I honestly can't believe we have just delivered the last PPP presentation/any presentation for the third year and time at the college. I actually feel quite sad but at the same time extremely relieved. It's a pretty weird feeling.
I felt the PPP presentation went really well. I delivered in the allotted time without any disruptions. I felt at the time my presentation skills were satisfactory if not good. Thinking about how much they have developed from the first year I can say I am proud of myself. I found presenting before and when I came to the college extremely difficult/frightening. I now feel confident I can coherently present to reasonably sized groups of people.
I decided to keep the presentation relevant to my practice which paid off. I felt some people went slightly off topic which wasn't devastating but personally I enjoyed seeing people who displayed old work and also current work with a specific focus on future progression and plans.
The main most important skills when presenting that I believe from my experience over the three years:
- Don't bore people to death. If the presentation has no interesting content than most likely it is going to be dull. Even if you have to add some content that isn't 100% relevant, keep it interesting. I guess this depends on how interesting you are as a person...
- Always include picture! I fond personally when I don't include visuals the attention on myself becomes slightly overwhelming. Keep peoples attention off you if only for the first couple of minutes until you find your flow.
- I like to interact with people before the presentation to kind of break the ice, this might be in the form of asking a question to someone else before my presentation. It just takes clears my mind and helps me find my voice.
- Humour. Most people have a sense of humour. Find it, exploit it. Then again when people try to hard to be funny it can get awkward so don't try to be funny, perhaps a funny image!
- Make something rememberable. After watching more than ten presentation they pretty much all blend into one. Again be interesting.
- I find I have to rehearse my presentation thoroughly before so that I am confident I know what I am talking about and so that I don't go quiet.
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