NPV and Christmas

Having just learnt the NPV concept I was interested to learn of Amazons recent patent of NPV for delivery dates. Techdirt published the new that Amazon has patented the idea of assessing delivery dates (expected times) based on the future profitability of that customer. So if you are a good future prospect for Amazon you can expect speedy delivery of goods. Bad news if Amazon decide you have a low NPV as a customer. Read the article here. So would santa have a low or high NPV?

Top tip for presentations

The Chicago outfit 37 Signals writes a great design blog. In a very timely fashion that have posted a great tip for presentations. As any MBA student knows presentations are our bread and butter. But they can often be a very daunting task, required at short notice.

37 Signals recommend speaking first. Sounds obvious huh! But actually when did you write all your points out and then retrofit what you were going to say;

I used to build my presentations first and then talk them out second. I’d
make an outline or create some slides to get started. I’d try to think logically
about how to begin, how to fill the middle, and how to end. Then once I had all
the slides done I’d talk through them for the first time. I usually wasn’t happy
with the outcome. I’d over-think and under-deliver. This process churned out
clinical, sterile presentations. Yuck.

When I do this I find that I end reading a transcript and my presentation becomes the reading of a to-do list. For my next attempt I'm going to try their technique and speak the presentation first, then fit my presentation to that.

Too much information