Dear Editor,
In about two weeks I’m chairing the 4th annual Caribbean Aviation Meetup conference on St. Maarten/St. Martin. I’m often asked for advice by speakers. Here we go. …
Many conferences suffer from boring presentations. Killer presentations are absolutely rare. Higher standards should be set. Those higher standards may be quite different than what you think. Get back to basics, be straightforward and use simplicity! Leonardo da Vinci once said: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Include unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories.
Make the audience look up to you by expressing what you have in your heart and mind rather than making them look at on-the-screen-projected numbers and texts. Tell them about your vision and how you come to conclusions. Tell them how you solve a problem.
When the audience notices that you have passion, they will appreciate you.
The “ooohs”, “ahas”, and “wows” come from what they didn’t expect, and never heard of before.
A superb presentation is when the microphone rocks and the audience gets to the edge of their seats. A killer presentation results in a rush to the stage by the attendees to talk to the speaker once he finishes.
Speaking is branding
You are branding yourself when you speak, so make sure you are unique and memorable.
Differentiate yourself!
If you don’t create a unique style compared to all the other presenters, the audience won’t remember you. Ask yourself some tough questions! Why would anyone care to come and listen to you? Because you think you are important? Oh boy, you may have a problem. Because you are an expert? Isn’t an expert a person who tells a simple thing in a confused way and in such a fashion as to make the listeners think that the confusion is the listener’s own fault?
Imagine if one of the attendees would stand up and interrupt you, “Mr. Speaker, look me in the straight in the eyes and say that you are convinced that what you are suggesting is right and if you cannot, may I suggest that you put some discipline in your wording.”
While you are preparing your presentation, just imagine that someone in the audience would interrupt you and say: “Mr. Speaker, this session is called “so-and-so”. You have just wasted a lot of time with introductions and things we really already know. You are supposed to have all the knowledge that we don’t have, so could you please offer us your wisdom and experience.” Would you be fireproof if you were grilled in this manner?
Attendees make an effort to come to a conference and they are entitled to a top performance.
Intermission
I had asked a friend of mine, Prissy, to accompany me to a conference where I had a speaking engagement on future aviation developments. While I went on stage to do my presentation, Prissy was searching for the perfect out-of-sight view and situated herself in front of a fire exit behind the audience. Being in the background is quite unusual for her and it is also difficult to go unnoticed anywhere, even standing behind an audience with all eyes on a presentation. She caught the attention of a security guard who approached her tiptoed. “Excuse me lady, but you cannot stand here; you are blocking the fire exit.” “Don’t be ridiculous, young man. I am not blocking anything; I have two legs and know how to use them in case of a fire. I am actually quite aware that I am extremely flammable myself in case of such an emergency, and so, I’ll be the first to escape. Besides, if you’re anticipating a disaster, don’t you think that you are a bit unprepared for a blazing incident? Your uniform will go up in flames just as quickly as my Versace dress. Shouldn’t you be dressed in a fireproof rubber suit with a yellow helmet on your head and an ax in your hand?” “Lady, don’t underestimate my authority. Do I have to call in re-enforcements to have you removed?” “You can call in the complete fire department as far as I’m concerned. It’s not me who’s igniting a problem here. It’s your duty to extinguish fires, not create them. You could have asked me politely and discretely to stand in another place, and I would have fairly considered to comply with your request.”
“Lady, you are challenging my patience!” The commotion in the back of the room had captured the audience’s attention and all eyes were now on Prissy and the fire marshal. To regain the attendees’ interest I cleared my throat, yet, before I could say something, the security guard escorted a resisting Prissy to the other side of the room. Realizing that the entire audience is observing her aggressive escort, Prissy then gives it a toothpaste smile, complies and acts like nothing happened.
As I proceeded with my presentation, the security guard said to Prissy, “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Prissy, wanting to slap him for making her look like circus act, replied: “All that was missing was a leash and a whip.”
Challenge your audience
I once had to make a presentation to a UNESCO assembly of scientists in Paris. I began by telling them that if I was not able to communicate the essentials of what my speech was about in 60 seconds, we might as well all go home right away. I sure had their attention from to start.
Limit your introduction. Don’t try to make the audience look up to you by presenting a checklist of achievements, or by quoting reports and conclusions of what others did. Long introductions may result in the audience thinking “half of his life he seemed successful, how come we’ve to listen to the other half?”
