One thing you cannot avoid in university life is giving presentations.
Not only in classes, but also in the lab, in seminars, and in club activities, there are many occasions when you have to stand up in front of people and present.
From elementary school through high school, you mostly just sit and listen in class, and there are few chances to give a long presentation. Yet
as soon as you enter university, you are suddenly put in front of an audience again and again.
That said, it is also true that many people around us are bad at presenting, or simply dislike it,
and unfortunately there are plenty of presentations that leave the audience thinking “that was poorly done” or “that was boring.”
So I plan to keep sharing the presentation know-how I have built up during my time at university.
This time, I want to talk about the mindset behind giving a presentation.
A typical trait of people who are bad at presenting is that they give a talk that the audience is made to sit through.
For example:
・spending too long on a single slide
・leaving dead air during the talk
・using too many slides
・failing to make the connections between points clear
and so on.
As a rule, you should assume that the people listening have almost no desire to hear your talk.
Nobody starts out interested in your presentation.
The mood of the audience is like sitting in a school gymnasium listening to the principal talk for thirty minutes.
Few of us listened to those speeches with genuine curiosity every time.
If you give a self-centered talk to an audience with no desire to listen, you may satisfy yourself, but your audience will be bored.
Some people, seeing that the audience looks unengaged, is checking their phones, or is dozing off, will fall into self-loathing and conclude that their presentation was hopeless.
To avoid that, you need to give a talk that people want to listen to.
Presentation techniques matter for this, but what matters most is your own attitude toward the talk.
Once that attitude changes, your presentation will naturally become audience-oriented.
The keys to a talk people want to listen to are:
・be clear about the single most important message of your talk
・keep the presentation simple and minimal
・eliminate anything that you yourself find confusing or distracting
Suppose your talk contains ten points.
If you deliver all ten at the same intensity, nothing will stay with the audience. But if you present just one of them as clearly important, the other points may leave nothing behind while that one will at least stick in their minds.
Narrow down what you want to say, keep it short and to the point, and make it easy to follow.
Aim for a talk that people listen to willingly, not one that forces your views on them.
If you keep that in mind, your presentations will naturally improve.
If you know someone who is a good presenter, ask them all sorts of questions.
If you don’t, watch talks by the people often held up as models, such as Steve Jobs or President Obama.
They can reach a huge audience with words alone.
Their technique is impressive, but above all, they are absolutely clear about what they want to say.