Building presentations, from the ground up – part 2

03 Dec

Posted by Scott as presentations, tips

You’ll remember part 1 of this post, in which I talked about how Aaron and I go about creating presentations — from idea to proposal to elaboration to scripting and creating the slides.

In this part, I’ll discuss how Aaron and I get ready to give a presentation, how we actually deliver one, and what happens afterwards.

Rehearsals

We don’t do a whole heck of a lot of that, to be honest. Aaron and I will maybe have one or two run throughs of the presentation. More often than not, though, we learn the script and are already comfortable with the subject matter (thanks to all the research and writing that we’ve done) that we can get away with minimal rehearsal time.

We’ve found that rehearsing too much makes us sound a bit stiff. By knowing the material, we can still follow a distinct flow while at the same time keeping the tone conversational and (we hope) interesting.

Giving the presentation

A presentation is less us talking and more trying to engage and interact with the audience. The audience is important. As musician Robert Fripp pointed out The perception of the audience is the interesting part. And the audience has opinions and ideas and knowledge that are just as valid as what Aaron and I have to say.

With that in mind, we ask questions. We encourage the audience to ask questions and make comments. Sometimes, the people to whom we’re speaking come up with something thought provoking and we go off on that tangent for a bit.

As for delivery, during team presentations Aaron and I take part in (what Anne Gentle kindly referred to as) an engaging little back-and-forth dialog. Part of the reason for that is just the way we work; it developed all on its own. And part of it is that if one of us slips and goes blank momentarily, the other can pick up the slack.

And, yes, we do flub or go blank. We laugh at it, too. That’s part of the fun. I’m sure that the audience enjoys it as well!

Presenting solo is a bit more of a challenge. We don’t do that often, but when the time comes we really have to keep on our toes. The crutch that we know we can rely on isn’t there, and we can’t flip attention back and forth between each other or give the other person a break. All the attention of the audience is focused on the one presenter. It can be stressful, and can take a little longer to get into that groove.

But I don’t think Aaron and I have crashed and burned (at least, not too badly) presenting either solo or together.

Post mortem

No matter what we do, no matter how well prepared we are, Aaron and I know that we’re going to make a few mistakes during a presentation. Mistakes beyond a flubbed word, or an I can’t believe that I said that! moment. Maybe one section of the presentation left the audience a bit flat. Maybe one or both of us belabored a point. Maybe we stated the obvious. Yes, you do know when all of that happens!

Usually, we have a post mortem shortly after giving a presentation. We point out what went wrong, and how to fix it. We also look at what went right and how to improve that. On my side, at least, I’m very critical of my performance. Maybe too much so. But, as Wynton Marsalis said, the humble improve.

Mixing things up

I can’t say that we always follow that flow. When developing my last presentation, I created the outline and then built the slides. From the slides and the outline came the script, which I was actually tweaking the day before the presentation! Overall, though, that process worked. At least for that particular presentation.

Why mix things up? Sometimes, it just seems like a good idea. And, again, it takes us out of our comfort zone and forces us to adapt to a new way of doing things. It’s all a matter of giving ourselves a new challenge.

Final thoughts

Aaron and I seem to approach developing a presentation in a way that’s similar to the way in which we write. A lot of planning, a lot of research, a lot of trimming and adding. We definitely try to be as informal and informative as possible.

In the end, though, the presentations that Aaron and I give are a learning experience. As much for us as for the people who come to listen.