Becoming a More Effective Presenter - Blog Post #2

Every person who has ever made a presentation of any kind wants to be outstanding.  None of us were ever as outstanding as we wanted to be in the first few presentations we ever made, so we all strive to become better presenters. We want to show our confidence and our competence.  We want the audience to believe in us and whatever it is we are representing. We want a lasting effect on our audience.

Conventionally, we learn to be more effective presenters through improvement of our physical actions. Our image is indeed of utmost importance because we are undoubtedly being judged by our audience by the way we look. Care must be taken in the style of our clothing with regard to the type of audience we are presenting to. We also learn to project our voice with a posture that opens our airways for a clear range of pitch. It's equally important.to consciously keep our speech slow and leave room for pauses to make emphasis on certain points. Furthermore, we learn to make eye contact with our audience. Many professional presenters have offered hundreds of tips to be aware of our physical actions in order to become better presenters.

Moreover, we must be entertaining and show the audience a strong feeling of the topic. Without humour or passion we can easily lose the audience's interest. However, being entertaining is not effective without a concentrated focus on the topic. We must plan and design a strategy to get our message to the audience effectively. Story telling is an entertaining and very memorable experience for the audience.

Just as we had used flip charts, overhead transparencies and 35mm slides to capture our audience's interest, we are now using Powerpoint presentations, and more recently Prezi. These have become efficient tools to accompany a speaker and get the message to the audience. Careful consideration of many factors must be given to the use of these software programs to ensure that psychological principles are taken into account. These principles include the colour associations of the background and the font colour, font size, and the psychological tendencies that people are predisposed to when viewing graphics

Foremost, presenters should strive to prioritize the key messages, keeping the presentation focused on the main point. A content strategy of the digital presentation should include consideration of only a few messages. One message is most effective.  The presenter can easily lose the audience's focus on the main point with information overload. The catch phrase, "quality over quantity" encapsulates the idea of minimal key messages and the psychological predispositions of graphics.

Finally, importance must be placed on the presenter's preparation to give the presentation and insure the message is conveyed to the audience. Writing down everything that will be said and saying it out loud are two ways to memorize a presentation. This builds confidence and prepares the presenter for an effective speech. Understanding the key message (and all aspects of it) is of utmost importance to show confidence and insure competence. Know your stuff and practice your presentation.