If you are planning to cinch that elusive project for quite some time now, then you might want to consider using WPF charts the next time you are assigned to present to a prospective client. WPF chart tools provide several business scenarios which you can use not only to impress the client, but also to make your ideas come across. The platform provides several real-time features that you might want to check out and this article can help you have a brief overview of the platform and why using it can be to your advantage.

Key Features of WPF Charts

If you happen to be more comfortable with the traditional bars/lines or point charts, the platform takes the traditional up a different level. Real time charting and analysis of data or information are made easier with traditional charts available for those who want a more laid back look. For advanced users, they can present the data using 2D charts and 3D charts without compromising data.

In terms of chart types, a presenter has a wide array of chart types that they can use with their project. Aside from bar charts, one also has the option to use line, candlestick and mountain charts in their presentation. Customizations are also available in some WPF platforms allowing one to modify the theme to meet the expectations of the end user.

The platform is also engineered to meet the requirements of users whatever their skill level or.NET platform they may be using. An example would be binding of documents or data from various.NET providers. WPF can bind the data into one project, thus making it easier for various users to work on it without worrying about compatibility issues among software or platform used.

Another issue that seems to crop up during presentation is the inability to update information to reflect real time changes without affecting the whole presentation. With WPF chart controls, presenters can easily download large data files and process these without distressing about changing labels or other problems as the newest data can be immediately uploaded to the chart without affecting the whole presentation. This prevents time waste and improves productivity.

At the end of the day, the best feature that one can maximize with this platform is its intelligent dashboard, which allows the user to have a clean interface while being provided with the necessary tools. Users would find most WPF chart platforms with integrated multi-dimension analysis which makes it easier for one to perform calculations, summaries and other data information that are crucial to make the presentation a success.

Whether you agree or disagree with the viewpoint of former Vice-President Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” presentation and movie, as a presenter there are some key lessons you should take away from a presentation that has become more popular than almost any other presentation in recent memory, even winning an Academy Award.

Lesson 1: Visuals Rule

One thing you will notice as you watch Al Gore’s presentation is that most of his slides have no text on them, they are visuals. There is a mix of photographs, diagrams, data graphs and added video clips in the movie. When he does use a slide with text on it, there is very little text compared to the typical text overloaded corporate presentation slide. And many of his visuals, especially the graphs, use motion to make the point clear. What does this mean for you as a corporate presenter? Since so many people have seen Mr. Gore’s presentation, either live, on Oprah or in the movie, your audience will now expect you to use visuals instead of endless bullet point slides. The expectations of your audience have risen and your mostly text based slides with outdated clip art won’t cut it any more. You will need to start thinking visually and learn how to prepare and deliver visuals that engage the audience.

Lesson 2: The Number of Slides Doesn’t Matter

After watching the presentation, few people would be able to tell that there are 266 slides in the presentation. They would also say that they didn’t feel like Mr. Gore was rushing through slides. So the old lesson of one slide every one to two minutes has been thrown out the window. The new rule is to use visuals for however long you need in order to make your point. That may be as little as a few seconds and as much as a few minutes, or anywhere in between. One outstanding sales presentation used 155 slides in 35 minutes – an unheard of number in that time frame for most corporate presenters. The reason it was effective is that almost every slide was a visual, used for sometimes a fraction of a second as a product feature was built in a series of photographs.

Lesson 3: Focus on the Audience, Not Yourself

As he explains in the movie, Al Gore has spent considerable time addressing the objections the audience may have to his message. As he encounters another one in an audience, he goes back and works the answer into his new talk. He has recognized the value of focusing on what the audience needs to hear instead of what he wants to say. Too many corporate presenters think only about what they want to say and lose the audience along the way. Mr. Gore has a clear goal with his presentation – individual action to change the climate change problems. And with calculated precision he steps the audience through the arguments that lead them to the conclusion he wants them to make. Presenters should spend more time analyzing their audience and determining what the audience needs to hear in order for them to understand and act upon the message of the presentation.

Lesson 4: Direct the Audience to Your Point

When you watch Mr. Gore present in the movie, he has a small screen close by that he will use to point to a part of the image to focus the audience’s attention on the key point of the visual. He also sometimes walks over to the large screen and motions towards a part of the visual. In both cases he is demonstrating that a visual by itself is not sufficient to make your point. You must direct the attention of the audience to the specific part of the visual that illustrates the point you are making. You can do it physically like Mr. Gore does, but a sometimes even more effective technique is to build callout boxes or arrows on the slide that have the same effect of directing attention to a certain spot. A common technique used by many presenters is to use a laser pointer. This is a bad idea. It is almost impossible for many people to see the small red dot on a large screen and when they do find it, you won’t be able to keep it steady and it will be annoyingly jiggling around while you speak. Build callouts on visuals to emphasize the points for your audience.

