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EE97 LecturesSenior Project Design

Fall 2006

Lecture 6Presentation Basics:

How to grab the crowd and hold on to them

10-13-06

Class web site:http://www.ece.tufts.edu/ee/97/

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Project Proposal Grading CriteriaMission – 3 points

What – 1 pointFor whom – 1 pointWhen – 1 point

Problem description – 3 points

Statement – 1 pointValue / reason – 1 pointExpected outcome – 1 point

Theory – 2 pointsHistory – 1 pointCritical items – 1 point

Schedule – 2 pointsTasks – 1 pointMilestones – 1 point

Risks/Contingencies – 2 points

Risks – 1 pointContingencies – 1 point

Bibliography – 1 point

Total – 13 points

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Quote for the Day

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power,

and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”

— James Douglas MorrisonLead singer of The Doors

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The Power of the Human MindI cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulacltyuesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. The

phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnidAoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde

Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihngis taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghitpclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you

can tisll raed it wouthit a porbelm.Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey

lteter by istlef,but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh?

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All You Need To Know

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Conquer The FearFour main reasons people fear public speaking

Looking foolishBeing judgedAppearing boringWasting the listener’s time

The root cause is being self-consciousInternal and self-directed“What will they think of me?”

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Presentation Basics

Delivery

Content

Verbal

VocalVisual

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Presentation Basics

Vocal – 38 %Visual – 55%Verbal – 7%

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Presentation Basics

Message retention after 3 days

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Bullet Points Slides

Source: Wharton Research Center

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Presentation Basics

Percentage of achieving objectives

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10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Bullet Points Slides

Source: Decker Communications

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Presentation Basics

Message Media

MechanicsForm

External Delivery SkillsFunction

Internal Delivery Skills

VoiceBody Mind Heart

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What do I need to know?What do I need to know?What do I need to know?

RehearseThe rule of threeSkills

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Presentation BasicsRehearsing – it could make the difference between a great presentation and mediocre one

On average, rehearse your presentation out loud at least 4 times

Do it in front of an audience you fear -family, friends, partners, colleagues, children

Time yourself against the clock

Memorize the scriptVideo or tape record to prepare and get feedback on your stylePractice and you will get better

Source: Irwin Thompson / DMN Photo Staff

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Presentation BasicsThe rule of three:

How people rememberKnown from AristotlePeople tend to remember lists of three thingsMore memorable (and easy for you learn and remember too!)

StructureStructure your presentation around threes Compose for an introduction, a message, and a conclusionAs you present: stop, look, and listen

Less is MoreSimple, short, savvy

Your audience will remember three things from your presentation…what do you want them to be?

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Presentation BasicsSkills you need:

Overcome the fear of public humiliationVisualize a successful outcomeLearn to breathLearn to speak slowly and diliberatelyLearn to practiceLearn to relax

Anxiety brings on sweat, tension, nervousness, need to urinate

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What do I need to do?What do I need to do?What do I need to do?

AnchorTrianglePlay ItWeight It

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Establish an Anchor

Set an anchor for the audience on the same side as the language is read

For English it is left-to-rightStand on the left side Eye is less distracted, for it glances to read presentation and back to speaker in customary style that information is acquired

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Build a Triangle

Visual

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Triangle Close Up

Visual

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Play the Angle

Power

Rest

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Shift the Weight – Balanced

Both heels are flat on the floor and the weight of the body is balanced, gestures appear stiff and unnatural.

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Shift the Weight – Towards

The nape (base) of the neck typically lines up with the foot when weight shifts. When weight shifts to one foot and the gesture appears more natural.

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Shift the Weight -- Gesture

The gesture is toward the screen but the weight is shifted away from the point of focus. The gesture still appears natural because of the weight shift. Combining gestures links the audience with the visual content.

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Shift the Weight – Reaching Out

Reaching out with one or two hands looks more personal when you shift your weight forward towards the audience

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Criteria

Content (40%)Manner (30%)Coordination (20%)

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Content

Your presentation is to tell us about your project, especially the customer’s unmet need and your compelling solution. Show your passion, enthusiasm, and interest. Include the project decisions you made and why. Tell us about the project goals and how you achieve them. Identify the most intriguing aspects of your project. Explain why you were confident for success.

You need not show us everything, but you should choose a reasonable "path" through the content without the audience getting lost.

Tell us the critical facts presented with passion!

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Manner

Your talk should be presented well. Here are some criteria:

Make eye contact: Do you look at the audience, or just at your notes or even just at the screen? Audiences like it when speakers pay attention to them.

Elocution: Do you speak clearly and loudly enough to be heard in the back? Do you mumble? Do your words tumble out in a rush? Do you use pause words such as "um" and "like" too much?

