Presenting as a geek

Presentations can be a hard thing for anyone let alone geeks. Dozens of studies already show that giving a presentation is something that can almost naturally be one of the most uncomfortable experiences we ever take.

One example is this study.  Self consciousnesses, fear of appearing nervous, past failures, dissatisfaction, and even narcissism-oh my! These are just a couple of the things that can be the beginning of the end for the professional side of an essay. What I’m going to talk about is another point the article had, poor-preparation. This is one of the prime things that will destroy your presentation. I went over this in many of my classes time and time again. Poor preparation will only make everything worse, you cannot just “wing-it”. For a geek, winging it means you do nothing to prepare for the type of crowd your going to speak to, you do not research what it would mean to speak to people who think differently than you, heck maybe you don’t even fully research for what you are presenting.  In big business, a Geek cant spend to long talking about the ram or processing system’s processes. Business people are looking for the why’s and how’s concerning business; they will want to know how the product will increase sales or revenue. Here is how to properly do this, mattering on your goal: Influence Decisions; you have to tell a decisions maker not how your preferred decisions will make you more comfortable as a technical person, but how it will make the business more comfortable. Help the manager understand the trade-offs in a way that will benefit them. Manage Expectations and Share Status; you want them to understand your project, research and understand where their mindset is concerning your project. See where you need to direct them, then share only what they need to know (and would like to hear) on your project. Leverage Opportunities; you want people to focus attention to your project. Again, tell them what they can understand, and what they will want to hear. Leverage Technology; You want the user(s) to use some sort of technology effectively. This is pretty much a tutorial, you have to break it down in a way that is not insulting. Be simple and to the point about how doing it a certain way will help the user and every one around them more.

Pretty much, When you’re trying to help someone understand technology, don’t assume they know.

I wanted to talk about this video briefly because I agreed with all but one points in this video and the book. on page 261, the book tells you to be yourself when evoking resonance. I agree that we must not be robotic. We have to let our emotions show to captivate the crowd, but we also should avoid being ourselves too much, or resonating too much emotion. A good example is this video, I didn’t share at the time of presentation, but this woman annoyed me. She was too ecstatic and her self-voice-modulation actually took me away from her message.  Being ourselves will encourage us to do things that we would comfortably do around friends, getting to desperate to show emotion or your excitement for a product will make the crowd lose you as they are taken back by your familiar nature. Many business presentations are done with people we are not close with.

All this is the advice I have to give about properly giving a presentation. The idea is to allow our emotion out but not enough so we forget that we need to change up our way of presenting towards business people. For the sake of a successful presentation.