An Experiment, Presenting About Experiments
Say yes to the things you want to be good at.
SEEK has been taking part in a program at Monash University to mentor post graduate students in Digital Product Development.
Remembering a quote about doing the things you want to be good at, rather than the things you are already good at, I decided to jump at the chance to present to the students.
In our sessions, SEEK’s fellow mentors and I had advised the students to test early, test often, and that it is OK to fail. A presentation about experiments was, therefore, an obvious choice.
Being a firm believer of ‘practice what you preach’, the presentation was a personal experiment. I do plenty of presenting and workshop facilitation to groups of 20 or less, but 150+ in a lecture theatre, all eyes focusing on me:
How would it go?
Would I be nervous?
Would the students understand what I was trying to convey?
Were there too many slides / not enough?
Would they like my sketches?
So what was the result…
Was I perfect? No.
What I learned was that presenting something you are passionate about, makes it easier. I was way less nervous than expected.
That you should probably start with an introduction. Oops, I was so pumped about the presentation, I forgot to introduce myself.
Drawing you own slides, makes it more personal, more engaging and much easier to remember.
Having your colleagues in the room, should difficult questions arise, is a great idea. (Thanks Victoria and Nigel.)
Feedback from the session, suggests that, I did manage to convey my message of experimentation for the 3 main aspects of digital product development (Product, Project and Team.) I need to analyse the results a bit more to be sure.
I don’t know if there were too many slides. Must run another experiment…
