Following the 2013 SIG Global Sourcing Summit in Amelia Island this past May, I was reviewing feedback from our breakout session attendees and read a comment that referenced the usefulness of the Duarte workshops with respect to presentation content, delivery and design. Usability and customer experience are both passions of mine and drive me when I am constructing guidelines for our Summit breakout session presenters and their slide decks. As a sourcing professional, I am sometimes hesitant to recommend a particular product, service, or provider. But, I can’t really keep quiet about this organization any longer. I attended the Duarte workshop and it was amazing. If you are someone who has to present things like business cases, market reports, research, spend category strategies, or if you have difficulty conveying your message, then this workshop should be part of your professional development. The two-day workshop took place in the Duarte headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA, where the facilitators immediately threw us off by asking us not to introduce ourselves with our name, company and role¸ but rather our name, company and favorite story. In each 5-10 second introduction, I felt like I already knew the person based on their story and their passion in conveying the story. During the workshop, we each built a presentation that addressed a real problem while in the session...but no PowerPoints were allowed...no computers or tablets at all! The presentations required agile development yet no particular expertise with design. We learned some excellent strategies for how to structure a presentation and watched guru Nancy Duarte map some really famous speeches (Dr. Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream, President Ronald Reagan addressing the country after the horrible Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy, and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru speech on India's Independence). Nancy helped me identify the cadence or the formula the speakers used to connect with their audiences. I also brought home two excellent books, a set of workflow/model graphics that I can't wait to use, and a bunch of best practices. Our facilitators not only taught us invaluable lessons, but also modeled the characteristics of ideal presenters (and sometimes part-time comedians). SIG has many guidelines for our presenters, as Sarah discussed in a previous blog, and as we have outlined on our Summit Presentation Guideline page. I add to those, just a very short summary of the lessons and guidelines reinforced or learned at this workshop: Know Your Audience – SIG Summit delegates are executives and professionals who are concerned with top of mind issues related to sourcing, outsourcing and procurement. They are attending the Summit for a condensed education and exposure to best practices, new ideas, and most of all to learn from others. But if you are somewhere other than a Summit:
Map your audience's knowledge, motivation, values and influencers
Feel their pain and relate to it
Own up to being a member of their crowd
Consider their emotions
Tell a Story - Summit delegates like to hear case studies including lessons learned, drivers for success, operating models, measurements and tools. Tell them your pain, then describe the tools you used to triage, treat, and heal by:
Stating the problem
Planning the middle
Solving the problem
Two excellent examples of people who tell a story, engage the audience and help them relate to the material are Dawn Evans, SIG's President CEO and Kate Vitasek, from the University of Tennessee. Call to Adventure - Summit delegates tend to be over-achievers, motivated to compete and win. They are addicted to success but appreciate failures.
Mary Zampino, Senior Director of Global Sourcing Intelligence, SIG
Mary has over 20 years of experience in information technology and over 15 years of experience in sourcing. Mary's responsibilities as SIG include sourcing and developing content for SIG's Global Summits, researching and developing content for the SIG Resource Center (SRC), serving as a member of the SRC Thought Leaders Council and their respective working groups, managing SIG's Peer2Peer member discussions, conducting benchmarking activities, and contributing to original SIG content through newsletter and blog entries.
Following the 2013 SIG Global Sourcing Summit in Amelia Island this past May, I was reviewing feedback from our breakout session attendees and read a comment that referenced the usefulness of the Duarte workshops with respect to presentation content, delivery and design. Usability and customer experience are both passions of mine and drive me when I am constructing guidelines for our Summit breakout session presenters and their slide decks. As a sourcing professional, I am sometimes hesitant to recommend a particular product, service, or provider. But, I can’t really keep quiet about this organization any longer. I attended the Duarte workshop and it was amazing. If you are someone who has to present things like business cases, market reports, research, spend category strategies, or if you have difficulty conveying your message, then this workshop should be part of your professional development. The two-day workshop took place in the Duarte headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA, where the facilitators immediately threw us off by asking us not to introduce ourselves with our name, company and role¸ but rather our name, company and favorite story. In each 5-10 second introduction, I felt like I already knew the person based on their story and their passion in conveying the story. During the workshop, we each built a presentation that addressed a real problem while in the session...but no PowerPoints were allowed...no computers or tablets at all! The presentations required agile development yet no particular expertise with design. We learned some excellent strategies for how to structure a presentation and watched guru Nancy Duarte map some really famous speeches (Dr. Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream, President Ronald Reagan addressing the country after the horrible Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy, and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru speech on India's Independence). Nancy helped me identify the cadence or the formula the speakers used to connect with their audiences. I also brought home two excellent books, a set of workflow/model graphics that I can't wait to use, and a bunch of best practices. Our facilitators not only taught us invaluable lessons, but also modeled the characteristics of ideal presenters (and sometimes part-time comedians). SIG has many guidelines for our presenters, as Sarah discussed in a previous blog, and as we have outlined on our Summit Presentation Guideline page. I add to those, just a very short summary of the lessons and guidelines reinforced or learned at this workshop: Know Your Audience – SIG Summit delegates are executives and professionals who are concerned with top of mind issues related to sourcing, outsourcing and procurement. They are attending the Summit for a condensed education and exposure to best practices, new ideas, and most of all to learn from others. But if you are somewhere other than a Summit:
Tell a Story - Summit delegates like to hear case studies including lessons learned, drivers for success, operating models, measurements and tools. Tell them your pain, then describe the tools you used to triage, treat, and heal by:
Two excellent examples of people who tell a story, engage the audience and help them relate to the material are Dawn Evans, SIG's President CEO and Kate Vitasek, from the University of Tennessee. Call to Adventure - Summit delegates tend to be over-achievers, motivated to compete and win. They are addicted to success but appreciate failures.
I hope you will check out Duarte Academy, or their diagrams or books...they have my stamp of approval.
Mary has over 20 years of experience in information technology and over 15 years of experience in sourcing. Mary's responsibilities as SIG include sourcing and developing content for SIG's Global Summits, researching and developing content for the SIG Resource Center (SRC), serving as a member of the SRC Thought Leaders Council and their respective working groups, managing SIG's Peer2Peer member discussions, conducting benchmarking activities, and contributing to original SIG content through newsletter and blog entries.