Using Mindmanager to Tame Travel & Meetings ...

My last post was creating a new powerpoint using the Beyond Bullet Points system .. as I went through my presentation, I realized that it was eventually in a close to one on one situation and there was a better way to do this ...

I am meeting with a client next week to present some ideas to him regarding a collaboration and of picking up some of our products to distribute in a foreign country ... as I started thinking this through, I went back to method I had employed successfully earlier ... see the map ...

This is a template I use to plan meetings with travel involved ... I then use the highlight or F4 to isolate the different parts of this as needed ... let me start with the Itineray ... I use this to document all my travel and accomodations on the trip along with contact info, etc. ... this will serve as my trip diary as thoughts emerge during travel ... just add as branches.

The second section is info for the meeting proper ... I will also google the map and directions, use snag it to capture an image of the information and then attach as an image that can be called up if I need directions, etc ...

The meeting itself is then outlined in the Agenda ... this area carries the meat of the meetings and in this case is an open ended repository of possible agenda items ... each with detail and discussion points and relationships ... the broad branches allow for items that need to be covered and the children represent possibilities and allows for expansion of the thoughts .... I go over this after the meeting and move items not covered into a new category "not discussed" and then elaborate on the discussions of the points above ... also there is the ability to add things that may come up without prompting ... this branch then serves as the meeting recap and start of the action items to follow up on along with any documentation and to dos that may come from the meeting. The one nice thing about structures like this would be the combinations that could be made on multiple meetings that would be scheduled on a trip ... this structure will keep the ability to see the forest from the trees at all times while allowing you to focus in on the "tree" in specific meetings ...

The last item is the Support Files area ... I use this as my quick lookup section on all info that I might need ... I will link to folders, files, spreadsheets, presentations, pdf's, etc ... whatever I may need to call up during a meeting ... I have found this invaluable as it has saved my hide more than a few times by being able to call up documentation or schedules with an impressive speed ... by using this area to include all of the supporting information, you no longer have to fumble to find things during the heat of a meeting ... it is all there for you ...

By forward planning, you will be completely prepared for whatever twist and turn that may happen (it ALWAYS happens ...) during a critical meeting and you can proceed to flow without the normal stresses in this type of open ended meeting ... the next post will get back to the presentation aspect that will be part of this ....

Beyond Bullet Points ... A Better Way to Present

I read with great interest a new technique of creating a vibrant and engaging powerpoint presentation without the tried, or should I say tired format of the proverbial bullet points .... Cliff Atkinson has published a book called Beyond Bullet Points ... he uses a technique based on the ages old method first used by Aristotle to convey ideas by telling a story ... fast forward to the business and entertainment worlds and he parallels the use of this method to produce successful movies and to bring presentations to life ... the book is an engaging read and highlights a very structured approach to creating or should I say crafting a presentation .... when you think of all the presentations you have seen and put it into his context, you will quickly see the power of his strategy ...

Enter our old standbye Mindmanager as a tool to quickly enable the process ... the first shot is a map I created to highlight his method ... notice there is a little redundancy, but you will see why in a minute ... In this map I have taken his structure and created slides for a powerpoint export.

The second shot is the exported map in powerpoint viewing it as a slide sorter view ... this allows you to look at the flow of the presentation and follow like a storyboard ... I see there will be two options to create the final presentation from this framework ... I can either modify the map and export it or work in powerpoiont and do the editing there ... if you notice how I have the Act slides to kind of summarize the following slides, normally to make a presentation flow, you would take or hide those slides in the final version ... take a look at this book and his website for a better explanation fo the process ... I created this mindmap to help me along, and as always, I am back to our reliable tool to simplify almost any task undertaken ...

I am preparing a presentation to be shown in a couple weeks, so I will add more to this subject as I go along ....