Making a Powerful Point: The key to a perfect presentation.

When I was younger I was quite the shy little boy. I either sat at the back of the class or in the middle rows and I did not speak a lot because of I had a stutter which was very noticeable – I could not complete a sentence because It took me to long to annunciate a word or series of words – and because of this I did not enjoy public speaking.

Although after a while, I decided to take up the challenge and speak in front of a crowd despite my apparent social impediment. I tried speeches and general crowd interaction which was terrifying at first but I grew to love it. Thereafter I ventured into using props and visual aids and I found a certain attraction toward making PowerPoint presentations; the creative endlessness of the designs matched with my creative mind and so after much practice, I found a way to bring my creativity into it. However, there are a few tips that I recently learned which can greatly help me.

I learned that although the creativity is nice but there needs to be structure, a clear message folded into the presentation and an engagement with the audience, but the most important aspects are me, the presenter and the method that I use to present. My main role is to communicate, with confidence the message to the audience but also control my presentation and my time.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/f78312_7116f81134494ffa82b3d0332fdb7124/360p/mp4/file.mp4

The audience is atmosphere is vital because it determines what kind of presentation I will create and how I will present it – one will not give a dog presentation to an audience of cat lovers. The main points that hold key importance are:

• Use visual aids.

• Limit the text.

• Give the audience a preview of the presentation by giving them a summary in the beginning of that it is about.

• Engagement is priority.

• REHEARSE!

• The slides are only the illustrations to enforce the statements.

• Practice and be sure that everything works.

• Summary = great take away of information

In addition to this learning, I had watched a TEDx talk by David JP Phillips in which he spoke about avoiding “death by PowerPoint”

https://youtu.be/Iwpi1Lm6dFo

and he explained that slides do not need to have an abundance of information because the audience is there to hear the speaker and not read the slides. He explained that a minimalistic approach with only key information is enough to give a powerful presentation.

Now that I have learned all of this, I have the confidence to make my next presentation spectacular and I undoubtedly have the ability to make a Powerful Point to my audience.

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