Presentation Thinking and Design

SOLUTION 1

Understand how your audience thinks

Around the turn of the century I organised a three-day conference for Volvo truck dealers from around Europe. It was an important event in which we shared the company’s new strategy and the dealers’ role in it. We gathered the dealers in a fantastic remote location on the Swedish coast. Different speakers presented different aspects of the new vision and the strategy.

The start of the conference wasn’t easy. The dealers were reluctant. They didn’t understand, or so they said. A euphemism for ‘I don’t agree’, I thought. Until, in the afternoon, the SVP of the European Division, Nils, who couldn’t be there earlier, gave a 20-minute presentation. Three minutes into his speech the atmosphere in ...