Presentation tips

This week, I found myself presenting to Faculty groups four different times. I also saw a lot of other people present, while I was waiting for my turn. We were presenting to groups that had generally been in long meetings - a half-day or a full-day - and were just seeing one presentation after another. So it was pretty easy just to make their eyes glaze over, which I did at least once! Here are some tips I got from this week's marathon presentation sessions.

Don't use Powerpoint!

Seriously, don't. People hate Powerpoint. And Prezi is no better. If you have things to say, just say them. Don't put them on a slide and project them, and then either read or reiterate them. If you want people to have a takeaway, do a handout. There is one exception. If you have images that are relevant to your topic, show them on a screen. For example, our Vice President for Campus Planning showed lots of campus maps and images of buildings that are in the works. So his main content was spoken, but augmented with images that brought it to life. And it was excellent - nobody glazed over during that. So I guess I'll amend my tip to don't use slides with just words on them.

Practice

When people are going to take their time to hear you speak, you should take the time to prepare. Especially if you're going to follow my last piece of advice and use few or no slides. You're essentially giving a speech. So practice. Give your speech over and over again. My family heard my presentations repeatedly during the week. I got all my tripping-over-words out of the way with them. You can also time yourself during practice. If you're given 10 minutes in a day long event, you should honor that. The only way you know if your speech stays within the 10 minutes is by speaking it. On a similar note, when I was interviewing to be CIO, I practiced my presentations repeatedly with my family. As a result, I am pretty sure my 18-year-old daughter can nail any CIO interview question!

Don't hide behind the lectern

In fact, don't stand back there at all. That thing is a barrier between you and the audience. Pick up the mike, if you need it, and come out from back there. If possible, walk around and mingle with the audience. In one of my presentations, people were sitting at round tables of 8 or 10 people. When I got a question from a table, I walked over to it and listened to the question and answered from there. It felt much more interactive and almost like a conversation. And nobody's eyes glazed over.

Be sincere

This is pretty obvious, I guess, but only say things that are true and that you believe in. And say them with conviction. It'll come across.

Think about your appearance

It's important to feel comfortable. So think about wearing something that feels comfortable, but that you also feel is appropriate for the setting. You don't want to be up there worrying about how you look. That might drive you behind the lectern! You also don't want to feel physically uncomfortable, as that will totally distract you. For me, the challenge is footwear. I need to find comfortable shoes that look professional. So give your dress some thought well in advance. Since I had four presentations this week, I actually planned my wardrobe out the weekend before so I didn't have to think about it and could instead focus on my content.

Don't be afraid to use a gimmick

Okay, I actually have some reservations about this one. But if you have a very dry topic, it can be hard to hold the audience's attention, especially if you follow something a little splashier. One of my fellow presenters told me that he would have a moment in the presentation that nobody would forget. So I stayed around to watch his presentation. It was a pretty dry topic, about testing and evaluating students. However, he pointed out that in the music department, students might be tested by being asked to sing. He then called on a music faculty member who actually sang a snippet of an aria on the spot! If anyone had glazed over, they snapped out of it. It was a little gimmicky, but it was appropriate for the topic, and it illustrated that not all testing and evaluation is the same. So be a little careful with this! Make sure that it's relevant to the topic, and it can really work.

Taking responsibility, quickly and publicly

This week I had a learning moment that I'd like to reflect on. I'm particularly proud of the way one of my managers handled a problem that I learned from and that I'd like to share.

It all started late on Wednesday afternoon when I received a call from the campus legal counsel. Now usually, when a story starts with a call from legal counsel, that's a bad thing, and this certainly started badly. It appeared that a student had sent a message to all faculty on campus. The content of the message was inappropriate, although not in any sort of salacious way, but enough to generate some excitement. Since our email lists are moderated, we needed to figure out what had happened. Perhaps the student had broken into one of our systems? Impersonated one of our admins? Of course, it turns out to be much more simple than that. The student had followed process and requested that the message be sent to all faculty, a request that should have been denied, and one of my managers inadvertently approved it. Simple human error. Tons of drama.

So what did my manager do? He immediately contacted me and told me what had happened. He took full responsibility. No excuses. Didn't talk about how busy he is, or how bad the user interface is. He just said, I screwed up. He also noted the irony that he trains people on this interface and he routinely stresses to them to be eextremely careful and cautious, and then he didn't follow his own advice. And he told me that he learned that he needs to be careful and cautious too. He took full responsibility and he learned from it.

I was extremely impressed with his professionalism and his honesty and I told him so. You get a lot of credit for being honest, and a lot of respect. So I took his lesson and immediately applied it. I sent an email to the faculty, acknowledging the mistake and apologizing for it, within 24 hours of the initial email. I received several emails back from faculty thanking me for my honesty and leadership. I owned up to a mistake, something that doesn't happened that much, and I earned respect as a result. All in a days work.