CEOs, systems analysts, and civil engineers swear by storytelling these days for a riveting C-suite experience. My point is that presenters should stop telling “stories” that aren’t stories. More often than not, presenters patter along for a few bullet points and then stop occasionally for an anecdote break, under the illusion that they’re telling a story.

Here’s how stories and anecdotes differ:

Structure:

Anecdotes present a “slice of life.” That is, they describe an interaction, a situation, or a scene.

Stories have a hero struggling to overcome challenges to accomplish a goal. Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Delivery:

Presenters usually just “narrate” anecdotes. They describe what they heard, saw, said, felt. Most often, the anecdote flows naturally in the past tense because the person is talking about what happened yesterday, last month, or when they were child, a newly wed, or maybe a first-year grad student.

But stories… ah, when someone tells a great story, the listeners feel as though they’re watching a movie. The speaker sets the scene, and then it’s lights, camera, action. The storyteller delivers the dialogue and gestures the action. Listeners envision what’s happening while the story unfolds.

Purpose:

Most often, anecdotes illustrate something-a feeling (frustration, anger, grief) or a situation (poor customer service, stupidity, innocence, helplessness).

Stories may illustrate as well. But they typically add other dimensions-motivation to act, inspiration, emotional tension or relief.

Impact:

To illustrate the difference in impact, I’ll leave you with examples.

Anecdote:

Customer service has deteriorated until I no longer think you can call it “service” in some organizations. The other day I was flying out to Chicago. I’ll admit I haven’t traveled much in the last 12 months, but I felt as if I were in a factory being “processed.” No agents to check me in. Just a computer.

The TSA agents were extremely rude: “Where’s your ticket?”

I had a little trouble finding the email on my phone with my e-ticket to be scanned.

The agent kept saying, “Don’t you have a paper copy? Just give me your paper copy! You’re holding up the line!”

Why do they send e-tickets if they can’t wait a moment for you to access them? The gate agents were equally surly. One even hassled me for “oversized” luggage, which wasn’t! It fit in their sizing container just fine. It’ll be a long time before I fly that airline again.

Story:

Customer service has deteriorated until I no longer think you can call it “service” in some organizations. The other day I was flying out to Chicago for a 3:00 pm job interview. I was booked on an 8:00 am flight to arrive at 10:00. Plenty of time-or so I thought. They cancelled the first flight-without notice, no reason given.

Finally, I’m rebooked to arrive at noon. We land. I reach up in the overhead bin for my briefcase, and it’s gone. Then I see a guy heading off the plane ahead of me carrying my laptop! I yell at the flight attendant, “Stop him! He’s got my laptop!”

She acts as if she can’t understand what I’m saying. The guy with my laptop takes off running, so I start after him.

I’m dashing through the airport, but it’s crowded and I lose him before I ever get out of that corridor. Just as I stop to catch my breath, two police officers step up beside me: “Sir, you’ll need to come with us.”

“Me? Why? What’s going on? I have to make my job interview in an hour!”

They slapped handcuffs on me and the officer says, “You’re under arrest for… “

(Wouldn’t you be hooked in at this point? Do you see the difference between a story and an anecdote?)

Don’t get me wrong: Stories make a great presentation even better. Just chose them wisely and tell them well.

When it comes to different kinds of debt relief options available in the market, bankruptcy and debt settlement appear as two main methods through which the people are trying to get rid of massive debts. Even though some people have a misconception that both of these methods are carrying the same results, in reality, it is completely different.

In fact, if you are trying to eliminating massive unsecured debts through one of these methods, it is essential to know what the best method in the present market is. As a matter of fact, if we take bankruptcy, it is evident that many people are trying to eliminate debts through it as they think that it is one of the easiest methods they can use to get away from debts. But, in practical situations, bankruptcy is creating a lot of problems.

Even though a person could reduce his/ her liabilities through bankruptcy, it will have bad outcomes on his/ her future. For instance, a person who files bankruptcy might get rejected from future bank loans, face difficulties in finding new jobs, apartments, etc. So, filing bankruptcy should be the last option of a person who tries to get away from credit.

But, in the present, debt settlement has become much safer than filing bankruptcy. Especially, with the introduction of new laws by the Federal Trade Commission, there is no space for fraudulent settlement companies anymore. In fact, only the most legitimate companies will be able to survive in the financial field. Moreover, as people can eliminate their debts even up to 60% through settlement, it has become very popular among citizens.

In addition, the people who use settlement as their credit elimination method will not face bad outcomes like in bankruptcy. Actually, when bankruptcy and debt settlement are considered, settlement undoubtedly becomes the best option in the present market especially due to the attractive way it guides its consumers.

You are able to export the OpenOffice Impress presentation into the different file formats that include HTML, PDF and also Flash. The process will take a few seconds in order to complete and will also produce the professional looking presentation in the file format that you need. Here is more information for you.

For the first step that you should do is that you have to open the OpenOffice Impress presentation that you want to export to another application. In doing this, you need to make sure that the presentation will be finished before you are exporting it. The changes may not be made to an exported file.

For the second step, you should select the “File” menu and then choose the “Export” to open the the “Export” dialog box. It is where you need to choose the file and then select how you need to export the Impress presentation.

After that, choose to where you need to export the presentation, you can do this by browsing the files that use the “Save in” drop-down menu.

For the next step, click on the “File format” drop-down menu in choosing what the type of file format that you want to export the Impress presentation.

Then, name the exported presentation, do this by using the keyboard to type the name in the “File name” text box Use the mouse in order to click the “Save button” in bringing up the corresponding dialog based on the file format that you are exporting the presentation to.

For the last step, follow the on-screen wizard in order to finish the exporting process for the Impress presentation.