Lessons in Entrepreneurship for Greater Good Challenge Contestants
I couldn’t be more thrilled to be a judge for the Greater Good Challenge, a business competition, at Columbia University SPS.
The team at SPS interviewed me on my advice for students within the competition:
As a Strategic Communication alumna and former lecturer on the faculty, can you speak to the importance of persuasion and/or presentation skills for turning an idea into a reality?
Now, more than ever, trust is paramount in how we conduct business in the world. Whether I’m working with international organizations like IMF, the UN FAO, and Gassnova or corporations like Hilton and Oracle, I work with them to identify what will resonate with their audiences and speak to them in the ways that align the message with the delivery.
As Marshall McLuhan famously said, “The medium is the message.” And what I’ve always emphasized in the classroom is that McLuhan meant that the medium comes with all of the baggage of social experiences that you’ve had before using that medium. For example, how you perceive an Instagram post’s credibility is different from how you perceive a keynote speech. With that in mind, each team must marry their message with a presentation that convinces us, the judges, of its truth and its trustworthiness.
A persuasive presentation showcases all of the reasons that your audience should trust you—to bring the idea to fruition, to be a reliable partner, to keep your promises. As each team develops their pitches, they must think about how the audience will perceive and receive the information and tailor their presentations to the needs and motivations of the audience.