Demeanor: Do you seem relaxed and confident, or do you fidget or giggle with nervousness? Do you get stiff and frozen?

Pace: Does your talk take the right amount of time, finishing neither too early nor running over (or getting cut off)?

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Coordination

OrganizationDo you and your teammates share the stage well, each getting a chance to speak? Do you make smooth transitions from one to the other? During Questions and Answers: Are your answers well thought out? Are they handled by the team expert? Don’t let one person hog all the stage time. Don’t let one person answer all the questions. Show your teamwork and your knowledge by demonstrating it.

StructureYour talk should have a conventional structure with a beginning, middle and end. At the beginning, you should introduce yourselves, say who you are and what your business is about, and generally prepare your audience for what is to come. The middle is fact based with a passionate delivery. At the end, you should thank the audience for their attention and respond to any questions there may be.

TechnicalYour audience should be unaware of any problems. Don’t present anything negative unless you have a great solution. In short, avoid the land mines.

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Knock 'Em Dead With A Killer Presentation Scott Reeves

NEW YORK - Which would you prefer: death by hanging, an IRS audit or making a presentation to a sharp, knowledgeable audience?

Tough choice.

Speaking to large groups involves learned techniques and practice, practice, practice. If you haven't stepped to the podium, you can. If you have been a featured speaker, you can get better.

"A good presentation is about the topic--not you," says T. Stephen Eggleston, founder of The Eggleston Group in Alexandria, Va., and director of Internet Technology for Kobrand in New York. "Get rid of everything that doesn't contribute to the message."

Tuck away the stomach back-flips and get busy on your presentation. Here's how:

Begin with the obvious: Know your subject. Some speakers overlook this basic point and quickly come unglued during the question-and-answer period. The audience assumes you're an expert with knowledge to impart. As the featured speaker, you should assume that your audience is informed, curious and bursting with pointed questions.

"If a small amount of research will help you, imagine what a moderate amount will do," Eggleston says.

Know your audience. You wouldn't make the same presentation about a new software package to engineers, accountants and top managers. The engineers want to know about the tool's whizzes and whirrs--what it can do for them and why it beats competing products. The accountants want to know what it will cost and how it will save them money. Top management wants to know how it will boost productivity and give the company an edge over the competition. So adjust your pitch as needed.

Develop a theme for your presentation. The topic of discussion may be complex, and its ramifications may not be fully apparent, but you've got to sum it up in a few short sentences. At the beginning of your presentation, you must tell the audience: 1) "You need to know this because...," 2) "Knowing this will help you to..." and 3) "Here's what you need to know..."

After defining the focus of your presentation, you're ready to draft an outline. Remember, you don't want to read a script to the audience because doing so is a snoozer and an insult To connect with

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Seven Things to Remember When Making a Presentation BY GARY STINE

Source: http://www.fiveoclockclub.com/articles/1996/11-96-GaryStine.html

Public Speaking. It's almost everybody's No. 1 fear, exceeding the fear of accidental death or dismemberment. Still, there's probably no better way to establish yourself as an expert or to gain visibility in an organization. You set yourself apart by speaking before groups, just because so many people are intimidated by the idea. But there really is no need to be; you simply need the tools to do the job right. For example, focusing on communicating clearly instead of on trying to "wow 'em" often helps presenters to channel their energies constructively. What's the best defense against the fear of being laughed at? Rigorous research. Doing your homework helps to diminish that kind of fear.

The seven pointers below offer sound advice that will help you deliver more effective presentations with greater confidence.

1. Your Audience Wants You To Do Well.An audience would rather be entertained than bored; they would rather see you do well than see you fail. Perhaps because they, too, have panicked before a group, people in an audience tend to identify with the presenter, putting out a kind of "wave of good will." All you have to do is surf that wave and you will have an enormous advantage over your fears.

2. Your Audience is a Collection of Individuals, Not a Monolithic Thing.The temptation to see your audience as a nameless, faceless wall sets up a situation so intimidating that self-sabotage is practically assured. Fortunately, an audience is not one massive collective consciousness. Each person reacts differently to a presenter.

To help you see your audience as a group of individuals, make eye contact with individual members in the group. Direct individual eye contact neutralizes the audience's ability to intimidate you.

People who have no trouble speaking to one person can go to pieces talking to a group. It might be useful to view the presentation as a series of "simultaneous one-on-ones."

3. Direct Eye Contact Provides Both Reassurance and Needed Information.Making frequent direct eye contact with audience members lets them see that their attention matters to you. They will invariablyrepay this with like attention. Making real eye contact with the audience also lets the presenter see whether or not they are understanding the information being presented. If comprehension doesn't show in the eyes of the audience, the presenter can adjust the message. If the presenter avoids their eyes, the audience instantly senses fear. Their attention--and the presenter's credibility--evaporate.