Don’t over-prepare when making a presentation. Some of the best presentations are by speakers being spontaneous and dynamic along their presentation.
Rhetorical questions encourage the listener to think about what is said. The question is intended as a challenge. Asking questions show self-confidence and that you are in control. Try this in the middle of your presentation: “You don’t believe me, do you?” (break, while looking around in the audience). “Well let me tell you …” and then continue. Or “If it was all up to me, do you know what I would do?” And continue. Rest assured that the audience will listen to the points that you want to get across.
You need to show character when presenting. Use sticky, compelling, and memorable messages.
PPT addiction
If you cannot speak without a PowerPoint Presentation, you are like a gourmet chef who cannot cook without a recipe book. A gourmet chef does what he does best: cooking, not reading.
PowerPoints can amplify your personality. I admit that if you are a good presenter, a supporting PowerPoint can make things great. Yet, a thing one sees all the time at conferences, that if speakers don’t have much to say for themselves they start using statistics. Worse are the slides with endless texts and then the speaker reads out loud what is seen on the screen. The audience isn’t there to read slides, they are there to listen to what is said. Slides are a primarily visual medium, with very few words.
Use text only to label new topics within your discussion or to emphasize a point that you want to make and such in no more than 10 words and combined with an awesome picture.
Last but not least
Pull all registers and give them all you have. The difference between a presentation and chocolate is that chocolate is always good.
Commander Bud Slabbaert
(Commander Bud Slabbaert is the initiator and coordinator of the annual Caribbean Aviation Meetup conference which will be held in St. Maarten/St. Martin, June 11-13 (www.caribavia.com). The international results- and solution-oriented event brings airlift stakeholders from both aviation and tourism industries, as well as government authorities together. Slabbaert’s background is accentuated by Business Development, Strategic Communication, and Journalism.)
Dear Editor,
Imagine if a natural disaster like a hurricane occurs and you can fix all the damage in one day. That would mean that the entire cost of the damage would be limited to the repair of the damage plus the losses incurred on that one day.
On the other hand, if the country closes down for a year the country would suffer losses due to the fact that revenues both public and private would stop and there would be a need for someone to cover the cost. not only of the hurricane damage but also the cost of being closed for a year. There would also be the added cost of further weather damage to vulnerable assets.
Now imagine you are the decision maker of a donor country and you would like to support the rebuilding of an associated state in the Caribbean and you decide to donate US $525 million.
It seems obvious that to provide the most value for your donation. the faster you get these funds injected into the economy. the less the losses through closure would be.
Let us imagine that you are reluctant to execute the funds donation through government distribution because you have reason to believe that the funds will not reach their intended goals and be misspent. Let’s use the broad term “leakage” to describe the percentage of funds that would not reach their intended and effective destination.
The ultimate question for this planning challenge is to know the relationship between the total value of the “leakage” compared to the cost of a delay of the injection into the economy of the funds. It seems reasonable to expect that the donor country has considered this matter and used it as a factor in its determination of policy.
It is unquestionably true that donor countries know that a degree of “leakage” is inevitable in the same manner that an administrative cost is to be expected.
If this example were to be that of St. Maarten and the Netherlands. the kingdom partners. this discussion should be able to be honestly carried on. And this discussion must be on the basis of the best hard data available. This data can only come from St. Maarten which collects and manages the data on economic activity in St. Maarten and from the finance ministry which provides figures on public sector revenues.
This is why I am calling on the Ministries of TEATT [Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication – Ed.] and Finance in St. Maarten to provide usable data that can show how the losses through delay compare to the “leakage” so that we can all judge the quality of the decisions made on the basis of the best evidence.
We then should have a good discussion with our kingdom partners in the context of the mutual support on the best planning for natural disaster damage minimalization.
Would anybody deny that this would be a useful and productive discussion for all parties?
Robbie Ferron
Dear Editor,
I have taken note of the announcement by the usurping puppet Government installed by the Dutch colonizer on St. Eustatius, that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Dutch company Woonlinie and the Ministry of Interior Affairs and Kingdom Relations (BZK) to start a pilot project to renovate one existing home and build two new homes in Golden Rock.
