RPCN Holiday Party

Join us for the annual RPCN Holiday Party - we’ve missed seeing you for the last 2 years!

When:   Thursday, December 8, 2022

Where:  Joe Gatt's Food & Cocktails
              2126 Five Mile Line Rd.
              Penfield, NY 14526                    

Time:    6:00 pm (cash bar),
              6:30 pm (dinner) - 9:00 pm

The menu consists of Chicken French, Angus Roast Beef, Italian Salad, Penne, Roasted Potatoes, Seasonal Vegetables, Salt Bread, and Butter. Dinner will be served in a private dining room.

We are looking for a kind individual or individuals to donate a dessert for the party—up to 50 guests. It could be, e.g. a bakery-bought sheet cake, cannolis, or plates of cookies. Please contact Joyce Curran, at jecurran22@aol.com if you would like to donate. We cannot accept home-baked items. 

The price for this year’s dinner is $35 per person (plus a cash bar.)

Please click here to make reservations.

It will be great to get back together again for our Holiday Party!

Edison Workshop Series -
Call for Volunteers

Would you like to help city kids learn about entrepreneurship ?  Bob Manard is assembling a team to teach the basics of business to students at Edison Tech High School as they prepare for careers in a wide variety of industries, including Automotive Technology, Advanced Manufacturing, Culinary Arts, and Digital Marketing.

Let’s join together and give these kids a head start as they begin their journey of entrepreneurship, whether it’s helping their family business, joining a startup, or starting their own.

If you’re interested in this opportunity to give back to the community and help some kids in need, contact Bob Manard at bob@facesthatwork.com.

Ten Tips for Presentation Slides
Too Much Info (TMI) is a Pain

Presentation Pain is Still with Us

One of my 2021 articles covered an organization leader who raced through 45 cluttered slides in one hour. I included common mistakes that speakers make and tips for improving presentations. I naively thought I was finished with the topic. But recently, I attended a conference where presenters ranged from very interesting to boring. A common characteristic among all of them was that their slides were crammed full of words.

Pain Examples

For one session, you couldn’t read the wordy slides because the font was so small. An audience member asked to later receive copies of the slides to be able to read them. The presenter refused, claiming confidentiality (So, why have the slides at all?)

In another session, a knowledgeable, interesting speaker used slides that were just a blur of text - with sentence upon sentence without bullets or numbers or indents. As I listened and tried to read, I counted the words on one slide

(76 words. Ugh).

Conclusion: Many slides are still a “pain” today, whether in-person or by video.

Note: Video sessions are especially vulnerable to TMI (Too Much Information) - by uploading documents to “share screen”.

Be a “Presentation Pro”- not a Pain

Here are updated tips for better slide presentations.

1. Keep your key points to a minimum. Use these as your outline and the titles for your slides.
2. For each key-point slide, use bullets or numbers with one or a few words as subheadings. Keep the number of lines and words per line to a minimum. Use large fonts to keep the word count low and to ensure legibility.
3. Use your slides to focus attention, not to tell the whole story. Explain key points with your voice.
4. Do not read your slides to the audience. It bores and demeans them.
5. Use a mix of words and graphics. All-word slides are boring. (Graphics that move are distracting).
6. Maybe try one-word slides, graphics-only, or no slides.
7. Use jargon only if you know that everyone in your audience understands it (or define it for them). Avoid spoken jargon and acronyms that sound like other words.
8. Be ruthless as you edit. “When in doubt, cut it out”. Maybe have extra slides in reserve to answer questions - not as part of your presentation.
9. Be interesting: Use examples, anecdotes, and your experiences. Tell stories. Use humor (with care).
10. Finish early. Allow time for questions. (Questions and discussion can be the highlight of your session).

Become a “Presentation Pro”. Make your points clear and delight your audience (Don’t make them feel like they’re having a tooth pulled).

—Bob Lurz

In the Interests of Understanding

No matter how well you know what an acronym means, do you introduce it and its full version the first time you use it? Or do you assume that “everyone knows…”

It is true that in “our” society, some acronyms are so well-known that it is easy to assume… But what if they come from another culture, a culture where that same acronym had a different meaning?

An accountant, for example, might perhaps use the term “IRA” in a communication to prospective clients. Easy enough, right? Independent Retirement Account, right? True, unless… unless you come from Ireland, where IRA often stands for “Irish Republican Army.” Or from India, where the same combination means “Indian Reorganization Act.**

That is why is it not just wise, but also a matter of courtesy, to be sure that our readers knew what we mean.

