This case scenario

Culinary Adventure Tour Presentation

Planning a Presentation

Stephanie Lo graduated from college with a major in French and a minor in communication. She was very happy to get a job with JourneyFree, LLC, a company that specializes in organizing educational tours for students, professionals, and other groups. Ultimately, Stephanie would like to become a tour leader, but for now she is the assistant to the Vice President of Tour Operations, Rachel Jones. Stephanies role is to work on marketing communications.

Stephanies first project required that she use all her strengths developing communications to market JourneyFrees newest product, a culinary tour of France, specifically designed for culinary arts and nutrition teachers in high schools and trade schools. In addition to advertising online and sending brochures to high schools, Stephanies supervisor, Rachel, plans to visit school districts in major cities and present the program to superintendents, principals, department chairs, and teachers. She will give a brief and colorful slide presentation and offer samplings of the French food that culinary arts teachers will experience on the tour.

Thirty culinary arts teachers have invited Rachel to give a presentation next week, so she needs a slide presentation fast. She asks Stephanie to design and develop a draft of the presentation. Together they work out the following outline:

The Educational Experience

Trip Overview

Trip Logistics and Costs About JourneyFree, LLC

Q&A

Rachel and Stephanie also discuss the audience and key selling points to make in the presentation. The next day, Stephanie puts together a draft of presentation slides. She is planning to meet Rachel to review the slides and to discuss the talking points that will go with the slides.

Stephanie would like your help in analyzing the audience, evaluating the presentation, and composing the content for the presentation. After the slides, you will find questions designed to help you think systematically about the presentation, using the ACE approach. Answer the questions to review the key concepts in the chapter.

A Seven-Day Culinary elevator pitch A concise statement designed to communicate the value of an idea, product, or job candidate; intrigue the audience; and initiate a deeper conversation.

Business Communication . Short / Normal DESIGN SERVICES OF S4 CARLISLE Publishing Services A journey through France is a journey of discovery. The French are passionate about food, and the cuisine of each province has its own distinctive style and its own unique pleasures. -Laurent Duquette Normal Publishing Services Case scenario ISLE Publishing Services 3,000 per teacher Total Cost: $ 3,000 per teacher. Questions?

Questions for Reviewing the Culinary Adventure Tour Presentation

Analyzing Purpose and Audience:

1. What is the purpose of this presentation? Is it primarily informative or persuasive?

2. The ideal outcome of the presentation is that teachers sign up for the tripor schools fund teachers for the trip. Should the slides end by asking for a sale? Or should the presenter do that orally?

Or should the presenter leave the audience to think about the content and follow up later to sign up?

3. Imagine yourself as the target audience: high school teachers and administrators.

What questions do you think they will have? Does this presentation leave any important questions unanswered? Cust: Pearson AuTitle: Business Communication Normal DESIGN SERVICES OF S4CARLISLE Publishing Services

Reviewing the Structure and Composing Oral Content

4. The slides themselves do not begin with a compelling opening designed to capture the audiences attention. Brainstorm what Rachel could say as she begins her presentation.

5. The presentation is divided into five parts. Do you think this is an effective structure? If so, why? If not, why not?

6. Between each section of the presentation, a transition slide appears to indicate the new section. Are the transition slides effective?

7. The end of the presentation simply asks for questions and answers. Consider the advice for endings given in this chapter:

Summarize your main message.

Visualize the outcome for the audience.

Ask for what you want.

Make next steps clear. Brainstorm what Rachel could say at the end of the presentation in all four of these categories. What do you recommend that she say?

Evaluating the Presentation Slides

8. This presentation is not designed to stand alone. It needs a presenter. In this case, would a stand-alone presentation be a good or bad idea? Explain your answer. Should Rachel bring handouts, brochures, or other written material to leave behind?

9. This presentation uses a consistent visual style and template. In your opinion, does it work well with this presentation? If so, why? If not, why not?

10. This presentation includes a number of bullet-point slides. Are the bullets parallel? Are any slides too crowded? Are there any slides you would recommend revising?

11. This presentation includes only one data graphic: the pie chart on slide 16. Is that pie chart appropriate and easy to read? If so, what makes it effective? If not, how would you revise it?

12. Slides 9 through 13 present attractive pictures of the areas of France the tour will visit. To be effective, the pictures should be similar. All the headlines mention some food- or beverage-related term except for one headline. How could you revise that headline?

13. The final slide asking for questions features a picture of pastry. Assume that youd like a picture that will help spark interesting questions. What picture(s) or text could the slide contain, instead of a picture of pastry?

14. As Stephanie evaluates whether the slides will be easy to present, she considers using animation on various slides. Perhaps the bullets should come up one by one. Perhaps the pictures of the French regions should appear gradually, instead of all at once. Identify which slidesif anywould be effective if they revealed content gradually rather than all at once.

15. As a final step in reviewing, Stephanie should proofread all slides for correctness and consistency. Consider typing errors, spelling, font size, consistent punctuation, consistent heading sizes, and consistent bullet points. Do you see anything that needs to be changed?

Delivering the Presentation

16. Slides 9 through 13 include no text. Rachel will need to talk through the key points on these slides. What kinds of information should she provide when she projects these slides?

17. Rachel intends to serve regional food at this presentation. Should she serve it at the beginning of the presentation? At the end? Or as she discusses each region? What is the rationale for your answer? Handling Questions and Answers

18. Should Rachel plan to take questions throughout the presentation or just at the end? What is the rationale for your answer?

19. What questions should Rachel anticipate? Should she address any of those questions in the presentation itself?