This document presents a PowerPoint deck on various communication styles, inspired by Raymond Queneau's 'Exercises in Style', focusing on a consumer tracking initiative aimed at improving customer retention. It details the project's challenges, including budget overruns, lack of stakeholder support, and development delays, alongside recommendations for recovery. The 'placemat' style of presentation is discussed, emphasizing its benefits for in-person conversations and the effectiveness of visual information delivery.

1. Placemat
Exercises in PowerPoint Style #5
Tim Kieschnick
1

2. About this collection…
This PowerPoint deck is part of a collection. Each deck in this collection models a
different communication or presentation style. Some models focus on visual
display, others strictly on organizing information. Each deck describes the same
fictional project using a different presentation model.
This collection is inspired by Exercises In Style, the classic book by Raymond Queneau.
In Exercise In Style, Queneau retells the same very simple story 99 times in 99 different
styles.
I plan to add to this collection over time, beginning with potentially useful design
styles, and later modelling common stylistic errors.
Tim Kieschnick
El Cerrito, CA
19 May 2013
2

3. Background Consumer Tracking Initiative
About the Initiative
Growth projections
assume we will
implement tracking
system this year
We are bleeding customers, and this
initiative is our top strategic approach to
improve customer retention
What is Consumer Tracking?
Virtually every other sales
initiative depends on the
success of this work
CTS
Customer
Analytics
Market
Intelligence
Personalization
Key Internal Stakeholders
Marketing is the primary business owner
Sales has the most end users
Finance relies on CTI in all
their projections
Ops owns several ancillary
systems on which the CTI depends
IT is building and integrating the
technical components
Budget
Baseline Revised Actual
Q1 500,000 650,000 725,000
Q2 500,000 750,000 1,200,000
Q3 600,000 900,000 Tbd
Q4 7000,000 Tbd Tbd
The initiative is consistently running
over budget

4. Our immediate need
Issues Consumer Tracking Initiative
The Customer Tracking Initiative is in trouble
• Development is running behind
schedule
• Key stakeholders don’t support the
initiative
• We will go live a month late at best
We need your help to get back on track
We are two months behind
1. Release an additional $250,000 to
augment staff with contractors over the
next 3 months
2. Proactively communicate the strategic
importance of this project throughout the
organization
3. Build this project’s success metrics into the
incentivized goals of key middle managers
Key problem areas Recommendations
Req’ts
•Sales staff
unavailable for
interviews
Design
•IT lacks UI
design
expertise
Dev
•Team spent 2
months learning
new platform
Test
•Test environments
not available from
Ops Team
Go-Live
•Finance set
unattainable
go-live date

5. About this style
This deck uses the “Placemat” style. When using this style, I typically print to
paper, double-sided, and use it as an aid to an in-person conversation. This
style is not intended to be projected onto a screen.
Key considerations for this style include:
– When you hand a placemat document to someone, they tend to appreciate
the freedom it gives them to see everything at once and to have control over
what they look at without having to flip through many pages of a traditional
document.
– Because of the high resolution of printing, you can fit a tremendous amount of
information onto a single piece of paper. This example is formatted for 8 ½” x
11”, and using 11” x 14” enables you to fit twice as much content if you wish.
– This format lends itself to interactive visuals. You can combine simple graphics
with complex tables and charts, allowing the reader to dive deep into the
details or back out to see the big picture.