How to not suck at presentations (in kako sem zagovarjal diplomo)
[I still haven’t had my final presentation yet, so I will update this article once I do!]
So my presentation of diploma was coming up and I had this sound recording of a “Presentation on presentations” from our CEO, Jaka Levstek stored on my computer. I decided to make a recap out of it and test it out. I made the presentation and I totally…
…did ok. Here’s the thing. You’re probably not going to become an amazing presenter after this article. It takes quite some time and number of presentations to be really amazing at it. BUT you can get good at it (especially, if you spend 20h learning this new thing (TED Talk) you’re not used to doing).
Presentation on presentations (PoP)
Presenter is exposed and has inherent intent.
ETOS
If presenter is sitting or standing or even moving around there is a difference. But regardless of that in case of Jaka who is the CEO vs. us the employees listening, there is an existing relation (between presenter and the audience). This is called ETHOS. People have varying degree of knowledge in the audience and sometimes they don’t know anything about the presenter. It’s basically first impression. You can influence this through:
- Body language
- Visual appearance
- Confidence
ETOS is both how audience sees you as well as how you see yourself.
Important things to boost your confidence:
- Preparation (be prepared)
- Knowledge about the field/topic
- I know the narrative of presentation
- Key takeaway for the audience
LOGOS
Is my message important enough for the audience? You maximise this by:
- Knowing your audience
- Having a unique view on the topic
- Having a great presentation that is easy to listen to and follow
You can’t just stand there and just talk without a good intention and plan, because you are wasting people’s time. This is LOGOS, the underlying story that you are conveying.
How well you are prepared to convey the information is the main idea of this. The important thing here is to talk to your audience and see what is the important content for them.
Define your narrative. Good narratives have shape. Just like in literature has the hero’s journey type of narrative usually, but there is different types of shapes for different types of things.
For example in press releases you want the spyke at the beginning (have the complete recap of the information, what you want people to take away) because journalists, are usually gone after first 5 minutes or less, and then you go into details of the things.
Ted talks have pull and release shape and end on the high note.
Pick whichever you want as long you have one. There are different ways to do the presentation just need to align on what fits the situation.
PATHOS
PATHOS is the last element that connects the previous two. It means emotional connection between the person presenting and the topic and shows to people that this message is something important to the presenter.
Do not hide your emotion about the topic, show it, show what things you are excited about and people will remember you.
“Presentation on presentations” by Jaka Levstek, CEO of D.Labs.
[Of course there are ways to improve those like the way you control your voice, controling your body laguage and so on.]
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Various presentation shapes (TedPlayList on speeches):
- TedTalk on shapes of great speakers (Push and pull)
- Hero’s journey
- Three act structure
- Dramatic structure
Predstavitev diplome (Presentation of my bachelors degree paper)
Sam sem poskušal upoštevati vse tri točke iz PoP. ETHOS, tako da sem bil dobro pripravljen za predstavitev, oblečen tako, da sem se dobro počutil, prej preveril delovanje opreme za prezentacijo in vedel prbližno kateri del diplomske naloge, je najzanimivejši za komisijo in mentorja.
Za LOGOS del sem najprej poskušal uporabiti push and pull tehniko, kjer sem v uvodu primerjal kaj je in kaj bi lahko bilo po tem predstavil temo za tem pa uporabljal primerjave kaj smo mislili in kakšni so bili res rezultati ter na koncu podal svetel zaključek, kaj vse je še mogoče če s tem nadaljujemo in kaj lahko izboljšamo.
PATHOS je nekoliko bolj kompleksen, saj je predvsem odvisen od in v mojem primeru ________ sem bil rahlo živčen in to zanimanje za vsebino ni bilo toliko izraženo a sem kljub temu poskusil pokazati da me je tema res zanimala.
Nekaj okvirnih navodil pri predstavitvi sem imel od profesorja, nekaj pa sem si še dodatno prebral v “Tips for a scientific talk”. Poskusil sem do neke mere upoštevati tudi Push and pull tehniko vendar ta ni tako primerna za tovrstno predstavitev. Moje vodilo je bilo odstranjevanje nepotrebnih delov teksta iz besedila, da ostane samo bistvo.
Tukaj je video moje predstavitve, ko sem jo vadil doma (traja 10min, kar je omejitev za predstavitev diplome) in tukaj so prosojnice, ki sem jih uporabljal.
Glede diplomske predstavitve se posvetujte tudi z mentorjem/mentorico za morebitne specifike.
