Delevering a presentation

Delevering a presentation

An effective presentation is one that communicates to a specific audience. Make sure you are aware of who you are presenting to before you begin work on creating your presentation. There are many factors that will affect the way in which your presentation will be received - Are the audience experts in the field? What age group are they? Is gender an issue? Is level of education an issue? If nothing else a familiarity with your audience ought to effect the language and examples you use to communicate appropriately with them. Wherever possible try and visit and even practice your presentation in the actual room in which you will be presenting for real. Being familiar with the equipment available, the acoustics, the lighting, the size of the venue and where you will be positioned relative to the audience can have a real impact on the effectiveness of your presentation. Everybody performs better on home, or familiar ground.

A simple guideline would be 'if you look like a bank manager then you will be treated like a bank manager'. Now, in a number of instances creating a traditional formal image for yourself will work very well as it can promote you as mature, professional and corporate. However, it is always possible that this is not the image you want to project. Consider the founder of Apple Steve Jobs, his signature 'look' when presenting was jeans and a black top. He was well aware that his audience was largely made up of techno-geeks and people from the creative industries people for whom a traditional, possibly backwards looking image, would not be considered attractive. Whatever you do, make sure that your visual appearance does not distract from the actual message of the presentation.

Maintaining eye contact is vital to keeping an audience engaged. In a presentation you are trying to create the illusion of a conversation with every individual in the room, break eye contact for too long and your audience start to feel excluded. Most of us know at least one person who, when they are supposed to be having a conversation with us is looking over our shoulder or out of the window or at their phone and we don't like it. It has become tradition on public transport to avoid eye contact so as to deliberately not engage personally with those around us - you do not want to do this in a presentation. Looking around the room at the audience rather than having your head down buried in your notes, or having your back to the audience talking to your PowerPoint slides, will have a powerful effect on your audiences reaction to you. They will feel drawn in and part of the conversation. For this same reason it is important not to simply fix your attention on one section of the room, or a particular individual, a friend or your tutor, as this will end up making the rest of the audience feel neglected and uninvolved.

Often, if we are unused to presenting to a group, it is our bodies that concern us most. We all know how to speak and how to write, but how are we supposed to stand? Do we move around, or stand still? Do we keep our hands by our side, or wave them about? What happens when your knees start to shake? As we have already mentioned a presentation is very much a visual experience, the audience are looking at you, not just at a body of text. That said this does not mean that a presentation need necessarily be a performance. Moving around a bit does give the presentation a more dynamic appeal that helps the audience stay focused, but you are certainly not required to dance or do acrobatics. Similarly, gesturing with your hands can help to emphasise a point, but you do not need to look as if you are casting a spell at Hogwarts. As a basic rule try not to over do anything - standing completely still with your hands rigidly at your side, or clasped tightly in front of you will make you look remote and cut off from your audience. Keep an open stance, with your hands behind you, smile, shift your position slightly from time to time, that should be quite enough. Finally, don't worry about the knees. You may feel as if your legs have gone to jelly, but the simple fact is that nobody else will notice.

One of the most important things to remember when presenting to an audience is that nobody expects a perfect performance. If you lose your train of thought, or stumble over your words just stop, take a breath and carry on, nobody will judge you, if they notice at all. If you are presenting to an academic, or professional audience then the chances are everyone has been, or will be standing where you are and will be sympathetic and supportive.