Posts Tagged ‘ Korea ’

Presenting in Korea Keeps Getting Better and Better

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I recently finished a two day presentation workshop with group of guys from a large, global pharmaceutical company here in Korea. This is the third such workshop this company has done and I have to say that each time I do this course the attendees keep getting better and better.

There are many reasons for this. I think partly the reason is that Korean people are finally beginning to believe in their own English ability, and to understand that they do not have to be perfect, they just have to be understood. Other reasons are:

People understand that complex, boring presentations suck.

Detail in a presentation slide does not work

Spoken words with an appropriate good quality image works better than text.

These guys were fantastic and I just want to say – thank you for being excellent students and good luck to you all with your future presentations in both Korean and English.

2012
06/11
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My Cultural Journey

Here’s a little presentation I did recently for CBC News here in Korea about my cultural journey – coming from the United Kingdom to Korea, and some of the things I have noticed that are different.

It is a light hearted look, but I hope it can show you how to keep a presentation natural, and how to use good quality slides to help your audience to fully understand what you are saying.

2011
11/21
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Why The PyeongChang Olympic Bid Team Need to Present In English

This week sees the final presentations for the 2018 Winter Olympic bids in Durban, South Africa and the Korean team representing the beautiful resort of PyeongChang will be there delivering their final presentation.

Among the honoured members of the team will be Olympic Figure Skating Champion, Yuna Kim and President Lee Myung Bak. And they, together with the other members of the Korean Olympic Team will have the hopes of the entire Korean nation on their shoulders when they present their final presentation.

So, why should they present this presentation in English?

The main reason is that 99% of the International Olympic Committee do not speak Korean. Yet, almost all members of the IOC do speak English. If the presentation is done in Korean the presentation will have to be translated and when a translation takes place live, all emotion, enthusiasm and passion is lost. What might sound brilliant in Korean will sound dead and boring in English if it is translated. This is one area that the type of audience the presenters have must take priority over everything else, and the audience for the PyeongChang team do not speak Korean.

The PyeongChang team must connect with they audience and the only way to do that is to speak in a language all members of the IOC understand. Presenting their message in Korean is not going to connect them with their audience in this situation.

Finally, the rival teams from Germany and France will almost certainly present in English. The Germans and the French are all too aware of the importance of communicating on the international stage and whether they like it or not, they do accept that the international language is English.

So for the PyeongChang team to have the best chance possible of giving the nation of South Korea something to be proud of this week, they must prepare and deliver their final message to the IOC in English.

Good luck guys, my fingers are crossed for you.


2011
07/04
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Use Your Own Computer

Last week I had the pleasure of doing a presentation on “The Importance of English” at Korea University’s Business School in Seoul. There were three of us each doing a twenty minute segment and each part was related to why English is important in today’s business world.

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When I do a presentation, I always think very carefully about the font I use. As I have mentioned here before, the font you use helps to create the right atmosphere for your presentation. I decided to use “Impact” as my main font for this presentation because it has a very strong sense and it creates an atmosphere of importance and urgency – just my humble opinion.

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After collecting my colleagues presentations to put into one file, I went through the whole presentation and made sure that we were using a unified font and style. As usual I saved a copy of my presentation in PowerPoint on a small USB drive in case there were any technical problems.

When we arrived at the venue, the organiser informed me that their system did not work with Apple Computers – I therefore kindly asked her if I could try and make it work. She of course agreed. Fortunately for me, my computer did work and we were able to do our presentation as it was prepared.

However, after being told my computer would not work with their system all colour drained from my face and fear spread throughout my body. After spending many hours checking and rechecking my presentation, I knew that the university’s computer would not have the font I used. Had I used my backup PowerPoint file on the university’s computer my whole presentation would just look wrong.

I realised that if you want to make sure that your presentation looks good, as you prepared it, then you need to insist that the venue where you do your presentation allows you to use your computer. There is nothing worse than using someone else’s computer and finding that they do not have the font you used or that they are using a different version of Powerpoint to you.

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You spent a long time preparing your presentation, making it look right and making the animations work as you like them. It is your presentation. Do not allow all your hard work and effort fall down simply because you are asked to use someone else’s computer.

2011
02/28
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