The Woonlinie deal is yet another example of plans prepared by the democratically elected and legitimate Government of St. Eustatius for the benefit of the people of St. Eustatius being hijacked and changed to suit the agenda of the Dutch colonizers and their friends in the Netherlands. It is also another clear attempt at slowly but surely taking over and selling out the patrimony of the people of St. Eustatius, all under the guise of helping them, and reorganizing and improving the functioning of local organizations.
The plan presented by Mr. Franco ignores the decision of the Island Council which was taken in the latter part of 2017 to sell 35 of the total amount of homes in Golden Rock to the current tenants as a first phase. This decision was applauded even by the Chairman of the Island Council, Mr. Julian C.A. Woodley, at the time.
Some of the tenants in Golden Rock have been living in the homes for over 40 years, and the homes will be offered to them at affordable prices ranging from US $5,000 to US $25,000 each. By also constructing additional homes in addition to selling the current ones, the Island Council aims to increase affordable local home ownership.
Unfortunately, before this took place, the Dutch colonizer unlawfully took over the Government, and appointed its colonial representatives Mr. Franco and Mr. Stegers to take over the SHF [Statia Housing Foundation – Ed.], just as it took over the local Government.
During 2016 and 2017, the sale of the 35 homes was deliberately boycotted by the former colonial representative in Bonaire, who repeatedly held back the appointment of numerous nominated qualified Board members of the SHF for months without a valid reason.
The Dutch Government is well-known for its outright refusal towards its own Houses of Parliament to structurally raise the social and other benefits for people on the BES islands [Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba]. One therefore has to really wonder why a large company like Woonlinie and the Dutch Government have been so interested in executing this project on St. Eustatius since 2011, and what the underlying strategy is. Certainly, it is not out of charity or love for the people of St. Eustatius.
Based on the vague and limited plans and stringent conditions of yearly increasing rent presented so proudly by Mr. Franco, as well as the experiences with Woonlinie on Saba, the residents of St. Eustatius who are in dire need of affordable housing and wish to own their own homes will not benefit from this new development at all. It will only continue to keep them dependent in their own country by a foreign Government’s deals with foreign companies.
I can recall that, upon leaving office in July of 2013, former Commissioner Koos Sneek proudly proclaimed to have “saved the plans for constructing social housing in cooperation with Woonlinie from extinction”. What Mr. Sneek still hasn’t explained to the general public though, including those in need of social housing, is why he signed a deal with the SHF as owner Director of Norako, soon after becoming Commissioner of Finance.
Mr. Sneek also hasn’t explained yet why he had a lien placed on the accounts of the SHF when they could not live up to the agreement he tricked them into, which sweetheart deal was struck between Norako and the SHF after the current puppet Government took over and the court case of the SHF against Norako was settled out of court, and who signed off on that deal.
I hereby wish to again remind Mr. Franco that he and others who represent the colonial Government will be legally held accountable for any and all acts committed by them which are in violation of the UN-mandated right of St. Eustatius and its people to a full measure of self-government.
This includes acts aimed at selling out the patrimony of the people of St. Eustatius, and unlawfully interfering with the functioning of the local legitimate Government and organizations like the SHF.
Additionally, looking at the shameful track record of the Dutch Government in the Netherlands when it comes to the management of the Tax Department and the Ministry of Justice and Safety, the damage to the houses in Groningen, and the debacle surrounding the renovation of the house of Parliament, just to name few, the Dutch Government has no moral authority either to tell the people of St. Eustatius how to run their affairs.
How can they pretend to improve the running of St. Eustatius when they can’t properly manage their own affairs?
In closing, I strongly urge Mr. Franco to uphold, respect, and carry out the decision of the legitimately and democratically elected Island Council regarding the selling of the homes in Golden Rock.
Clyde I. van Putten
Leader, Progressive Labour Party, St. Eustatius
Dear Editor,
Published in early January and reportedly scheduled to appear in an English translation before the end of this year, Sérotonine (Michel Houellebecq et Flammarion, 2019) is steeped in regret and remorse. It is drenched in melancholy and nostalgia; in a longing for a past that existed when French sovereignty prevailed: before NATO; before liberalism, the ’60s and the sexual revolution; before the EU and its euro, and the fracturing of Western society – that of France in particular.
Serotonin is the neurotransmitter, the chemical found in our body that contributes to our feeling well, to our being happy; antidepressants are the medications most commonly used to help relieve the distress of depression or anxiety.
