Giving a presentation

01.04.2011 3 min read

Yesterday I attended the second annual Data Highway event at Hyria, a multidisciplinary educational institution offering vocational education and training. The event was part of the school's student activity. At the event I gave a presentation, a quick and dirty introduction to social media in marketing. Frankly I'm not a very fluent or experienced presenter and I was really really nervous before my turn.

I do know I'm not alone with this and giving presentations is something lots of us are afraid or nervous about. Therefore in following I'll list a couple of my personal notes about the subject, the ways I've got myself through it before.

1. Be prepared. Yes, "d'uh", but this is how you get through the thing without trowing up and running away in panic. Being prepared also means you need to read your presentation out loud several times beforehand. Preferably the day before you need to give the presentation. Practicing with a nice and friendly audience also helps. Basically the idea is you need to know where the presentation is going and what you are going to say next. Simple as that.

2. Get really nervous an hour or two before the presentation. This may sound weird. But if you are really nervous, you'll be focused. And if you get nervous before the presentation, you will have time to get over with it. At least partially.

3. Force yourself to be positive. Positive thinking is hard. Especially if you aren't the most confident about your own abilities. Mistakes happen and in this case they most likely won't kill you or even haunt you for the rest of your life. Congratulate yourself for being able to get to the event or having clothes on. Small things count.

4. Remember to breathe. Take some deep and slow breathes to calm yourself down. Have moments to breathe in between your speech. Sudden silence is also effective if your audience seems to be losing their focus.

5. Lower your expectations about the audience. If giving presentations makes you nervous, you are likely to think the audience is going to lynch you or at least laugh at you. Remember the audience members are mostly as bad or even worse at giving presentations as you are. Or at least try and think they would totally suck in your place. If it helps, try and imagine them all naked (though I've never seen the point of doing so). However you'll do it, the idea is to lower the audience down, so they won't seem so threatening.

6. Be yourself. Don't try and be Steve Jobs. Or anyone else you might think is great at this. Just be yourself, move the way you do, let your hands do what they do without thinking about it too much. Focus on what you are saying rather than to your appearance. Use familiar words and the ways you would say things normally (no swearing, preferably). Try and talk slow. Additional note: Wear clothes you feel comfortable in.

7. Have an interaction with the audience. Ask them questions (how many of you... and such), say something to some single person in audience or just look at them. Don't stare at your papers or the screen all the time. Take a face or a couple you will look at during the presentation. Make the audience members feel you are talking to them, not just reading something from your papers.

8. Have fun. If it's not something really serious or sad you are talking about, try not to be too serious. If you have fun on the stage, your audience will have fun with you (but not at your expense).

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