3. Fixing a Typically Bad PowerPoint Presentation You were asked by your boss to research and prepare a presentation on using social media for internal communications in your fi rm. You put together what you thought was a solid PowerPoint presentation of the existing data and the important issues for your fi rm. After a practice run for your boss and a couple of her colleagues, however, they spend 20 minutes giving you frank feedback which included comments like, Nice slides but it was kind of long and boring, It was a lot of good bullet points, but didnt have much punch, It was often hard to see where you were going, and Forget the jazzy PowerPoint features and just cut to the chase. One even said, With all due respect, I felt like I was undergoing death by PowerPoint. How would you proceed in trying to fi x this presentation? Are there any guidelines you would follow to avoid the kind of comments you evoked in your practice run? Similarly, given that so many presentations end up just as yours has, what are some of the traps that seem to consistently make their way into such presentations, and probably did in yours? 4. Actively Listen to Understand a Problem You work in the customer service department of a software manufacturer. You have already received a number of complaints regarding a product designed to help young people make their own home video productions. Now you are about to meet with a waiting customer who has had problems trying to use the product with his son. You are a bit annoyed in that you suspect that this guy either does not have the sufficient hardware capacity or is not using the product correctly, which is usually the case. What traps or barriers could get in the way of really listening to this customer? What type of active listening would be warranted herewhat strategies would you use? This could be a good chance to gather information that would be very useful to your marketing group. How do you make sure you engage this customer and truly listen and consider his perspective?