ayearinjapan-blog
Well it sucks sometimes. Today I was really pissed off, so I need to write about it. I am finishing with a 4-month intensive Japanese course this Wednesday and every one of us (Vulcanus in Japan 2010/11 participants) is supposed to have a 7-minute presentation about a topic concerning his or her profession, in Japanese. I will leave my impressions of the wonderful 4-month experience -- learning Japanese language, Vulcanus in Japan programme in general, partying with my new friends and so on -- for the next post. In this post, I want to focus on today's events only. Anyway, I knew about the final presentation a lot of time in advance already and have spent a great deal of my time preparing it: choosing the topic, then changing the topic, writing the outline, writing the first draft, then the second draft, then making corrections and so on (you get the picture). This Saturday I was finalizing the content which left me with preparing PowerPoint slides for the presentation. I made 15 slides altogether, with the first page stating my name and the topic I will be talking about, and the last page, as usual, thanking everyone for the attention. So far so good. Until today I came to school and showed the presentation to the teacher. "You need to cut it to 5 slides", I was told. This is when the fun really began. "Why?" I asked. "Kisoku ga arun node", I received for an answer. This is the rule. "But I want to understand why! Please look at my slides. There is not too much information on them." Each slide consists of a full-screen high-quality photo in the background with up to 5 words written on it, which reinforce the meaning of the photo. "Also, I understand the time-limit set, which is 7 minutes per presentation. I can assure you my presentation will be no longer than that." The situation could be resolved right there, but of course a teacher does not have enough authority to make that kind of decisions. "Kou chou sensei ni hanashi ni itta hou ga ii desu." You should go talk to the principal. Oh, okay, the fact that I have 15 slides instead of 5 is so important that I need to talk to the principal of the school because of that. Does it matter what my slides are like? Or how much information do they contain? How they reinforce the presentation? Or that my presentation is not over time limit? Of course not. Rules are rules, right? Well, off I went to the principal of the school. I explained him the situation once again basically told him what I told the teacher already. I tried to reason with him. After all, I thought, if my reasons are good enough, he will see the nonsense of limiting and not suggesting the number of slides one can use, right? I understand the time limit being set to 7 minutes, of course, as I have listened to too many presentations go 2, 3 or even 5 times too long. I respect other people's time and I know that nobody (and especially me) wants to listen to 7-minute presentation suddenly extend for 30 minutes just because someone wants to go through all of the slides he has prepared. Thus by limiting the quantity of slides one is indirectly also making sure that the time spent is not too long. He agrees with me. I show him my slides. The first slide is a full-screen photo of Shibuya crossing with hundreds of people walking through it; over it is the title "111 million mobile subscribers" written in font 60. The second slide is a photo of a woman typing on her phone with the title "62% use mobile internet". Well, and so on, you get the picture. My tactics is to show that I do not have too much information on each slide. "Yes, but we want to hear your speech, not watch the slides", he tells me. "Well, I can also do the presentation without any slides if you like, but if the projector is at my disposal I prefer to do it this way", I explain. After all, what I put on the slides is my problem, right? He repeats the same thing -- that they want to hear my presentation and not look at the slides. Well, then what is better: having 5 slides like that (which is taken from one of the courses I attended at the university, by the way): ... or having 15 of the slides similar to what I have described earlier? After all, I try to reason, having set the limit of slides to 5 (well, actually later I found out that I am allowed to have 7 slides; +1 for the first and +1 for the last page) does not tell anything about the amount of content one can put on them. It is actually the same as saying that one needs to write one-page essay and not restricting anything about the font used, line spacing or the alphabet (and/or language) used. So, one could write an essay with font 12, double spacing and only in hiragana and another one could write it with kanji, font 8 and normal spacing. The difference is obvious. So, I could easily put everything I have on 15 slides to 3 slides. Why didn't I do that? Well, look at the sample slide above and go figure. So, as far as the "they want to hear my speech and not look at my slides" story goes, it is actually more beneficial to have less text per slide, a strong visual reinforcement (usually photo or drawing) and good explanation. Actually, a good slideshow should be useless without somebody to present it, as the slides merely reinforce what the speaker is talking about and not vice versa. After all, I am not speaking out of void here. I've done my homework, I have read a some books about presentations, I'm reading a couple of blogs from people I admire and have proven themselves as great speakers and presenters, and apart from that I've even been delivering trainings regarding presentation skills to other people. (Before coming to Japan, anyway) For those of you, who are more interested in that topic, I strongly suggest reading the following books: However, if you only have an hour or so (and don't feel like reading books and stuff), Garr Reynolds does more than a decent introduction to making presentations and preparing the visuals. This will definitely be an hour of your life well spent (below). So again, he agrees with me. But then comes the moment. "But you could easily have deleted the first two slides (the ones with a photo of woman and the one with a lot of people) and tell it instead". WELL, HELLO, I WILL. Have you even been listening to a word I said? I could have just as easily delete ALL OF THE SLIDES. (This was already 30 minutes in the discussion) "And you could merge these two slides together and make some kind of effect that changes this graph like this." WTF? So, 2 slides become one. Smart, really smart! "And we don't want people to read from the slides. We want to listen to them speaking." He seeks ways around to make the rule stick even though by doing that he is actually diminishing the rule's value (or purposefulness) at the same time. "And you know, it would not be fair to the others. Everyone from the group must respect the rules. Why do you have to be an exception?" WELL, HAVEN'T I told you all the reasons ALREADY? At this point I saw the Don Quixote fight with the windmills that I was fighting right there; wasting my time and his. I do not have a conflict personality. I saw the futility of my actions: nothing I say, do or prove will make any difference, so I decided to give up (after 45 minutes). Before I left the room, I told that I disagree with the way rules are being forced, but that I respect him and the school and will do as they say -- thus reduce the number of slides to the required amount this time -- even though I have been doing it this way in the past and will continue to make presentations like that in the future. Well, I feel I have already used all the space one should get to make a point (and probably more). The reason to write this long story is to show that there is another, different side to Japan. And this side sucks, a lot. One will always need to succumb "to the group", will need to obey its "rules" and will not be allowed to do anything that would "have taken him into an advantageous position" in any way, however stupid or illogical this may be. Harmony must be protected at all costs! Rules are rules! Right?Why Japan Sucks: Rules are Rules
#JustMigrate#Garr Reynolds#Japanese culture#Nancy Duarte#Scott Berkun#Vulcanus in japan
