrote a post we thought you would appreciate as a closer to this series on presentation graphics. We reproduce his words here for your enlightenment and enjoyment:

May I humbly present my Appalling Presenter’s Manifesto? This way, when abysmal presentation sweeps over the planet like a plague from the Old Testament, I can take due credit—or blame—for it.

THE APPALLING PRESENTER MANIFESTO

Just in case there is anyone who is unaware of your ineptitude, indolence, ignorance and supercilious nature, make sure you include a minimum of seven (7) of the following elements in your next presentation:

  • Ass Narcissism (N’arse’issism) – “I’m going to turn my back on you now and read all my slides off the screen. Enjoy the view!”
  • Tolstoy Wannabe – “I know that I can fit the entire text of War & Peace onto the next three slides. Thank God for sub-bullets!”
  • Oblivious Myopia – these presenters literally cannot and do not want to see beyond the end of their nose and so fail to notice that their audience is either asleep or has gone home.
  • Friendly Face Tunnel Vision – those who can see only the one person in the audience who is smiling and nodding out of sympathy, not the other 99 who have fallen asleep/gone home.
  • “I’m Eclipse Boy!” – “There must be some moth in my genetic heritage; but you can read the slide off my chest can’t you?”
  • Hypoempathy – presenters who use the phrase, “Now this is a very important point” more than once never ask themselves the essential question—important to who?
  • “Gotta sing, gotta dance” – “Sure, this topic could have been covered in an email, but what can I say? I just loooove being bathed in the glow of the data projector.”
  • Jazz Hands – a subset of “Gotta Sing” in which the presenter imitates a puppeteer on speed.
  • Slide Amnesia – a subset of Ass Narcissism, when the presenter seems surprised that a certain slide has popped up on screen and is therefore forced to read it out word for word …
  • Dispunctional – the presenter has no concept of time and is eating into the next presenter’s slot or, worse yet, into coffee break.
  • Complarrogance – a rare condition, characterised by all of the above symptoms.

Thank you, Rowan; I hope our readers enjoyed your wit as much as we did.

A Joint Program of Power Presentations, Ltd. & indezine_footer1

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One Response to “Guest Blogger Rowan Manahan”

  1. THE APPALLING PRESENTER MANIFESTO « Professional Business Communications Blog on August 28th, 2009 11:43 pm

    [...] THE APPALLING PRESENTER MANIFESTO, this is a guest blog by Rowan Manahan, he really cuts to the worst things presenters can do. [...]

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