Presentations

So I was reading this entry on Made to Stick, and it got me to thinking. Our school is supposedly a great business program (and as I move on in my education, I begrudgingly have to admit it is), yet none of our professors encourage this. The presentations we give are not graded at all on creativity or anything. In fact, I would venture to say that, unless a group has established a rapport with the professor and the class as joking around a lot, a light hearted presentation presented the way Made to Stick implies would even receive a lower grade than a nice boring sleepy one. Its odd that at a supposedly Liberal Arts school (though admittedly it's not hugely to the left) would be more progressive with things like this.

Now that I think about it, it makes a lot of sense to run presentations that way. I mean, the goal of presentations is to hold attention and educate, right? And education is definitely reliant on holding people's attention. So this seems to be common sense. Take a page from the entertainment industry, and actually put an effort into satisfying your captive presentation audience. Looking at it that way, the classroom (or boardroom) as a miniature entertainment field, the presenter holds a monopoly, attention has to be on him regardless, and because of that, people don't make that effort to actually draw the attention to themselves. Just think though, how much more fun work would be if they did?