Saturday, October 27, 2007

Last Six Months have been spent in

Boarding DLR to Bank
Learning 10 words in Nihongo
Tube journeys from Heathrow to central London
Tube journeys during strike
Trying out Yakitori food in London
Evading Yakitori in Tokyo
Sunday window shopping in Greenwich village market
Guzzling Newcastle Ale
Fitting suitcase in a small Tokyo hotel room
Finding my way from Roppongi to Otemachi
Walking the streets of Kyoto - Especially Gion corner
River rafting
Roller coasting at Tokyo Dome
90 minute treks at Takao
Poising next to Nizomi - Bullet Train
Shedding inhibitions in Onsen at Nikko
Finding bargains in back alleys of Akihabara
Late night coffee sessions at AM PM store
Boarding last train on Fridays to Shinjuku/Roppongi/Shibuya
Boarding first train on Sat from Shinjuku/Roppongi/Shibuya

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

DeckHeads all

Whenever i get a chance to meet some of my peers working in other companies/industries, coversation is usually two dimensional - gossip about job switching in group and bitching about the fact that we are all Powerpoint coollies.

Its the latter that fascinates me. On an average day, i make/collaborate with others in my company to make presentation - mostly for internal use. Often these presentations are laden with figures, tables, images and almost prosaic text.

It is funny but the sheer size of information on the presentation is OBSCENE.

This is certainly contrary to what we were taught (sometimes on the job) about using much abused powerpoint presentations. I am sure most of the junta in the Pre Sales/Marketing/Product Management fields would agree with me. So why this blatant departure from obvious best practice. Answer lies in the use - for internal and extraneous (as in for others) purpose.
In plain words, someone ELSE is going to use them and it is going to be asset for the firm for the time immemorial.

So in a sense, what they actually need is a document (detailed to the last hilt). However a document is more difficult to review (frequent check ins and NY traffic) and is therefore less suited to a US/Client facing lifestyle.

Result - a confused sales support guy who unlearns all the virtues of using a powerful tool :)