Business

Why should I hire an external event coordinator? An experienced event manager's point of view

by Pierre Morsa — Tuesday 25 February 2020

A lot of people think that organizing an event is within everyone’s reach. But is it really true? If you want to organize one for your company, a lot is at stake, including brand reputation as well as the satisfaction of your customers or guests. If you don’t want to take any chances and make a positive impression, it’s important to set up a team dedicated to your project. If you are the organizer in the hot seat, you are likely asking yourself many questions.

Meet Camille, your new contact

by Camille Spokojny - Tuesday 15 October 2019

A funny thing happened when I was describing my “dream job” to a friend. I imagined a company whose mission would be to help people become great presenters, and had a culture that was both supporting and nurturing while remaining professional and attentive to clients’ needs. My friend said: “I know that company!” A few weeks later after a relaxing summer vacation between positions, I found myself in the company of all my new colleagues, some whom I met for the very first time, at our annual Fall team meeting.

The leadership Triangle

by Joe Ross and Michael Rickwood - Monday 9 September 2019

There is one key objective at the heart of all presenting. Persuading the human mind. Today there is a war on for attention and space, with the human mind as object of the conquest. In 2019, emotions rule the stage and calm reasoned logic seems to have gone out of fashion. Individually and collectively, most of us are getting our information from sound bites, news summaries, and short burst headlines provided by our iPhone feed; while opinions change from one glance at the screen to the next.

“Others Too”: Zoom's Terrible Communication Misstep

by Pierre Morsa — Tuesday 16 July 2019

You may have heard about it, a basic security problem was found in Zoom for Mac, that allowed attackers to turn the camera on remotely. Zoom is an application used to organize videoconferences on the web. It works well and has been widely adopted by corporations and individuals seeking to provide a quality service to employees working remotely or on different sites. The security problem itself was easy to correct, and, at the time of this article, should have been fixed.

Is Elon Musk running out of credibility?

by Pierre Morsa — Tuesday 30 April 2019

Gizmodo wrote this rather funny piece about Elon Musk’s latest rash of announcements, such as fully autonomous cars and a million robotaxis by 2020. Now, Gizmodo is not exactly known as a staple of great journalism, but sometimes they have a knack to hit the nail on the head. In this case, the fact that for several years Elon Musk repeatedly promised—and failed to deliver—full autonomous driving. Honestly, s eeing how hard it is to achieve full autonomy, and how many problems are left with Tesla’s current autopilot system, it is hard to believe these new promises will actually materialize.

Is Barbara Minto’s pyramid principle outdated?

by Pierre Morsa — Tuesday 16 April 2019

A few weeks ago someone spoke a name that I hadn’t heard in a long, very long time: Barbara Minto. She’s the author of the Pyramid Principle, a book that was long considered, and sometimes still is, the gold standard of presentation structuring in the consulting industry. But it was back in the eighties. So I’ll dare to ask the question: is the pyramid principle outdated? If you’re not familiar with the pyramid principle, it is a method to lay out the information in a presentation in the most efficient way possible, based on how people with little time, especially executives, absorb information.

How to starve the presentation vultures (part 1)

by Pierre Morsa — Tuesday 5 February 2019

Maybe you feel that your last presentation was a complete failure. You didn’t manage to shake off your nerves. You became confused. The client or your boss criticized you. Maybe you’ve been caught in a downward spiral for some time, each criticism making you lose confidence, and making the next presentation worse. I have good news for you: no matter what your situation is, this vicious circle can be broken, and you gain the necessary confidence to enjoy presenting.

How to steal the show

by Pierre Morsa — Tuesday 29 January 2019

A few weeks ago, Ideas on Stage had the privilege of organizing a sales presentation training for Krauthammer at Dolce La Hulpe, close to Brussels in Belgium. For us, delivering a training for dozens of senior people at Krauthammer, one of the world’s most respected sales and management training companies, felt like designing something for Jonathan Ive, Apple’s legendary designer: a bit intimidating but incredibly exciting. The training met with great success, and it was fantastic to work with such talented people, but what I will remember most are two presentations.