In the prologue to his majestic book The Gene: An Intimate History (Scribner, 2016), Siddhartha Mukhergee quotes Philip Larkin’s “This Be The Verse”:
“They [mess] you up, your mum and dad.
“They may not mean to, but they do.
“They fill you with the faults they had
“And add some extra, just for you.”
My apologies to P. Larkin (1922-1985), one of Britain’s “best-loved poets”, and to Professor Mukhergee who quotes the poet textually, for, above, I have substituted the second four-letter word in Larkin’s famous poem with a four-letter word of my own choosing.
François-Michel Thomas was born in La Réunion, one of the two French “Départments” in the Indian Ocean. In the carefree ’60s, when he was five or six years old, his parents placed him in the care of his paternal grandmother (in France) and they went off to live their lives. Michel chose his grandmother’s maiden last name (Houellebecq) as a pen name when he started writing.
The author had a rather difficult relationship with his mother (Lucie Ceccaldi), a Communist and social activist; a strong-willed woman who, in spite of her self-professed maternal shortcomings, lived an exemplary professional life as a caregiver. She was an esteemed medical doctor who attended to the less fortunate folks of her community in La Réunion. Mother and son had a violent dispute when she visited him in Paris in 1991. That was the last time they spoke.
In 2008, aged 83, Lucie Ceccaldi returned to France for the release of her autobiography, L’Innocente (The Innocent), in which she reproaches her son for having misrepresented her in one of his books. She reportedly tried in vain to contact him then. She died two years later in 2010 in La Réunion. Time did not bring them back together again; there was no reunion on La Réunion. There was, reportedly, no reconciliation.
Some readers draw a solid red line between authors and their protagonists as if characters were completely independent of their creators; at another extreme others allow little or no distinction between them. Houellebecq excels in confounding all such readers: his characters, his protagonists, in particular, are so much like and so different from their creator.
The narrator in Sérotonine (Florent-Claude) is a 46-year-old agronomist addicted to nicotine, alcohol and antidepressants. He is also obsessed with his eroticism or lack of and he is an expert on the history and effects of antidepressants. “Captorix”, the new (fictive) antidepressant he uses, is judged to be much better than the old ones, but it is rendering him impotent. He muses regretfully on his past relationships with women and he pays an important visit to an old friend he has not seen in 20 years.
Florent-Claude explains that “God had disposed of him,” but that he has never been but an inconsistent weakling. He blames no one but himself. He adds that his parents had done their best to give him the arms necessary in his life’s struggles, but that he has never been able to take charge of his own life; that it seems very likely that, like the first part, the second part of his life would be nothing but a painful breakdown (P. 10-34).
There are pearls of poetry, irony and wisdom in the otherwise raunchy telling of this depressive narrator. He is often caustic and downright provocative in his assessment of people and places: “The English is almost as racist as the Japanese. … Holland is not a country. How can a Dutchman be xenophobic? There is a contradiction in the terms. Holland is not a country; at best it is an enterprise” (P. 34).
Like all journeys, Houellebecq’s novel has its end; the narrator has decided that the life that awaits him is not worth living, and so he plans his exit meticulously: he will let himself fall to his death from the apartment he purchased when he had to leave his hotel due to new non-smoking ordinances.
Florent-Claude ends his narrative with the following observations: “God really looks over us, He thinks of us all the time and sometimes He gives us directives that are very precise. These impulses of love that flow into our chests to the point of rendering us breathless, these illuminations, these ecstasies, inexplicable considering our biological nature, our state of simple primates, are signs that are extremely clear.
“And today I understand the point of view of Christ, his repeated annoyances faced with the hardening of hearts: they have all the signs and they don’t consider them. Must I truly give my life for such wretched souls? Must I be that explicit? It seems I must.” (P. 347).
If to regret is to blame oneself for choices relating to one’s personal decision-making resulting in action or inaction; if remorse is an even deeper feeling of sorrow and self-reproach, an even more distressing emotion; and if redemption is rescue and recovery, atoning for a fault, an action, a judgment that was wrong, misguided or unjust, Houellebecq’s Sérotonine is a resounding “mea culpa” and a cry for redemption in a world that is desperately lacking in kindness and solidarity.
Gérard M. Hunt
Dear Editor,
Majority of people in St. Maarten, St. Martin and the entire Caribbean nations wish Theo a speedy healing and recovery.
