I recently had the chance to look at the "I Wasn’t Prepared For That" training aid from Video Arts. This is a DVD/booklet package that is designed to help people give better presentations so as I have an interest in this I thought I would take a look. The package includes a DVD, an 57 page A4 booklet and a CD containing all of the pages in the booklet as PDF or Word DOC files. The DVD is a ~30 minute sketch of characters played by Dawn French and Robert Lindsey. The sketch is about a presentation novice who is required to give two presentations and how Robert Lindsey helps her on her way to better presentations.

On the plus side Dawn French and Robert Lindsey are quite watchable. That’s it. Here endeth the plus side. It’s all minus-side from here, I’m afraid. The sketch is clearly designed for the hard of thinking and is almost wholly insulting to the intelligence. The information content is minimal and can be summed up in the following advice: prepare properly, tell’em, tell’em and tell’em again, make your points with bullet points, talk to the audience (and not to the carpet) and use humour. The sketch itself ends on the worst final line of a production since King Kong and I defy anyone not to groan out loud at it.

The booklet is designed to allow a group leader to allow a group to watch the video and discuss each chapter and it highlights relevant points in the video. Given that the video content is almost devoid of any actual information it is a feat of genious that the booklet extends to 57 pages.

Perhaps the funiest part of "I Wasn’t Prepared For That" is the extortionate (and I am tempted to say that I am using this word literally) price. I have seen the price range from $850 (USD) to £1299 (UK pounds). Maybe this is where the product name comes from but if I paid £8.50 for this I would feel I’d been ripped off. Do yourself a favour and find much better information than this for free on the ’net.

For the record I give it 0 stars out of 5.

Technorati tags: Presentations, Presentation Skills, Video Arts, I Wasn’t Prepared For That