The funniest Presentation comeback

As I was aimlessly surfing the web, I randomly typed on Google "the worst presentation of all time". I then randomly picked a link that read “The worst presentation gaffe you’ve ever seen”. This link led to what seemed to be a LinkedIN Question/Answer page. I scrolled down to the first answer and read.

The answerer had two to stories to share. The First one wasn’t very striking. However the second one was the best one I have read so far. Basically, the author recounts the presentation of her “humorous” friend. Here’s the story, the friend is doing her presentation for the first time with a microphone. The first two hours go by. And then she has to go to the bathroom. Once back in the lecture room, her crowd looks at her “strangely’. The responder continues by someone comes and tells her that she should turn off her microphone before heading to the toilet. The author then cites all the options the presenter had which included get out of the room, or continue the presentation as though nothing happened.

The presenter decided to stay and said: “Now that I'm relieved .... We can move on”. And the whole crowd was reported by the author to have laughed their backsides off.

What an excellent comeback.

Checkout the story for yourself: http://www.linkedin.com/answers/hiring-human-resources/personnel-policies/HRH_PPO/236335-8169793

My roundtable experience

My roundtable experience had a rough start. I came late to it. I came late because, I carelessly skimmed through the email that Veronica sent and when I did in fact arrive at the Krannert Graduate School of Management; I couldn’t find the assigned classroom.

So I did the natural thing and went up to what seemed to be a reception. No one was there. So I looked for a computer lab in which I could search the location of the roundtable on a computer. I asked someone and I was later directed to the top floor computer lab. At the lab a found out that my Itap Login ID didn’t work. So I took the elevator, went to basement level by accident thinking it was the ground floor. Seeing a new floor for the first time, I explored thinking there would be signs for the Roundtable meeting. There were none. However, while exploring I found a tunnel that lead me to the PMU. From there I went to the Stewart center, then to an Itap lab. There I waited impatiently and finally found the location of the meet. Krannert Graduate School of Management room G21. I was so close to finding the room.

Anyway, I got in the room, sat down, listened then talked, then laughed at the jokes of an international TA, ate a good cookie and left. It was fun. Better late than never, right?

Social Status symbol

I found case 1.3 particularly interesting. Here, a small technological advance made in numbers completely alters a traditional social structure. Since the missionaries had brought a much better version of the stone axe, the steel axe, in big quantities, the elders no longer are revered for their axes, which were once very rare. The axe, due to intervention of the missionaries, lost its exclusivity hence its value among the Yir Yoront people. It also lost its ability to show high social status

This example is analogous to what I have come to experience during my stay in Cambodia. In Cambodia, a big expensive luxury car is sign of high social status. High ranking officials will “strangely” all have expensive Land cruisers, Lexus or Mercedes. ( I say strangely because Cambodia is a poor country and because government salaries are very low). It is social status symbol.

Now, what prompted me to think about this example, is the following question. Will the car still be a social status symbol as more people in are able to afford expensive cars in Cambodia? Is the car a social status symbol in the US? Or in other developed countries?

Mini-case 1.3

Holism is the idea that parts of a particular culture is connected; in other words, change of one part causes change of whole culture. In third mini-case Nolan exemplifies this notion.

The Yir Yoront, an Aboriginal group, was living in Northern Queensland, Australia. One of their main tools was stone axe. Those axes were made of wood, bark and gum, which were abundant in their environment. However, stone that formed head of axe was hard to find. It was just found in the south. This fact was responsible for origin of trade between aborigines. They exchanged axes for spears, and so on. Such exchanges had important roles in fiestas, where people from different places gathered. Stone axes were used in hunting, fishing and food gathering. But, axe was not just represented as tool. It always belonged to men and was associated with clan groups. It was “a definer and regulator of a host of social, economic and symbolic relationships”. Women and children asked permission of a man to use the axe; it was “done according to the group’s rules of age and kinship”.

When the steel axe was introduced this system collapsed. First, it affected trade, because axes were provided by missionaries. Axes were given to women and children, thereafter they were nor dependent on men’s axes. In general, male privilege was undermined.

Mini-case 1.2

In 1970s, anthropologist John Grayzel conducted fieldwork in Mali among FulBe herders. The purpose was to collect data about grazing resources, which included “the sale of animals” and sizes, movement and composition of herds. Later Grayzel discovered diversity among people; some did not contribute to livestock production, others even had a “negative effect”. This was explained by pulaade, code of life of FulBe ethnic group. Pulaade included “four main values”: intelligence, beauty, wealth and independence. FulBe considered themselves superior to others in terms of intelligence and beauty, and tended to be wealthy and independent. All these explained herder’s behavior, like “Pursuit of wealth or beauty” and “basic desire for independence”. The above-mentioned project was inconsistent with FulBe rules “toward the independent exercise of intelligence in pursuit of wealth, beauty, and emotional satisfaction”.

In first and second mini-cases Nolan showed how foreign people do not realize particular aspect of other culture at once. In both cases, it took for a while to fully understand the difference.

Mini-case 1.1

The first mini-case took place in Tunisia. Two men who were working in this country, were lost not far away from the capital, Tunis, while they were driving in countryside. They stood at a crossroad and did not know which road they need to go. The reason was that mileposts were in Arabic, which they did not know. Luckily, they encountered a farmer who spoke French. However, when they asked which road led to Tunis, they were answered that they were already in Tunis. Everytime they tried to explain, they heard the same answer. The conversation finished unsuccessfully, leaving the both sides with misunderstanding. Then, travelers eventually found the right road. A few weeks later, the narrator would learn from his Arabic teacher, that the word “Tunis” represented both the country and the capital.

If travelers had asked “We need to go to Tunis, the capital, not the country” they would have had less problem.