What is worse than addressing a crowd of smart, critical, curious and empowered young leaders? I would know the answer to that after having stood in front of an auditorium pretty full of them.
Okay, fine! I admit. It was not that bad. It was actually very enriching and fulfilling, but also quite intimidating.
My research topic (as I had presented it in a previous post) was about the physiology of Stress. As part of the scientific research course requirement, I had to share it with the ALA community in a 15 minutes power point presentation. So, what did I learn?
1. About making power points: It can get really fun if you love Art like me. I actually got to be creative (with colors, pictures and fonts) with some heavy biology and psychology material.
My tips:
- Use font colors that contrast with background color (best example of this is black on white!)
- You can use interesting looking fonts but only for the title; otherwise you end up having a text that looks like this (can you read this?) instead of that (Can you read this?).
- Use diagrams to present the heavy material. And feel free to make them interactive (arrows and pictures popping up, highlights or sound effects, etc.).
- Take your time and don’t rush through any slide. Hence, rehearse your presentation and get rid of the superfluous information.
- Do not put a whole text on your slides. People want to listen to you; they don’t want to be swallowed trying to understand the complex scientific terminology and phrasing. Save them that pain and present it in a bullet point format.
- This might sound unnecessary but symmetry is key. A subtopic title in slide 2 can’t be red, size 24 and Bahaus font when the title of the next subtopic in slide 4 is blue, size 36 and Algerian font. You will get your audience confused even though you might not notice it.
2. About presenting the material: I though this would be the most challenging part. But people actually followed throughout the presentation. I was glad when I got many interesting questions after the presentation.
My tips:
- Do not assume that the audience has even a third of the information you have gathered for about 2 months or so. Some of them might, but the majority has probably never heard of what you are talking about.
- Be ‘generous’ with your explanation. Give the meat of your argument, not just the bone that would suffice you: examples, illustrations (pictures, videos, your own body movement, etc.), analogies, etc.
- Repeat! If you see that half of your audience is giving you the ‘it went o-ver my head’ face, stop and repeat what you just said.
- Do not speak like you would speak to yourself. Speak clearly, making sure the unfamiliar terms you are using are explained on the slides or while you are talking. Speak loudly, making sure that people don’t have to guess what you just said (chances are they won’t even be able to with the little information they have on the topic).
3. About stage presence: I tried as much as possible to feel comfortable on stage and fill in the space with both my voice and body language.
My tips:
- Walk around the place you will be presenting from some time before you get on stage. Make sure you know the place so that you can own the place.
- Make eye contacts if you are that type of person. It helps you to connect with the audience (you wouldn’t talk to your friends looking at their feet, right?). If you are shy, it’s also fine because you can fake the eye contact and look at the foreheads instead.
- Move around; play with the audience so that they are not tempted to fall asleep.
- Ask the audience questions and trust them to give you the right answers. You will get them engaged and attentive.
- Just be your everyday (appropriate) self and relax because your time will be up before you even realize.
- If you make a mistake, do not panic. Correct it once you realize it and move on swiftly.
One can guess by the length of this post how much I enjoyed doing my presentation and how much I learnt form it. It was not perfect but it was extremely fulfilling.
Seeing people’s facial expression showing interest in what I was saying was a huge reward.
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