The Ante room…
Singapore, 11th April 2014
Today we are presenting to the big bosses of one of our hotel projects. It’s D-day so to speak and a long row of consultants will be presenting their design progress one after another during the day. In the meanwhile we are waiting for our turn in the “ante room”. It is nearly like a tender interview…you are wondering what awaits you, what the ambience will be like. While a timing has been set you never know how well people stick to it and most of the time the actual time slots are overrun. For someone like me who does not like waiting, it is kind of excruciating as you want to make yourself useful while waiting but at the same time you want to remain alert for your turn when it comes.
Presentation is all about presence of mind and focus. Tune in to the mood of the meeting and adjust your presentation to what you feel they want or need. Yes I have my presentation ready and am confident about our progress and direction of work, however meetings have a tendency to run their own course so I need to be ready to improvise and adjust to the mood and clients needs of the moment. We are about to go in shortly…the mind is going thousand and one directions…let’s see how it works out, what mood they are in after the previous presenter!
In the end it was a walk in the park…the client, already tired from a whole morning of presentations, wanted it to be done and over with in the shortest of time. What the client really wanted was a re-assurances that all is progressing well and that all their needs and wants are being addressed, something I have learned to integrate in my presentations. Make it easy to follow, outline the situation, describe the direction you are taking the lighting design and then show how the design concept addresses all their requirements (and more!). Don’t loose your self into details…I had the impression our presentation was experienced as a breath of fresh air, short, concise while clearly outlaying any issues on which we had concerns and that needed (and received) immediate feedback. We were out of the meeting room in no time with satisfied faces all around…another day at the office 🙂
Light Watch 5-59: We have done quite some hotels over the years, here are some of the hotel lobbies we did where waiting is also common practice…have a great weekend.
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