MLDP Recap: Presentation Design for the User Experience with Dave Uejio

Read a student's account of our most recent session in our Management Leadership and Development program below. For more information, about MLDP, click here.

I haven’t had to give too many visual presentations during my time here at Dartmouth. However, during the few times I have had to put together a PowerPoint, let’s just say the results weren’t exactly spectacular. So predictably, I was interested in tonight’s session with David Uejio because I wanted to learn how to improve these skills for future projects not only in school, but in the professional world as well.

Mr. Uejio began the session by telling us that while you may have great ideas, if you can’t present them in an effective manner, then they’re as good as useless. To that extent, he proposed a style of presentation that is minimalistic at its core and follows three basic principles. You should design your presentation so that the idea is easy for the audience to understand, design for you so that the idea is easy to present, and incorporate “mindhacks,” subtle tactics that ensure your idea stands out in the presentation.

After explaining all of these tricks to us, Mr. Uejio put them into action by giving us a “bad” presentation, and a “good” presentation. It was really cool to see all the tricks and tips he gave us being put into action and I felt that really helped me visualize the lessons he was looking to teach us.

For our final activity of the night, we were put into groups, randomly assigned a President of the United States, and then asked to make a quick PowerPoint presentation on why that President was the greatest President of all time. My group presented on Gerald Ford, which was challenging because he didn’t do anything particularly monumental. Nonetheless, I was pretty happy with our final product and so was Mr. Uejio. I look forward to incorporating what I learned tonight into my future work both academically and professionally.

-By Varun Bhuchar ’15, Winter MLDP Participant