A521.5.5.GA - Projecting your Attitude to the Audience

Based on this week's readings from Whalen, create a Microsoft Word document describing the elements you would integrate into a public presentation. Be sure to list at least five elements and describe how you might integrate them into your narrative. Include the expected effect you believe these elements might have on your audience.
Five things I need to improve on as a public speaker are making sure that I am the focus of attention before I begin, moving around, utilizing turn, touch and tell, learning how to cut down presentations for time and keeping the audience entertained. I usually cut to the chase when I am presenting. I make sure most of the people who are supposed to be in the room are there, that the room is moderately quiet and that most people are not fiddling with their phones. I need to invest more time into reading my audience (Whalen, 2007, p. 170). If I make sure they are aware of what I want them to be doing when I begin, they will try to remain as such throughout.

At times I try to sell too much within a presentation. I really enjoy doing research, and I assume that other people want to hear all of the research that I have discovered, which leads to my presentation usually being longer than I anticipate them to be. However, Denning discusses how explaining processes ARE NOT STORIES (Denning, 2011). In a TIME article on presenting, it was noted that students were most engaged for the first 15 minutes or so of class, after which their attention gradually slacked off (Murphy Paul, 2012). This same article notes that we understand stories better than statistics; we remember them more accurately, and we find them more engaging to listen to in the first place. Therefore, making sure I make presentations concise is key to assuring most of the information is presented in those 15 minutes, and that a real life example is incorporated. Another reason why my presentations are often longer then I presume it's because I do ask a lot of questions and allow for the audience to participate quite often. Sometimes I need to cut them off to keep things moving. During a recent presentation for my resident assistants, I did not anticipate that the audience would have so many experiences to share about their downfalls and communication, and how they want to improve how they communicate. I could have shortened the presentation by skipping through some of my slides or perhaps skipping an activity.

Upon writing a review of my presentation, the director of my department noticed that I did not move around much. Most notably, this was because my back hurt at the time, and the podium was my saving grace. However, I could have addressed that in the beginning of presentation, as my staff usually sees me as someone who is energetic and lively. The future I will use turn, touch and tell while presenting. I don't believe I have ever utilized hand signals in gesturing to the screen when I present, but I do use a lot of movement as I speak, and that may look awkward behind a podium, particularly as someone who is not very tall.

At times I do elaborate on every bullet point. When I realize I am over on time, I tend to simply speak faster instead of choosing the most important bullet point, minimally elaborating, and moving forward. It is possible that I lose people when moving at a quick pace. Also, their attention may drop because I am no longer incorporating their feedback in a rush to finish. 

Finally, I want to make sure that I am keeping my audience entertained while I speak. I like to incorporate pictures, especially memes, videos, activities and discussion questions into my presentations. However, I have realized that I tend to be very excited in the beginning of the presentation, and I start to die as I wind down. I've tired myself out in the first couple of slides just trying to keep people's eyes on me.

My supervisor pointed out in my last presentation that if people start looking like they are distracted or bored, I need to inject a break into my presentation. I think this is a very good idea, because people will come back, hopefully focus going getting through the rest of what I have to say. Sometimes you will just need to move around. As noted in the beginning of Chapter 8, you can only stay on one subject for maximum of 10 seconds poor people's minds will wander (2007, p.169). If they have been sitting for a long time, they will need to stretch and move around before they can take in any more information (2007, p.170).

References

Denning, S. (2011). The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative (Revised and updated edition). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons/Jossey-Bass

Whalen, J.D. (2007). The Professional Communications Toolkit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Murphy Paul, Annie. (2012). How to Get — and Keep — Someone’s Attention. TIME.
 Retrieved at http://ideas.time.com/2012/07/25/how-to-get-and-keep-someones-attention/