4. Your Script is a Departure Point. You Are Only a Vessel for the Information You Are Delivering.If you memorize a script word-for-word and expect it to retain any feeling of real life, you--and your audience--will be disappointed. Audiences are impatient with memorized scripts. Memorization drains the life out of your presentation and prevents the audience from feeling like they know you. This feeling of "knowing you" is what makes an audience like and consequently trust you. If the audience likes and trusts you--which can happen only if they have a sense of the life passing through you--they will listen to you. A speech memorized word-for-word sends the message that you are not alive.

Having complete familiarity with and an emotional connection to your material puts your attention and energy where it belongs. Add the need to have the audience receive and understand your material, and you won't have time to think about what your hands are

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Making a Presentation? Avoid These Four Classic Errorsby Charles R. McConnell

http://www.nfib.com/object/4131722.html

An elected state official spoke about the need to reform the state's workers' compensation system at a recent gathering of business people. But rather than worker's compensation, the speaker consistently and repeatedly called it workmen's compensation. In private conversations after the presentation it was evident that the speaker's use of an archaic and inherently sexist label registered more prominently with some of the audience than did his ideas. As one listener said, "All I could hear was men's, men's; hasn't he wised up to the fact that women are workers too?" Several others noted the same reaction, and a number of people who picked up on it remembered this labeling error better than they recalled any of the speaker's ideas for reforming the system.

In one concise phrase -- workmen's compensation -- the speaker from state government committed two of the four significant speaking errors that can derail a presentation to the extent that many in the audience hear the error while missing a large part of the message. Anyone who has occasion to give a presentation, say at a sales meeting, conference or convention, would do well to avoid the four fundamental errors that can obscure the message. These errors are:

The use of incorrect terminology (as in workmen's rather than workers');

Sexist language (same example);

Incorrect or careless use of names of people, places and occupations;

Deliberately trying to be funny.

Perhaps the use of workmen's instead of workers' spoke of a degree of carelessness on the part of the speaker. But whether carelessness or ignorance, such an obvious error that resounds with a number of people at the same time is certainly not going to do any good for the listeners' regard for the speaker's intellect. Some might indeed think: is this person this thoughtless in other ways as well?

The matter of sexist language is one we might think should no longer present problems. Nevertheless, it continues to raise barriers to understanding in both speech and writing. Long gone are the days when one can take refuge in the use of the male term as a generic "understood" to encompass all people. In most instances the continued use of sexist language in both speech and writing is no more or less than laziness in communication; however, more often than not it is taken as an affront that is certain to alienate a portion of any audience.

Surely everyone has seen one of the television bits in which a musician or comedian, receiving enthusiastic cheers and getting wild applause, says something like: "Thank you, thank you! It's great to be back here in lovely Cincinnati!" The crowd goes from happy enthusiasm to silent hostility in the blink of an eye; it seems the entertainer is actually in Cleveland, not Cincinnati. The incorrect or careless use of names of places, people and occupations is another sure-fire turnoff for members of an audience. It may not be common to make a slip as obvious as confusing Cincinnati with Cleveland, but if you introduce Mr. Henderson as Mr. Anderson it'sgoing to be noticed, and not fondly.

People in any audience will be sensitive to the names of people they consider "theirs," and they will be sensitive to the use ofoccupation titles in which they have a proprietary interest. In one particular presentation at a professional conference a speaker managed to irritate several listeners by referring to pharmacists as "druggists." And one might discover that referring to accountants, even in good humor, as "bean counters" will alienate some of the accountants in the audience. Best by far to be up on all applicable names and titles before speaking.

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Finally…Seniors are not always believed because of suspected senility. .....

Andy and Sally were celebrating their sixtieth anniversary. The couple had married as childhood sweethearts and had moved back to their old neighborhood after they retired.

Holding hands they walked back to their old school. It was not locked, so they entered, and found the old desk they'd shared, where Andy had carved "I love you, Sally."

On their way back home, a bag of money fell out of an armored car, practically landing at their feet. Sally quickly picked it up, but not sure what to do with it, they took it home. There, she counted the money—and it's fifty-thousand dollars.

Andy said, "We've got to give it back." Sally said, "Finders keepers." She put the money back in the bag and hid it in their attic.

The next day, two FBI men were canvassing the neighborhood looking for the money, and knocked on the door.

"Pardon me, but did either of you find a bag that fell out of an armored car yesterday?"

Sally said, "No."

Andy said, "She's lying. She hid it up in the attic."

Sally said, "Don't believe him, he's getting senile."

The agents turned to Andy and began to question him. One says: "Tell us the story from the beginning."

Andy said, "Well, when Sally and I were walking home from school yesterday ... . “

The first FBI guy turns to his partner and says, "We're outta here."