Lesson 5: Use a Remote

You will notice that during his presentation, Mr. Gore never touches his computer. Even when he appeared on Oprah, you never saw the computer. He uses a remote control to advance his slides. This allows him to get closer and connect with his audience, an important component of getting audience members to understand and commit to acting on your message. Too many corporate presenters are glued to their laptop to change slides, are stuck behind a podium that separates them from their audience or they use slides that don’t build the points or visuals, leaving the audience guessing at what is being talked about now. If you are serious about delivering outstanding presentations, don’t be cheap. Get your own remote and learn how to use it. For a small investment of under $200, you can reap the rewards of better connection with your audience.

Lesson 6: Reading Someone Else’s Deck Doesn’t Cut It

To spread the message of the presentation and movie, a related organization is training others to present it. This is similar to a Marketing department who creates a presentation for the sales force around the country or across different regions. But the approach to spreading the message is very different. Most corporations simply e-mail the presentation out with perhaps some notes and ask the staff to start using it. And most of the time the presentation is simply read off the slides because the presenter isn’t invested in the presentation. But not with the “An Inconvenient Truth” presentation. They run a two full day event. It starts with Al Gore doing the presentation, so everyone sees how he does it and catches the fire from the person for whom this burns brightest. Then they explain the background for each slide so everyone understands and buys into the information. Then they help each person put their own emotion into the presentation so that when it is delivered, it is done with passion. Now each person in the group is equipped to go out and present the message with personal understanding and passion – a winning combination. How many organizations could be more successful if they used this model for distributing important presentations?

When a presentation is so powerful that it appears on the Oprah Winfrey show, in theatres, is turned into a best selling DVD and wins an Oscar, presenters should sit up and pay attention to why it works. If you learn the six lessons discussed above, you will be able to better engage audiences and help them understand and act on the important messages you share.

You can find promotions for free Disney World tickets either online or just by driving up and down International Drive in Orlando. The problem is those free tickets come with strings attached. You have to go to a timeshare presentation. That’s a precious few hours away from your vacation.

Disney tickets aren’t cheap so you might decide that a few hours listening to a timeshare salesperson is worth the time spent. But if you crunch the numbers you will usually find that it isn’t. The most common types of Disney tickets that you can get from a timeshare promotion are called “Touch of Magic” tickets. These are special promotional tickets that include two single day admissions to any one of the Walt Disney World theme parks. So you can spend the day at Epcot or Magic Kingdom or one of the other two parks, but you cannot hop between parks.

Because Touch of Magic tickets are special promotional admissions media, they cannot be upgraded to multi-day tickets. Now if you are only looking to spend a day at one of the parks, this isn’t a problem. It only becomes a disadvantage if you are planning several days at the parks.

The reason why is that admission to Disney World gets cheaper as you add more days. Going to WDW for four days is only $8 more than going for three days. Want to spend five days in the parks? That costs $11 more than going for three days. So if you go to Disney World for three days that will cost you almost $75.00 per day. Go for five days and your price drops to less than $50 per day.

Now I’m assuming you don’t live in Orlando and so you just can’t run off to Disney World whenever you feel like it. So if you are in Orlando for a week long vacation, you will probably spend four to five days at the parks. Once you use up the free ticket the timeshare company gave you, you still need to buy passes for the rest of your trip.

Since you’ve already had one day at the park, you decide to buy a three day ticket. Your total savings from using that free ticket in this case is $8.00, or $11.00 if you go with a four day ticket. To save that $11 you probably need to spend two to three hours resisting being cajoled into buying a timeshare.

So ask yourself, what’s your time worth? Would you rather spend the extra few bucks and get to the park early to ride Space Mountain, or would you rather spend your entire morning with someone who is trying to get you to buy something you don’t actually want?

One of the innovative contributions of Carl von Clausewitz to the theory of the military organization is the introduction of the term Friction, a phenomenon which is without doubt much observed in the execution of corporate and marketing plans.

“Friction”, he writes, “is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper. The conduct of war resembles the workings of an intricate machine with tremendous friction, so that combinations which are easily planned on paper can be executed only with great effort. Action in war is like movement in a resistant element.”

In one form or another friction is always present. Friction manifests itself in unexpected events and in factors that are difficult to control but that can delay the progress and realization of every military or business plan. Besides normal wear and tear, friction is made-up of factors like sudden rains changing the condition of the roads over which to advance, spare parts not arriving in time, misunderstood orders, messages not arriving in time (or not at all), a sudden outbreak of influenza, etc. Friction is inevitable and appears in every organization. While formulating a plan – strategic or tactical – a manager must always be prepared for friction and should always take this phenomenon into account.

Especially when changes in the organization are implemented all kind of problems pop up – friction- this is inevitable. Experienced commanders and senior managers often have a good sense of friction; they instinctively spot the time and place where delays (i.e. friction) might occur and how they could be avoided. Therefore a requirement of every Corporate Plan or Effective Presentation is always to include a margin of error, a reserve for inevitable and unpredictable friction.

Case I:

Arnhem 1944

The attempted allied conquest of the bridge at Arnhem in the Netherlands by airborne troops in 1944 was a bold plan, with many weaknesses, not only strategically but also by applying a too tight margin of error. There was hardly any room for “friction”. The time given for the advancing British divisions to reach their objectives was by far too little. Just three days!

