Presentation Zen chapter five

For this presentation, I thought I did a good job sticking close to the guidelines of the assignment of making it "personal." I compared a past experience to the teachings of chapter 5 using lots of personal items like photos, etc. The hook was OK but could have been better. Asking the audience whether any of them had been Alaska wasn't really a good way to captivate them. I don't think the relationship between my trip and the ideas presented in chapter 5 was immediately obvious either. I spent too much time on certain slides(i.e., the one where I define analog) whereas I should have spent more time explaining how backpacking relates to preparing for a presentation. That particular slide had too much text which confused the audience a little bit, forcing them to read and pay attention to me at the same time. Although I had prepared well for the presentation, I still gave off some nervous body language. My voice clearly quivers at times and I speak too fast, both signs of nervousness. I had somewhat of an awkward stance behind the podium which distracted the audience a little bit. By the end of the semester it is my goal to move my way from behind the podium to standing in front of the audience. However, I know this won't happen over night. It will take lots of practice but I'm confident it can happen. Because I'm not a natural public speaker, I feel like I need to practice more for the presentations to gain confidence and to become more comfortable. I know the material well, but it doesn't necessarily come off that way in front of the audience. I think the key to improving my presentation skills is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. Over time it will remove the the tics of "Um" and "you know" and establish comfortability and confidence over time.

Since I wasn't able to present last Wednesday due to a lack of time, I'd like to discuss how I'm planning to prepare for the upcoming class period. I will have to present twice this Wednesday, once on solar energy in Germany as well as on chapter three of Presentation Zen. Needless to say, the key to success for each one will be to prepare well in advance so I will have lots of time to practice. Keeping the major "lessons" of Presentation Zen in mind will also be important. One of these so-called lessons is to keep the slide content as simple as possible. This means keeping the bullet points and excess information to a minimum. I don't want to confuse or lose the attention of my audience. I want to make sure that each slide is relevant to the central message of my presentation. To check for relevancy, I will ask myself the question: how does this apply to the central message? If each of my slides passes this "test," I will know that the slide show is "doing its job" as an aid to the story I'm trying to tell. The "elevator test" from chapter 3 will be a good way to check for the clarity of the core message; if the main message isn't clear after 30-45 seconds, then I know I've got to make some changes to my slides. As long as I stick to these guidelines, I think I will do a fairly decent job.