Huntsman MBAA and Engineering Students Welcome “PowerSpeaker” Rick Gilbert

By Mike Tolman

One thing that engineers and business students have in common is the need for strong presentation and speaking skills. Whether you are pitching a business plan for a new start up or looking for funding for a new research project, engineers and managers must be able to speak up, to tell their story, and to get people to buy-in to their ideas. Rick Gilbert is the founder of PowerSpeaking, a company that that says it can help a person advance “up the corporate ladder by becoming a composed and influential spokesperson.” He is now on a national book tour promoting his new book, “Speaking Up: Surviving Executive Presentations.”

Mike Tolman shares speaking tips that Rick Gilbert offered.

Gilbert spoke at USU recently about the importance of knowing how to make effective presentations to engineers and business people. “A presentation cannot make a career, but a presentation can undo a career,” he said.He went on to say that we need to be able to cut through the “fog” in a meeting and bring our objective into focus. “Executives,” he said, “are extremely bright, demanding, analytical, and are as smart as a whip.” 

In other words, executives will see through any holes in your presentation in a matter of minutes, or less. Understanding this fact and being aware of the primary motives for executives, such as their need to increase profitability and decrease costs, can help a presenter to cut to the bottom line, save the executive’s time, and get a proposal approved, he said. Gilbert suggested giving executives the conclusion of the proposal first.

 “They may tune you out and miss all of the details, but you never want them to miss the conclusion,” Gilbert said.

Mr. Gilbert went on to suggest that people need to be aware of how they deliver their message, not just the presenting the content they have prepared. He said that presenters must pay attention to facial expressions, eye directions, pauses for impact, one’s tone of voice, movement, and especially one’s body language and gestures. He noted that “high-power poses affect your hormones. Reducing cortisol levels by 25%,” the chemical that is triggered by stress. Additionally, Gilbert mentioned that “death by PowerPoint” is a real and significant threat to presentations. He talked about how important it was to not read information off of slides, but rather to use graphics, to tell stories, and to respect your audience’s scarce resource of time.

Mr. Gilbert’s last bit of advice was to “let loose.” When managing a room of executives, it is important to recognize that, at any moment, a presentation could be derailed by comments, difficult questions, or interruptions. To manage this situation, Gilbert suggested to think on one’s feet and to present like a jazz musician and not a classical pianist. 

Whether presenting to a board of executives or to a project funding panel, it is essential for students of business or engineering to understand their audience, get straight to the point, and communicate their needs, objectives, rationale, and proposals effectively and efficiently.

Pictured in their "Power Poses" (left to right) Mike Tolman, Holden Brown, Tucker Smith, Rick Gilbert, Kirsten Sims, Richard W. Anderson, Brekke Van Slyke, Romney Olsen, and Skot Neilson.

 “The best slide is no slide,” Gilbert said, “the best presentation is no presentation. What executives want is dialogue.”

Room 311 Allows You To “Dare Mighty Things” and Help Us Plan For Huntsman Hall

By Ken Snyder

I’m going to write about something here that we haven’t yet shared publically. I do it knowing that some people won’t be able to handle this information and will be forever marked by it. 

You can now write on the table in meeting room 311 with dry erase markers. After talking with a student advisory group about how to set up our project team rooms in Huntsman Hall, we have reworked room 311 to test out some of the possibilities. One of those things we are testing is a table that can act as a white board. 

Room 311 features a desk that can double as a whiteboard.

This is innovation that comes with danger, however. The problem could be that people caught up in a creative process that involves lots of desk illustrations might overlook the fact that adding an elbow to the mix could give them a fashion-stain take-a-way they did not expect. But, hey, we are all about daring mighty things, right? In this case we’ll be daring with our elbows.

The table itself comes equipped with multiple electrical outlets designed to keep electronic devices fired up and working long beyond the elbow-smudge phase. The tables are smaller on purpose to give people more space to move about the room. This can be handy once creative team projects get ignited and the ideas start to flow. The chairs have casters on them so they will can be rolled and repositioned easily. 

The television screen is now built into the wall behind a movable painted glass surface that can also act as a white board when used with dry erase markers. 

As we have done with classrooms, we are testing out this approach to see what works best before we purchase and set up our team project rooms in Huntsman Hall. We plan to equip the other conference room on the third floor with similar but different furniture within the next few weeks. 

Can you handle a white board beneath your laptop? Would you rather have a bigger table and less room to maneuver? We shall find out.

Prime Real Estate in Huntsman Hall Will be Put to Good Use

By Ken Snyder

Today I wanted to give you an update on our plans for event space in Huntsman Hall. As I’ve written before, we will have a room in Huntsman Hall on the top floor that will have a glorious view of the south end of Cache Valley. The room will be used for club activities, training seminars, networking events, faculty meetings and will make a great spot to host VIP visitors and speakers.

Huntsman Halls special events room in classroom mode.

We know this space will be in demand because the only place we have now for such events is the O.C. Tanner Lounge on the ninth floor of the George S. Eccles Business Building. It seems like that room is always booked during the school year. It can hold about 30 people if we are hosting a luncheon, about 50 if it is set up like a classroom, and 70 if it is opened up for a networking event.

The new event space, which will be used in addition to our ninth floor room, will be about as wide as the O.C. Tanner Lounge but twice as long. It will hold twice as many people.

Originally we considered putting in a movable wall so we could divide the room but opted not to go that route to save money. I have attached a rendering from our architects of what this room will look like in classroom mode. We can also set this up for banquets or for networking events. In any set-up, we can use the built-in serving shelves on the side of the room for refreshments. There is a room just off this event space that has a kitchen serving area that caterers can use.

When we were meeting with different groups to get their input on what should go into Huntsman Hall, they all recognized a need for this kind of special event space. This was the highest priority from students, faculty, and staff! We consider the spot where this room is in the building prime to be real estate, and we think using it for these kind of memorable, high-profile functions will pay off for students, faculty, and alumni alike.