Monday, September 06, 2010
Login
Register

Over 15 years of ERP software as a developer, implementation consultant, and pre-sales consultant.

Currently a muse - presenting, demonstrating, and educating executives on the benefits of technology.

Keywords:
#demonstration
#sales
#prototyping
#bpm - Business Process Management
#bi - Business Analytics
#erp - ERP Software

 

Topics

Blog Roll

You are here: Ramblings
Jun 24

Written by: Murray Fife
6/24/2009 9:53 AM 

I did a Webcast yesterday, and something that I always do before a presentation is outline what I am planning to show.  This helps me keep on track and also is where I note down

  • order of the topics
  • features that I want to show
  • data that I should use to best highlight features
  • possible areas to avoid because I haven't set up data etc.

This also is a way to keep myself on track, otherwise I would meander though the topics and possibly miss items that the viewers would be interested in.  Also, it is a great place to make notes durung the presentation to remind me to of:

  • features that get good/luke-warm responses
  • questions that are asked
  • areas that I need to brush up or investigate before the next demonstration

Below are my notes from yesterday:


Figure 1: Webinar Outline

After I created the script, I thought that there should be a better way to organize them, and also create a better way to plan my demonstrations.  So I designed a form for laying out my demonstrations as a storyboard.  My thinking is that each section or a demonstration could be broken out into scenes, and within the scenes will be the points that I want to show.  All being bite sized elements.

Below is the second section of my demonstration storyboarded out:


Figure 2: New Storyboard

This is still a work in progress, but anyone who is interested in trying this out, I've attached the PDF form that I created for the storyboard below.  Any comments or thoughts are welcomed.

Tags:

3 comment(s) so far...

Dave Sohigian <a href="http://www.techdemoguy.com">TechDemoGuy.com</a>

I use storyboards all the time for planning presentations and demonstrations. In the past I have just printed out a blank powerpoint template in "notes" mode, but I will start using your template in the future. Nicely done!

Are you familiar with the book "Beyond Bullet Points"? It suggests a storyboarding approach to presentations.

Dave Sohigian
TechDemoGuy.com

By Dave Sohigian on   6/24/2009 10:29 AM

Re: Demo Scripts vs. Storyboards

I think both the scripted demo and storyboards work very well and find your examples offer great insight into the use of each. I find the most important aspect of the demo is the demo environment. Many presales folks create demonstrations on their own using VMware or some demo environment with limited access to actual systems running the applications or systems that you want to show. Instead, one creates fine storyboards or demo scripts only to have no historical data or any ability to show day 1 to day 30. This seems most important to any prospects I met. Do you have similar experiences as I? Do you normally present a scripted demo?

By ben breeland on   7/3/2009 5:49 PM

Re: Demo Scripts vs. Storyboards

Good idea - my variation is to make a 2 column table in word. One column is the slide or screen shot, the info you outlined (and customer stories / facts to support). As so much of or work as SE's is variations on a theme, I find I ca reduce my prep time by reusing some of the content from engagement to engagement.

By Jeff on   11/5/2009 1:27 PM

Your name:
Your email:
(Optional) Email used only to show Gravatar.
Your website:
Title:
Comment:
Add Comment   Cancel 
   
 
Copyright 2009 by Murray Fife Terms Of Use  |  Privacy Statement