For a very long time,
I’ve experienced many good and bad presentations. Despite the many experiences,
most were unfortunately bad ones. I’ve had many cases where teachers were
speaking in monotone voices or were simply repeating what’s shown on their visuals.
Because of this, I often times got distracted: drawing pictures, playing with
my phone, or in worse cases- falling asleep in class. Whenever I encountered
these bad presentations, I often wondered if the rest of my classmates were
even learning anything, and whether the presenter was aware of how bad the
presentation is. All of these things are what I always consider when I’m the
one presenting. I don’t want my audience to not learn, or find my presentations
boring. To prevent this from occurring, I usually adjust my voice, verbal
delivery, as well as visuals.
Just as Julian Treasure
mentioned in his video, the presenter’s voice has an impact on the outcome of
the presentation (Treasure, 2014). In the many examples shown on the Charisma
on Command video, Kevin Hart often spoke very loudly, but he also adjusted his
voice to actually be funny (Charisma on Command, 2016). One thing that can be
drawn from the two videos is the importance of adjusting voices. The outcome of
a presentation is good when people are able to absorb something from it. To do
this, the audience needs to be motivated and or entertained.
Before I start
entertaining and motivating people, I need to know who my audiences are. At a university
setting for example, my audience usually consist of students and a teacher. The
teacher will likely be the most motivated of the group since the students were
literally “forced” to listen to my presentation. To balance out and capture as much
attention as possible, I usually try to have more of a “conversation-feel”
rather than actually presenting. George Bradt pointed out in his short article
that people engage easier in conversations rather than presenting (2014). Every
time I come across presenters literally “reading”, I often ask, “Who normally
talks like that?” To bring in a little more life to my presentations, I try to
be expressive (adjust my voice) and avoid the reading style- just as if I’m
having a regular face-to-face conversation. For the future story project specifically,
I also need to be expressive to help my audience understand its importance to
me.
Although adjusting tone
and the talking style is important, presentations can be more effective when
visuals are present. Visual aids have many benefits: including maintaining
interest to illustrating your points (Leigh, n.d.). In past experiences, I’ve
often implemented not only relevant materials, but videos and photos to help deliver
the mood I’m hoping to achieve. Referring back to the university example, I’m
aware that the students are the ones that’ll be harder to capture since they’ve
been forced into my presentation. Since many of them are young like myself, we
all probably have very similar interests. In one business presentation, I used
a short scene from The Big Bang Theory
to not only entertain the audience, but to prove a point in the audience. After
a short moment of laughter, I’ve capture most of their attention, and can
continue on with the presentation. The important thing to keep in mind however
is to ensure that the materials won’t led your presentation to go off-topic, or
is too distracting for the audience.
In summary, I plan to
consider the audience’s point-of-views into my Future Story presentation. Since
my presentation is heavily based on myself, it is important to be expressive.
To do this, I plan to avoid sounding too monotone and to “talk” rather than present.
Since audio alone for my presentation can be a little bland, I intend to also
include interesting and relevant visuals to help maintain engagement. Although
my presentation isn’t like a business or research and fact intensive, I can
also rely on visuals to help the audience illustrate my points.
References:
Bradt,
G. (2014). Big Presentation? Don’t Do It—Have a Conversation Instead. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgebradt/2014/09/10/big-presentation-dont-do-it-have-a-conversation-instead/#8e2d384295b7
“Charisma
on Command”. (2016). Kevin Hart’s 3 Secrets to Hilarious Storytelling [Video
file]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn_L4OPU_rg
Leigh,
R. (n.d.). The Importance of Creating Effective Visual Aids in the Workplace. Chron. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-creating-effective-visual-aids-workplace-17432.html
Treasure,
J. (2014). How to speak so that people want to listen: Julian Treasure (TED
Talk Summary) [Video file]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEkEAFaV818
No comments:
Post a Comment