The planning staff did not take into account the low capacity of the narrow Dutch roads, mostly built on dykes lying in the middle of swampy meadows. The roads were soon overcrowded with the long British mechanized columns and even the weakened German troops could easily block the British columns in their march from the South to the North, from Eindhoven to the bridges at Nijmegen and Arnhem. One shot up tank would easily interrupt the advance of a column as the dykes were too narrow to go around the destroyed vehicle. That was one reason why the march to Arnhem lasted eleven days instead of three!

Meanwhile, the German troops, scattered over the whole of Holland, could soon be concentrated at the right place under the command of a few experienced officers.

And at the Arnhem Bridge, the only lightly armed brave ‘Airbornes’ could not hold out eleven days against the fiercely attacking, heavily armed Germans.

Another example of unexpected friction was that from the first day of the landings no communication was possible, neither with headquarters nor between the troops, due to the supply of the wrong transmitting crystals and thus direction and coordination of the airborne army was lost. For instance the second wave of paratroopers landed on territory that was (again) in German hands.

The use of the wrong transmitting crystals created a serious communication problem. It was a critical success factor that led the operation into disaster.

Case II:

Jobbers – living from friction

Building oil-exploration rigs at sea is a very complex and precise undertaking. All kinds of parts have to be transported by ship and helicopter to the construction site. All parts needed have been planned beforehand and have to be delivered complete and exactly in time to be fitted on the rig. A delay in the agreed delivery time of the rig is heavily punished and hence will cost a lot of money.

But all kinds of mishaps can delay the delivery time. For instance in every oil rig nearly a hundred hydraulic pumps are mounted. But it often happens that pumps arrive broken, have been damaged during transport or have fallen into the sea. Notwithstanding the spare pumps that experienced construction managers always plan as a margin of error, new ones may still be needed. Ordering new pumps takes much time because the production capacity of manufacturers will have been taken up by other orders and it takes time to switch from one batch to another. In such cases the oil rig construction company seeks help from specialized ‘jobbers’, small specialized firms equipped with specialized machines like computer driven lathes, precision drills, laser cutting machines and so on.

They work by the piece and can build made-to-order all kinds of parts. They can make the few pumps needed quickly or recondition faulty ones. To fulfil such an emergency order they often work day and night. Of course building the few pumps needed is quite expensive, but not completing the oil rig in time is much more expensive. Some ‘Jobbers’ are specialized to fulfil the demands of the oil exploration industry and choose a location near their clients, like oil exploration centres in Northern Scotland and around the Gulf of Mexico. In this case ‘friction’ is the source of income for these firms.

When a speaker fizzles with the following types of sentences, the messages in your presentation are replaced with an unforgivable feeling of disappointment. How do these sentences make you feel?

• ‘Well, that’s about it really… ‘
• ‘There’s more stuff in the notes if you want to read up later… ‘
• ‘I think I’m probably out of time, so I’d better stop… ‘

Endings require attention and it is up to you to wrap your message in a memorable way. You want to go for applause. This is important for a couple of reasons. First, you have worked hard to write, rehearse and deliver this presentation. You deserve some reward. Second, and this is vital, applause makes the audience feel better. They are sharing with their fellow delegates in a positive feeling, brought about by what you have just told them.

Optimism is the key.

Even if the content has been doom and gloom, you have to leave your audience believing things will be better tomorrow and the future is filled with exciting opportunities. Often, it is in the face of adversity that great orators emerge. I think this is related to their ability to make the audience believe things can only get better.

Leave yourself a minute right at the end to deliver your well-written, carefully rehearsed, tightly packaged finale. Build towards it and at the appropriate moment, stop, and applause will follow.

Good lead ins to your last few sentences go something like this:

• ‘I’ve talked about some serious issues today. We have, without doubt, some exceptionally difficult challenges to meet, but I’d ask you to remember one thing… ‘
• ‘Out of everything I’ve said today, there is one issue that stands out for me as more important than anything, and that is… ‘

Choose the single, most important point from your presentation to finish. A good strong ending keeps you in control, and it will help to make you look assertive and confident, plus the applause resulting from a strong ending generates a positive feeling throughout the room.

From a structural point of view, plan the last five minutes of the presentation. Summarize and then move into managing expectation, like this:

1. Manage expectations: ‘This has been a complex issue and I’m happy to take some questions in our run-up to the coffee break at 11 o’clock, but before that I want to finish by reiterating one important point… ‘
2. Passionate ending-call to action, rallying cry, or plea for support.
3. Say ‘Thank You!’ and shut up.
4. Applause.
5. Question and answer session.
6. Round off the question and answer session with a final rallying cry.
7. Next step (in this case, coffee).

Speak from the heart and your audience is bound to warm to you as a person. It’s the look in your eye as much as the tone in your voice that carries your passion. If you really mean what you are saying, you don’t need to worry about how the ending will come across. Your natural feelings will carry you through.