Lectures on "Presentation Skills" for MBA students

Hindu Businessline Club organises lectures by experts on various management topics at various Colleges, to enable the students to interact with industry people.  I was invited by HBL Club to deliver a talk on "Presentation Skills" to the MBA students of Priyadarshini College of Engineering and Technology (Neloore) and Narayana College of Engineering (Gudur) on 19th March 2010.  

In both the colleges, I addressed the first and second year MBA students and the faculty members.  Please see some of the snap shots.

Prime Point Foundation, the non profit public trust provides one day workshop for all the corporates (traditional and new generation companies) on 'Presentation Skills in 5 steps'.  The Brochure may be downloaded form the following link:

http://www.prpoint.com/presentation-skils-in-5-steps.pdf

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Education Loan Task Force (ELTF) formed - An initiative of the Prime Point Foundation

India Vision online group and Action 2020 Team have been getting frequent requests from many meritorious poor students appealing for funds, as they could not get any bank loans for higher education. All along, partner groups of Action 2020 team have been supporting few of them, collecting funds from the members. On further examination, Action 2020 team found that all these students hailed from very poor families and the banks did not respect them properly for their demands.

Corporate ezine PR-e-Sense Jan 2010 issue carried the model scheme from IBA for education loans, along with the interview from RBI Deputy Governor. The core team of Action 2020 team decided to form an "Education Loan Task Force (ELTF)" to take up such cases where highly deserving poor students were harassed. In the Feb 2010 alone, the Task Force took up 5 genuine cases with the different banks and all the problems were resolved within two days.


This encouraged Core Team to make the ELTF formal and wanted to train volunteers of Action 2020 Team to spread the awareness across the State. The first ELTF meeting was held at Thakkar Bapa Vidayalaya, Chennai (Mahatma Gandhi stayed in this campus and he inaugurated this Vidyalaya in 1945).


Around 40 volunteers from the partner groups participated in this meeting. Senior level officials from State Bank of India, Indian Bank, Canara Bank and Inian Overseas Bank participated in this ELTF Meeting. Many eminent personalities of the City like Mr Desikan (Founder, Consumers Association of India), Mr Maalan (Well known journalist and Editor), Mr Rajasekar (Mg. Trustee, National Agro Foundation), Dr Santhosh Babu IAS (Mg. Director, ELCOT and Director, E-Governance of TN Govt.) and many senior journalists participated. Com. T K Rangarajan MP sent his representative to observe the proceedings and to brief him back.


The interaction between the volunteers and the Banks were really fruitful in a cordial atmosphere and enable to understand each others problems.

Some of the problems faced by the students from banks:

• Students are asked to go to pillar to post by the Branch officials and they are not given proper response;
• Demanding of collateral security / guarantee even for smaller amount;
• Insisting on payment of interest every month, before completing the studies;
• Branch officials not aware of education loan procedures and giving scant respect to the students with poor background, etc.

Some of the problems faced by the bankers:

• Students from unaunthorised colleges and unauthorised courses demand education loan;
• Students demand loans for courses, which can not provide employment (Eg. teachers training courses);
• Since banks are lending funds, some of the colleges inflate their estimates to get more money, which will ultimately make the students as heavy borrowers. Even many colleges send the estimates as Rs.3,99,500/- to avoid offering collateral security. Banks are unable to confirm the genuiness of the proposals.;
• Some of the students, who availed edu loan from banks shift their places without informing the bank and do not even repay the loans. this causes lot of difficulties for the banks and the officials;
• The colleges do not give estimates on admission. Without estimates, banks cannot process the loans.

There were suggestions from the bankers whether the University certificates of the students could be marked with 'Red strip' to indicate the Edu loan. This would caution the employers to remit the dues to the banks concerned.


Dr Santhosh Babu IAS, Director E Governance, Tamilnadu Government offered to provide a software interfacing between the banks, colleges and the district collectors. If this is implemented, this will be the first of its kind in India and would remain as model for other states. Shiva and Ravi, coordinators of Action 2020 Team and ELTF will coordinate this software project.

The Action 2020 finalised the template for supporting the students. It was also resolved to help minimum of 100 highly deserving, but poor students to avail education loans from banks. All such students will be allotted with a mentor who would guide him through the studies and also create awareness about the bank rules, prompt repayment etc.


If any information is needed on ELTF, send a mail to action2020eltf@gmail.com
The official website is www.eltf.in

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"Presentation skills in 5 steps" workshop @ Laser soft (A Polaris group company)

Prime Point Foundation has already announced a special module on 'Presentation Skills in 5 step" for Techies and Non Techies.  Laser Soft Infosystems Limited, Chennai (A Polaris Group Company) organised a one-day workshop on 20th Feb 2010.  Around 20 Senior level Project Managers and few marketing officials participated in the workshop.

K. Srinivasan, Chairman and Founder of Prime Point Foundation was the workshop leader.  The module included various steps in preparing a presentation and then the tips for making effective impact of presentation.

This was followed by the participants making a live presentation on a subject of their choice ranging from films to high end technical products.  The presentations by the participants were recorded in a digcam and then replayed on screen for review by all.  This exercise gave them the required confidence and ability to organise the presentation systematically.

The programme was inaugurated by Mr B Suresh Kamath, Founder and Managing Director of Laser Soft Infosystems Limited and valediction was given by Mr S S Rao, Vice President (HR).  This indicated the importance of this theme to the participants and also how the company was taking up this theme seriously.

