Being naturally introverted, public speaking is not something which comes to me easily. Hence, the oral presentation component for this ES2007S module was a big challenge for me personally.
One step that was helpful in helping me prepare for the oral presentation was to write down the relevant and concise points I wanted to present and share with my audience in the short 5mins (10 mins for me actually since I handled 2 parts, namely the introduction and the closing) before creating the relevant slides and visuals. This helps in the organization of thoughts. To aid in my preparation for the presentation, I watched youtube videos of Steve Job’s keynote presentations to learn and pick up a few pointers from the master. One important video is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-ntLGOyHw4 on which I form the basis of my presentation. I prepared my presentation in such a way that there is only one main idea/theme for each part that I presented. The introduction focus is on the current entertainment climate in NUS whilst the closing focuses on convincing the audience that the ideas my team presented will work.
In my powerpoint slides, I strive to use as little words as possible so that it will be visually appealing (not cluttered) but still able to make an impact, e.g. “Awesome stress reliever!!”. I use pictures to complement words so that the audience will be able to grasp what I’m trying to explain to them (tv, music, sports) and also some of the pictures for humor purposes (the dog with the incredulous expression, guy with folded arms etc). I also use numbers and data to persuade my audience to be agreeable to my idea (the population in NUS = potential revenue example).
In terms of delivery, besides the usual nonverbal communication like straight posture, hand gestures etc, I strive to engage my audience by having them participate in a poll, and to ask them questions to bring forth my point. One mistake I found I made was that I should have emphasize and clarify the point I was making after asking Jun Wen does being in CCA make him stress, instead of jumping on to the next segment of the presentation. Other delivery skills I tried was to use words that would show enthusiasm so that I could get my audience excited about what I was about to share, words like “exciting!” “awesome!” “innovative!” for example.
The “Oh and one more thing….” when I closed was directly inspired by Steve Job’s presentation to help in building an exciting atmosphere so as to leave my audience with a memorable impression of the presentation. Though my main regret is that I got totally anxious when playing the saxophone and hence did not go as smooth as I intended it to be, but I am satisfied as it did accomplish it’s purpose in leaving a lasting and memorable experience in my audience during the presentation.
The ES2007S blog 