Make them read this post on the Creating passionate users blog.

“Better Beginnings: how to start a presentation, book, article…” is about presentations, about good presentations. It is not about graphics aids (for this read Presentation Zen) it is about content.

Five advices:

1) Do NOT start at the beginning!
2) Show, Don’t Tell
3) For the love of god, DO NOT start with history!
4) DO NOT start with prereqs
5) MYTH: you must establish credibility up front

I like very much the first advice:

Do NOT start at the beginning! […] Start where the action begins!

The second one is simply wonderful:

If you have to TELL your audience that they should care, you’re screwed. The motivation for why they should care should be an inherent part of the story, scenarios, examples, graphics, etc.

The article has many valuable “IDEAS FOR BEGINNINGS”.

This is a definite must read for every presenter.

Usual staff turnover for white-collar workers is around 3%. In Romania for IT professionals (geeks ) is much higher. I just reviewed figures for my team (120 people): 0,18% for the last 12 months. Not bad, isn’t it?

What makes geeks tick? Are geeks different? Do we need special skills to manage geeks?

I always said that a good people manager can manage any team: geeks or not.

Take a look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (quote from Wikipedia):

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is often depicted as a pyramid consisting of five levels: the four lower levels are grouped together as deficiency needs associated with physiological needs, while the top level is termed growth needs associated with psychological needs. While our deficiency needs must be met, our being needs are continually shaping our behavior. The basic concept is that the higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus once all the needs that are lower down in the pyramid are mainly or entirely satisfied. Growth forces create upward movement in the hierarchy, whereas regressive forces push prepotent needs further down the hierarchy.

Read Linus book “Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary“:

There are three things that have meaning for life. They are the motivational factors for everything in your life – for anything that you or any living thing does: The first is survival, the second is social order, and the third is entertainment. Everything in life progresses in that order.

The higher the abstract level of a job the higher is the importance of the upper level motivational factors. Geeks happen to work at a very abstract level: computers and anything around them are highly abstract.

After basic work needs (reasonable salary and job security) are fulfilled, geeks place an inordinate amount of importance to other factors: environment, colleagues, management style, type of work, and many other factors.

If you work a lot on other factors can obtain significant savings in his payroll budget: within the right environment you can pay below the market and still enjoy very low turnover.

Do you think this is achievable?