There is another frequently occurring misunderstanding about acronyms, too.

As I was browsing through some “old” writing, I noticed that, some years back, I had referred to 'IRA' and 'DNA' as acronyms. However, to be precise, one of those is not an acronym, but an ‘initialism.' 

The Irritating Initialism

Most of us tend to forget that only combinations of letters that can be pronounced as a word are correctly called acronyms. Examples are UNCESCO, FEMA or our old friend IRA. Combinations that use the first letters of a series of letters, but cannot be pronounced as words - FBI, and DNA for example - those that we only express by spelling them out - are technically called 'initialisms' and are not acronyms. To be brief, all acronyms are a pronounceable subset of initialisms, but not all initialisms are acronyms.

I do realize that very few people care about such nit-picking, but given the focus  of much of my work, I (usually) try to be correct, even when information is as new to me as it maybe to most people.

The most important thing about writing is that, when we are connecting with our clients, our prospects, and even the public (better known as “potential prospects”), we use language with which they are familiar – language that they understand and with which they feel comfortable. For this reason, every initialism that we use should be “introduced” and interpreted before being used in its abbreviated version.

** Incidentally, if you were to visit Acronyms and Abbreviations (thefreedictionary.com) you could discover all 74 meanings that “IRA” can represent. Yes, seventy-four.

—Diana Gardner Robinson

RPCN Video

Watch the introductory video here.

Upcoming RPCN Events

Visit the RPCN website for a list of all upcoming events.

Enhancing Human Capital
Lunch & Learn Updates

Last Month's Lunch-n-Learn

In "The Great Resignation Part 2" we continued our examination of the workforce phenomenon that has seen more than eight million people unexpectedly leave the workforce. We explored what employers and team members can do to make sure that the effects of this phenomenon are minimized in their business. Special attention will be paid to solutions for small businesses and solopreneurs.

Upcoming Lunch-n-Learn

Nov 17th, 2022 – "Finding solutions to satisfying more employees" facilitated by Bob Lewis

In “The Great Resignation Part 2" we will analyze constructive solutions for both the employees and the employers. Bob Lewis will be leading the session while drawing from a wide variety of applications of an entrepreneurial outlook.

RPCN’s Enhancing Human Capital Lunch-n-Learns are held via Zoom on the third Thursday of every month 11:30 am – 1 pm ET. Please join us for the next event FREE of charge. To get more information about EHC, please see https://RochesterConsultants.org/EHC  or contact the EHC team.

Member News

On October 20, 2022, AIOPX Management Consulting was awarded the 2022 Local Class 1 Supplier of the Year by the New York & New Jersey Minority Supplier Development Council during their Partnership Awards Reception in Manhattan. AIOPX was founded and is managed by David Powe, an RPCN member.

When presenting the award to Powe, the New York & New Jersey Minority Supplier Development Council president and CEO, Terrence Clark, congratulated AIOPX Management Consulting praising “the growth and development of your business and all you have done to help other minority businesses grow and develop.” David responded, “I am truly blessed and flattered to be given this Class 1 Supplier of the year award. At AIOPX we are constantly striving to work with minority suppliers and council corporate members to develop powerful offers and grow our businesses. It is an incredible honor to be recognized by the council for our work.”

For more information on AIOPX Management Consulting, visit https://aiopx.com. For more information on the New York & New Jersey Minority Supplier Development Council, visit https://nynjmsdc.org.  

Greetings RPCN! At the Business forum recently, the subject of podcasting came up and the RPCN newsletter was mentioned so I wanted to share a couple of publications on podcasting that might help you to decide if it's for you. Podcast Magazine was created by Steve Osher, because podcasting was a new field when the magazine started and there were no other publications dedicated to the industry. Podcast Business Journal was the second entry into the podcast publication world. As the name implies it focuses on the business aspects of podcasting.

I'm not the one to do it but I'd love to see a presentation about podcasting from the Learn from the Best series. Hint Hint Hint.    

—Lawrence R. Berger

Membership Information

Not an RPCN member? You can join RPCN now to receive great benefits, including free admission to RPCN presentations, a listing in the RPCN Member Directory, and discounts to RPCN events. Click here for more information on joining RPCN.

New members:
Wayne France

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