Telling tales – in and out of school

Last week’s CIBC Presents Entrepreneurship 101 class was treated to a bravura presentation by Mike Polonsky of the Equicom Group on how to give a presentation. Mike’s talk featured a number of key messages on how to effectively tell a story about your ideas, your company, your investment opportunity.

This raises for me an interesting question. Our education system increasingly relies on having teams of students “present” the results of some project (this seems to reach back as early as junior high school, but clearly continues up to the classic seminars of graduate school). But does anyone ever teach us in school how to give an effective presentation?

I contend that we get taught how to use Powerpoint, then we are let loose to make all of the mistakes that Mike demonstrated in his talk.  I’m curious – has anyone out there been coached at any time in their formal education as to how to communicate effectively, be it as a student, a scientist or engineer, or as a business person? Is this another workshop MaRS should consider offering?

Downloads and Resources

Weren’t able to attend the class? Need some notes or want to look something up? Click below for all of the goodies from the lecture.

• Class Summary: Building a Pitch
• Video: “Building a Pitch”
• Join the Facebook Group: CIBC Presents Entrepreneurship 101

Building a Pitch from MaRS Discovery District on Vimeo.