Raymond Vozza 100520867 April 10, 2008 Presentation Comments

Most Interesting Presentation

1. What is the title of the presentation which interested you the most? The title of the presentation that interested me most was Microsoft Rebooted: How Bill Gates & Steve Ballmer reinvented their company.

2. Why did this presentation interest you the most? This presentation interested me the most for two reasons; the first being that I am a business student at George Brown College and to learn about how two men reinvented their company is fascinating. The information that was provided during this presentation was very informative but also staggering. For example Microsoft started with 7 employees’s in 1975 with a payroll of $22k/year. Today Microsoft has over 76,000 employees with annual revenue of over 456 million dollars. That is unbelievable growth that most two men started companies do not see. Clearly Bill and Steve were on the ground floor of an exploding industry, an industry they created. The second reason this presentation interested me is because of the well researched information that was provided. The group based its presentation on the book Microsoft Rebooted and brought the information to the class in an informative and educational format. The presenters were knowledge able about the subject and seemed to have a passion for business.

3. What did you learn from this presentation? I learned many interesting facts from this presentation such as the company founding information that I mentioned in the answer to question two. Further we learned about the law suit; Microsoft vs. Unites States Government, the government’s stance on Microsoft using monopolistic business techniques in order that everyone must use their technology (their operating system) in order to do business with them and others. In the end the law suit was settled out of court as advised by the judge who presided over the case. Microsoft paid out over a billion dollars to settle out of court and avoid the end ruling. The lesson that can be taken from this is that money can buy justice, or maybe just help to avoid it.

4. What could have been improved? There were a few area's of improvement this group can make, first the font they used for the PowerPoint presentation was too small, it needed to be much larger. I believe that standard for PowerPoint presentations is 20 point font (smallest), this is it ensure the audience can read the text on the screen. Next was presentation style, the presenter's consistently turned his head away from the audience while speaking, this was in effective as his words were lost and it was distracting for the audience. The body language of the presenters needed improvement also, having your arms folded in front of an audience is a sign of being closed off and unavailable to the audience, this sends the message of not wanting to fully address or engage the audience and leaves a feeling of disinterest.

Least Interesting Presentation

1. What is the title of the presentation which interested you the least? The title of this presentation was, Information Technology is Used in Community Development.

2. Why did this presentation interest you the least? Although the presenter did a very good job on the topic that she presented, I really did not find it that interesting. The reason that I did not find it that interesting is because of the lack of personal connection from my life to the information being presented. I have never had to go through immigration and the hardships of trying to make a new life for myself in a new country (although my parents did). In order for me to be interested in something it has to have some sort of personal application for me otherwise it doesn't hold my interest (personality flaw). Again the presenter did a good job and was well prepared, but it just wasn't interesting for me.

3. What did you learn from this presentation? I learned how community programs are using the internet and I.T. to develop new lives for people that have arrived in Canada, specifically Toronto. I learned that people that come to my country aren't always excited about being here; there are many things that do not appeal to them as I would have initially thought. I agree with not liking the weather conditions, the cold and the snow but I always felt that people arriving to Canada would be excited about the freedoms and opportunities that we take for granted here. In this presentation it was shown that this is not always the case, a new person to Canada can have many concerns from housing, to employment to missing their families back home. These are all normal concerns; again I have never had to immigrate to another country and have not had to deal with these kinds of issues.

4. What could have been improved? The video clip that was shown at the end of the presentation was excellent but it was poorly placed in the presentation. This could have been improved with some practice and timing of the presentation. The video clip made a strong impact and brought the topic into focus, it would have been better if it were shown earlier to captivate the audience and further explain that focus of the presentation.