Thing 20: Presentations
I'm warming up to the idea of presentations. I've given a few presentations of varying length and I've learned over time a few useful things. The most important thing you need to do for any presentation is practice, out loud, more than once. It doesn't matter how many times you repeat your presentation in your head, you really need to say it out loud to get the full effect of what you're saying and hear how it's going to sound to your audience.
I recently attended a training day provided by the Career Development Group called Abstract to Audience. It was all about presenting and went through every element to a presentation from the tiny details of what fonts to use in your slides, to how to overcome those performance nerves.
Because at the end of the day, that's what a presentation is - a performance. You have something to say, and maybe you want to impart some vital information, but you have to find the hook to engage your audience. Whether that hook is in your images, your delivery or perhaps you use a prop, it depends on your personality and who your audience is.
So I've done a couple of presentations in the last few years, mostly to colleagues. They haven't been disastrous, but there was definitely room for improvement. The more I've done them, the better I get at them. I recently did my first real 'outside' presentation at New Professionals Day Ireland's networking event. This was the first time I was invited to speak at an event and for me it was a real honour.
I surprised myself about how not nervous I was. Once I got into my stride I was fine. It threw me a little that the event was in a small room and I didn't have a podium to hide behind. I had my 'story' written out on paper but not having anything to sit it on I kind of forgot about it, and I also had to hop to the side to switch slides which meant I was a bit out of sync between my slides and what I was saying. It's important to be prepared for little things like that - this is where the practicing and preparation pays off.
Here is the presentation that I did, though the slides themselves don't give any great indication about the content of the presentation. You can read a summary of the day here.
I recently attended a training day provided by the Career Development Group called Abstract to Audience. It was all about presenting and went through every element to a presentation from the tiny details of what fonts to use in your slides, to how to overcome those performance nerves.
Because at the end of the day, that's what a presentation is - a performance. You have something to say, and maybe you want to impart some vital information, but you have to find the hook to engage your audience. Whether that hook is in your images, your delivery or perhaps you use a prop, it depends on your personality and who your audience is.
So I've done a couple of presentations in the last few years, mostly to colleagues. They haven't been disastrous, but there was definitely room for improvement. The more I've done them, the better I get at them. I recently did my first real 'outside' presentation at New Professionals Day Ireland's networking event. This was the first time I was invited to speak at an event and for me it was a real honour.
I surprised myself about how not nervous I was. Once I got into my stride I was fine. It threw me a little that the event was in a small room and I didn't have a podium to hide behind. I had my 'story' written out on paper but not having anything to sit it on I kind of forgot about it, and I also had to hop to the side to switch slides which meant I was a bit out of sync between my slides and what I was saying. It's important to be prepared for little things like that - this is where the practicing and preparation pays off.
Here is the presentation that I did, though the slides themselves don't give any great indication about the content of the presentation. You can read a summary of the day here.
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