Prime Point Foundation, a non profit public trust promoting communication awareness has seriously taken up the task of creating presentation awareness among the small and medium companies. Further details may be obtained from the brochure, which can be downloaded from

http://www.prpoint.com/presentation-skill-brochure.pdf

Enquires may be sent to training@ppoint.com 

The above video may also be watched from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6xNwIumKHw

http://blip.tv/file/3246205

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Launch of special module on "Presentation Skills for Techies in 5 steps"

Prime Point Foundation has today launched a special module for one-day workshop on "Presentation Skills for Techies in 5 Steps".  During the month of Feb 2010, the corporate ezine PR-e-Sense conducted an on-line survey to understand the requirement of Techies of next generation companies.  The survey revealed lack of Presentation skills and Business Communication skills among Technical persons, though, they had sufficient knowledge in their domain.

This prompted the Foundation to launch a 'special one day module' for the techies to quickly train them on presentation skills and to unearth their hidden communication skills. The speciality of this module is that all the participants would be asked to make a live presentation, which would be video recorded and played back for review and suggestions for improvement.

For time being, this module is available only as an In-Company programme.  The Foundation is  a not-for-profit organisation  with the motto 'communicate the communication'.  In view of this, the Foundation will be charging only a nominal and reasonable fee to the companies, to spread the awareness and to reach maximum number of young professionals. 

Interested may contact email id training@prpoint.com or mobile 91 91766 50273.

The Brochure in pdf format may be downloaded from the following link (90 k)

http://www.prpoint.com/presentation-skill-brochure.pdf

Please see the preview of the brochure:

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Workshop on Presentation Skills at TNSC Bank

In the last October, 2009, I wrote about the Staff Training College of Tamilnadu State Apex Cop. Bank, who are training the officials of all District and State level Cooperative Banks.  Unlike  the 'robotic' approach of all training institutes of  so called 'professional' Corporate Houses, TNSC Bank Training centre thought 'out of the box' and planed to train their officials on 'Presentation Skills'.  I was invited again on 3rd Feb 2010 to conduct half-day session on Presentation Skills.

After one hour of introductory presentation by myself aboit the concept, the participants were asked to make a presentation for 5 minutes each about anything ranging from their own products to the latest movie.  Ultimately, the participants should market with the audience about the product or movie.  The presentations were videographed and immediately played back for review by audience.

The main hurdle for any person to attempt a presentation is only an ' assumed fear'.  When I asked the participants, to volunteer for presentation and video-graphing at the beginning, there was a reluctance on their part, due to fear.    Two persons were forced to make presentation.  Then, after 10 minutes, nobody wanted to leave the chance.  Everybody started coming up to the stage for testing their ability.

Almost all of them had the capability to make a good presentation.  Unfortunately, lack of self confidence and fear prevent them from making public presentation.  At the end of the day, every one realised their 'hidden' potential.

Though, we all assume that cooperative bodies are unprofessional, i personally feel they are more professional than the so called professional institutions.  Three cheers to Mr Manohar, Principal and his team!

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Make Business Communication part of curriculum

Photo and report courtesy : Hindu Businessline
http://www.blonnet.com/2010/01/30/stories/2010013054872700.htm
Make Business Communication part of curriculum
Our Bureau
Chennai, Jan. 29

Business communication should be made a part of the curriculum for all students at the college level irrespective of their subject of study. This was essential to prepare the students for global competition, said Mr K. Srinivasan, Chief Executive Officer, Prime Point Public Relations Pvt Ltd, Chennai.

Addressing participants of a BL Club event held at the Mar Gregorios College of Arts and Science here recently, he said currently only MBA students were given an exposure to Business Communications as a subject. Students of other streams of study did not have the opportunity to learn the subject at the college level.

Today all youngsters, irrespective of their domain expertise, were exposed to global competition unlike in the past. Hence, he stressed the need for developing business communication skills among all students. He was addressing the students on ‘the development of presentation skills'.

“Nowadays, youngsters soon after taking up employment, have to make presentations at their workplaces. More than 80 per cent of them lack good presentation skills in spite of their domain expertise. That is due mainly to the fact that educational institutions do not provide them sufficient opportunities to develop their business communication skills,” he said.

He added that sticking to the time limit during presentations, paying attention to the relevance of content to the audience and providing only the required information to the audience without overloading them, were some of the important aspects that young professionals should keep in mind while making their presentations.

Mr Amurdam, Principal, Mar Gregorios College, and Mr Balachander, Head of the Commerce Department, were present at the event presented by Karur Vysya Bank.

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Presentation on 'Emergence of Social Media' at NITTTR, Chennai

National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research, Chennai provides training to all the Engineering College Teachers in South India to update and improve their teaching skills. This is one of the autonomous Institutions under HR Ministry of the Government of India.

The Institute is located in a 27 acre sprawling green campus. They had invited me to address their faculty members and research scholars on the 'Emergence of Social Meida' on 2nd December 2009. Dr. S Mohan, Director and other Senior Faculty members were present. Some of the pictures taken during the occassion:

This is the presentation, I made on that day.

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The meeting was professionally well coordinated by Ms Malliga Padmanabhan, Sr. Systems Analyst of NITTR. This is one of the four Institutions set up by the Central Government to train the Engineering College teachers. More details about them can be had at http://www.nitttrc.ac.in/

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