Daily Jottings
Saturday
I’m in Sargodha now. I reached here yesterday night. We would not have got delayed on our plans, if I had left the college at time, and not have spent time on tea with my senior friends. We came back to their hostel (whereas I live in my home in Lahore), after attending a talk-cum-presentation on “Coke vs. Pepsi”, at least that was the topic chosen earlier; but later (during the presentation) we found out that since one student was absent of the two, the presentation will focus sharply on Coca Cola, so to say a partisan view of the latter, whereas a comparison between the two, however, will be carried out. The moderator of the talk praised generously the tenacity of the one presenting team member, who despite being singled-out, carried on and presented almost a 1-hr discussion, not to mention again, singlulary.
The primary concern of the presentation, however, was two-fold, with varying degree of focus. The first being, in terms of order of presentation, to present a brief history of the firm as start-up; its start-up idea; and the evolution of the company till this day, the way we know it now. And, secondly, first in importance though, the “marketing strategy” of the firm through-out its career that spans over more than a century.
Presentation was structured accurately, unidirectional, even though the presenter was to present from two different perspectives – i.e. its start-up story and its marketing strategy through-out its career – the two perspectives seem to be now integrated, thus we enjoyed it. And, because the two perspectives found a common focal point, since they’re well merged, the audience didn’t feel tattered between the two.
The only thing I am critical of the presentation/talk, irrelevant of its content, was its being called a talk, although it may never have been claimed to be, but at F.E.A. we only talk about “talks”. This was not a talk in the strict sense of the word. Nay, only the flavour of it was missing. If only it was more open, natural and playful the way a talk is, it would have been a talk, not to emphasize whether a talk is superior to a presentation.
