Guest Post: Miguel Ortega Hesles

Miguel is one of Chris' Fall 2011 Professional Speaking students at Carnegie Mellon. Here he writes about real-world presentations.

Despite the fact that the word presentation could be somewhat scary and closely related to stage fright; presentations are in fact common and not worth damaging your psyche.

Think about it: Life is a real-world presentation. Every day we as human beings (or social animals) are required to communicate, to somehow express our ideas. This idea might feel a bit contradictory because for many (including myself) the word “presentation” comes with the preconception of being in front of a group of people, regurgitating a set of words or ideas predefined in a piece of paper left somewhere.

However, presentations are (according to the etymology) the act of bringing into the presence of (see references). What this means is that every conversation or communication you have are potential presentations. For example, imagine I want to recommend you a restaurant. I could invite you to a room, hook up a laptop to a projector, and show a slideshow full of facts, opinions and images; or, I could just bump into you in the street and recommend you with the same facts and opinions. I could also extend this presentation to a number of people in each of the settings with similar results.

Following the above premise, we should be used to presentations and in fact they should come as easy as speaking (well maybe not that much, but at least easier than they do). Presentations are just like chats: the speaker presents the material and normally answers questions either in real-time or at the end of the presentation. Therefore, we should make presentations just as we do casual conversations.

The first aspect of an efficient real-world presentation is to be prepared, know the subject and the audience. How could I talk about the next IPhone without knowing it? Or how different would the presentation be if I was giving it to CS students rather than third age people? Also, I consider confidence an essential part of the preparation. If you are presenting it is likely that you are one of the people with the most knowledge on the subject (if not the one with the most); others are there to hear you and your point of view on the subject whether it is similar to theirs or not, so be prepared and confident on what you say, I mean you did your research and you aren’t just babbling about something random but something you should feel confident that you know the subject, be passionate.

I believe that visual aid is another aspect of an efficient presentation. We are visual, we like to see things and we tend to understand them better when we see them. It is said than a picture is worth more than a thousand words so use them, but don’t abuse. How many times have you seen presentations that use visual aids like PowerPoint and are just an endless set of slides with text, text, and more text? If that is the case you would probably be better writing a book than giving a presentation. Use slides but use them wisely, a few bullet points with short phrases or key ideas from which you will build more complex ideas, examples or concepts; and, if suitable, sneak a picture that can be related to the concepts. Don’t make images too big; remember they are just aid, not your whole presentation.

References: Online Etymology Dictionary