Sharing a Deck: ELC560

Background to the Deck

This past week concluded my second semester for the Bachelor of Legal Studies (Hons) programme offered by Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). One of our courses under the programme is ELC560: English for Executive Summary Writing.

The ask was straightforward. First, identify two academic articles. One was the primary article; while the second serves as a support to the idea.

My articles of choice were:

• Impacts of Service Qua;ity, Satisfaction and Trust on the Loyalty of Foreign Patients in Malaysian Medical Tourism by Ahmad Aljumah, Mohammed T. Nuseir, and Aminul Islam; and
• The Pro-Medical Tourism Stance of Malaysia and How it Affects Stem Cell Tourism Industry by Nishakanthi Gopalan, Siti Nurani Mohamed Noor, and Mohd Salim Mohamed.

Components of the final evaluations were:

• An Executive Summary Report (ESR) which syntesised the two articles;
• Two summaries: one for each articles; and
• A 10-minute presentation of our work.

Here is the deck I presented. You can toggle single or double pages. Click on the rightmost icon.

Why I’m sharing my Deck

As you know, normally our school work ends up in the corner of the hard drive as just another file. Nothing much to show for our work other than the grades we received. That’s all that mattered, right?

I take pride in my decks. Not only that, I take it seriously.

Since 2016, I have intensively used Microsoft PowerPoint professionally. Whether is for a simple presentation, generating management reports, pitching for multimillion-dollar tenders, or to fulfil the requirement of a class.

My intention is not to share my findings per se.

Rather, I’m showcasing and recording my deck for potential clients.

My secondary intention is to inspire fellow students – part-time or full-time – with another way to use PowerPoint as a visual aid. No doubt it lacks the “creative” visuals and animation.

That’s the thing about decks. It’s meant to help your audience – and yourself – understand your thinking and findings. You might find these boring decks among consultants. The primary difference between MBB decks and Tier-2 consultancies from what I created is they adhere to certain rules and principles like the Minto Pyramid and specific house rules.

Management Decks vs. Inspirational Decks

Distinguish presentations in the footsteps of TedTalks and Steve Jobs from decks that need to speak and stand on themselves without you present.

When I mention I used decks professionally, what happened was I created the deck for Heads of Corporate Communication and their team. They often will take the deck or parts of it as-is and present it to their internal stakeholders.

When speaking, your deck needs to showcase your thought process and the framework so your audience understands what you’re seeing in your mind. It doesn’t mean that they will completely agree with it. It certainly helps when you enter into the discussion. Nothing kills a discussion horribly discussions where you and your audience are not standing on the same framework.

Take This and Make It Your Own

I hope you find value in the form of inspiration or ideas from this deck, You’re more than welcome to personalise your work so it’s more reflective of you and your brand. However, the aesthetics may go, remember the crux and purpose of the presentation.