Week 4 - Working remotely and creating presenations

Working Remotely: 

 Where are you working right now? 

From your tablet on an outdoor patio? 

In a coffee shop with your earbuds in?  

If you work virtually—that is, "telecommute"—you're part of a fast-growing trend in the modern workforce. But like any new working practice, making telecommuting part of your usual routine takes some discipline and diligence.

According to research by the financial software company Intuit, nearly a quarter of U.S. workers telecommute for at least a few hours every week. Today, 67% of companies allow at least some employees to work at home occasionally, up from 50% in 2008, and 38% allowed some workers to do so on a regular basis, up from 23%, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In some places, telecommuting is already at the heart of the employee experience. About 43% of Aetna’s employees take part in work-at-home and other virtual arrangements, which the healthcare company has allowed for the past two decades. The software company GitHub boasts a fully distributed workforce of over 260 people working across the globe.

Those and other organizations see telecommuting as a great way for employees to keep a healthy work-life balance. But that flexibility can also create a few new challenges. Here are some strategies for working effectively while you're telecommuting.

This is a perfect list of how to think about your remote work day. 

Chose one of these topics for your presentation: 

1. Determine a work routine that works for you 

2. Set boundaries 

3. Embrace short email messages 

4. Know your limits 

5. Create daily goals 

More interesting links and videos

This is a great Ted Talk on working remotely

Why Remote Work is the Future for Millennials 

If you like this class you might like working remotely. Here is a list of the 100 best companies for remote work. 

Creating Presentation: 

The Crowley Guide to creating a great presentation 

Preparation

• Frame your story. Presentations are boring when they present scads of information without any context or meaning. Instead, tell a story, with the audience as the main characters (and, specifically, the heroes).

• Keep it relevant. Audiences only pay attention to stories and ideas that are immediately relevant. Consider what decision you want them to make, then build an appropriate case.

• Cut your intro. A verbose introduction that describes you, your firm, your topic, how you got there, only bores people. Keep your intro down to a sentence or two, even for a long presentation.

• Begin with an eye-opener. Kick off your talk by revealing a shocking fact, a surprising insight, or a unique perspective that naturally leads to your message and the decision you want to be made.

• Keep it short and sweet. When was the last time you heard someone complain that a presentation was too short? Make it half as long as you originally thought it should be (or even shorter).

• Use facts, not generalities. Fuzzy concepts reflect fuzzy thinking. Buttress your argument, story, and message with facts that are quantifiable, verifiable, memorable and dramatic.

• Customize for every audience. One-size-fits-all presentations are like one-size-fits-all clothes; they never fit right and usually make you look bad. Every audience is different; your presentation should be too.

Making the PowerPoint Deck

• Simplify your graphics. People shut off their brains when confronted with complicated drawings and tables. Use very simple graphics and highlight the data points that are important.
• Keep backgrounds in the background. Fancy slide backgrounds only make it more difficult for the audience to focus on what's important. Use a simple, single color, neutral color background.
• Use readable fonts. Don't try to give your audience to get an eyestrain headache by using tiny fonts. Use large fonts in simple faces (like Arial); avoid boldface,italics and ALL-CAPS.
• Don't get too fancy. You want your audience to remember your message, not how many special effects and visual gimcracks you used. In almost all cases, the simpler the better.

• Check your equipment ... in advance. If you must use PowerPoint or plan on showing videos or something, check to make sure that the setup really works. Then check it again. Then one more time.
• Speak to the audience. Great public speakers keep their focus on the audience, not their slides or their notes. Focusing on the audience encourages them to focus on your and your message.
• Never read from slides. Guess what? Your audience can read. If you're reading from your slides, you're not just being boring–you're also insulting the intelligence of everyone in the room.
• Don't skip around. Nothing makes you look more disorganized than skipping over slides, backtracking to previous slides, or showing slides that don't really belong. If there are slides that don't fit, cut them out of the presentation in advance.
• Leave humor to the professionals. Unless you're really good at telling jokes, don't try to be a comedian. Remember: When it comes to business presentations, polite laughter is the kiss of death.
• Avoid obvious wormholes. Every audience has hot buttons that command immediate attention and cause every other discussion to grind to a halt. Learn what they are and avoid them.
• Skip the jargon. Business buzzwords make you sound like you're either pompous, crazy, or (worst case) speaking in tongues. Cut them out–both from your slides and from your vocabulary.
• Make it timely. Schedule presentations for a time when the audience can give you proper attention. Avoid end of day, just before lunch, and the day before a holiday.
• Prepare some questions. If you're going to have a Q&A at the end of your presentation, be prepared to get the ball rolling by having up a question or two up your sleeve.
• Have a separate handout. If there's data that you want the audience to have, put it into a separate document for distribution after your talk. Don't use your slide deck as a data repository.

And this is a TED talk that uses most of these suggestions. 

The Assignment: 

You will create a presentation that you will post to your Blogger site. 

Explain to the audience as if they do not know much about the topic but do not treat your audience like children. Make sure you watch the TED Talk above as a good example. 
Remember, your topic choices are: 

1. Determine a work routine that works for you 

2. Set boundaries 

3. Embrace short email messages 

4. Know your limits 

5. Create daily goals 

Again, these are examples. Feel free to email me your idea and we can discuss it. I cannot discuss ideas past this Thursday, July 26. By then you should be beginning your research and constructing your presentation. 


As this is a more complicated assignment, I am giving you until midnight of Tuesday, July 31 to complete it. 

You can use: 

• Powerpoint

• Prezi

• Keynote

• Haiku Deck
• Blogger (like how I put together the lesson.)

Use what you know - if you don't know Prezi, for example, this is not the assignment to teach it to yourself. Your content is of the utmost importance, not the technology you use. 

You will be required to use ALL the following in the presentation: 

• Links
• Video
• Photos/graphics
• Narration 

Again, this will look a lot like today's Blogger lesson. Think about how you might translate the photos, links, and video and then explain it in your video.)

After you create the presentation you will also narrate a Quick Time Screen recording.  You are also required at the end of the presentation to create "credits". You must reveal where you got the research, the media, then make a Quick Time video and post it in your folder.  Quick Time is very easy. Already on your school Mac and only takes a few minutes to learn to use. When in doubt look to Youtube for an easy tutorial. 

This presentation has a screen run time of about 3-4  minutes. It will also include the actual presentation file so I may look at it on my own later.  

Questions? 
I know it is a lot but never hesitate to contact me. 
Have a great week. 
Dr. C