On Monday the 11th of April 2011 at 1.07 pm, Yu Tian, Adeline, Paula and myself delivered an oral presentation on our proposal for the enhancement of present social cohesion programmes. It is on this presentation that I now reflect and for which I solicit commentary.
I am particularly satisfied with the delivery of our presentation, as I am of the opinion that the team, myself included, exuded calm, confidence and professionalism in executing our pièce de résistance. It was also most gratifying to hear from our audience that our performance was adequately persuasive as it was the progeny of much preparation and rehearsal.
Our slides’ best feature was perhaps the “less is more” philosophy that went into their crafting. Bearing in mind that a picture speaks a thousand words, our slides were filled with impactful and relevant pictures but few words. The intended and accomplished result being to focus the audience’s attention on the presenter instead of the screen.
The arguments put forth were also simultaneously presented with supporting statistics and evidence from our primary and secondary research, which accorded them added credibility and contributed to our level of convincingness.
My only lament was that the possibly too minimalist nature of the slides, while easy to digest, left something to be desired in the way of completeness of content. The presence of a text-heavy slide covered in diagrams ever so occasionally, while slightly intimidating to behold, can be a necessary evil in attempting to fully educate one’s audience.
Hi Isaac,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that your minimalist slides worked to your advantage. I felt that we absolutely understand what all of you were trying to present to us despite the 'lack of slide content'. Perhaps, when giving a lecture, text-heavy slides are a necessary evil because we need those for revision purposes. However, for this presentation, I felt that it was fine the way it was.
One thing though, I felt that your clicking action was distracting. You could have clicked more discretely. In addition, it would have helped if you did not turn to look at your slides so frequently. It made it seem like you were not confident of what you were presenting.
By the way, I think you should ditch your gloves. Singapore is not experiencing winter. Also, while the black long-sleeved t-shirt is a tad bit more formal than your usual getup, it still does not look professional enough for a presentation.
I wish you all the best in your future presentations.
Oh wow, you are such a cool person Isaac!
ReplyDeleteI regretted not turning up specially for your presentation, knowing how good you can write and presumably speak and present as well! There is not much for me to comment on because I hadn't seen your presentation, but you said you were calm, confident and professional all throughout the way, and so I take that in faith!
With you, nobody, teacher or coursemate should worry about, because you certainly have all the rhetorical gifts to work your audience, as seen with your writing.
As for a picture speaks a thousand words, depends on which thousand words replaced. Sometimes with the wrong picture, it takes a thousand words instead, so it is important to make use of appropriate and relevant pictures.
Personally, minimalist is fine, and pictures should outstandingly be enough to convey your message or story to your audience. Don't for once feel any text is needed, because you can dictate it with your voice, words, your world class linguistic expression, and storytelling, and that would be far better and more effective than words on a screen. Don't doubt yourself, stay with the minimalist, in fact, be all minimalist: use only the power and creativity of text that comes out of between your jaw bones, and you would be exemplary!!!
Cheers
P.S. Sorry Brad, Isaac's a little different as you know, so I had to give my comment in 'better' language standards than I promised.
Hey Isaac!
ReplyDeleteYes you were really calm and confident! It was very obvious that your group prepared really well for this presentation!
You were fluent and knew your material well, so you were able to speak cleanly and clearly to the audience, though I thought you were slightly monotonous at times because your sentences had very few breaks. But otherwise I thought you were good. Your posture, towards the end, became a little shaky and yes I don't really understand the use of your gloves and it tend to be quite distracting.
It was the first time I ever saw you in black and well, as long as you were wearing long pants and shoes I thought that would be considered fine for me. Thanks Isaac, for an otherwise really professional presentation! =)
Well I don't know about anyone else but I LOVED the gloves. Without them your hands would just look naked. And nobody wants to look at naked hands. I'm totally wearing gloves the next time.
ReplyDeleteAnyways Isaac I think you did a great job. It was clear and to-the-point. Very convincing.
Like Jac said you can be a little monotonous but given that the content was actually quite interesting I didn't think it was a major problem.
Hey Issac,
ReplyDeleteI think the slides were really good, the pictures literally did say a million words. They were easy to understand yet not too distracting so good job on that.
You were clear and very much in control of the content and easy to understand. But as mentioned earlier you were a bit monotonous and initially seemed quite unenthusiastic or even a little bored but did not last for very long.
Overall it was a great presentation.
Cheers
Yes Uttara, I too find the inability to convey positivity and enthusiasm to be a down side of lacking human emotion. However, it does confer immunity from anxiety.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your appreciation of my gloves, Faizal. I wore them to avoid leaving fingerprints behind and also to channel my professional alter. I find that wearing gloves and speaking in Latin to myself helps focus my mind.
ReplyDeleteHey Issac,
ReplyDeleteI really liked the way you gave very critical thought to existing issues and they offered a fresh new perspective to the problems described. Your presentation was certainly intellectual and enlightening.
However, I think that you've attempted to cover too much ground and hence your switching of slides was too fast and the audience had insufficient time to read the slides.
Like what Michelle said, holding up your hand and clicking was really distracting. Perhaps in future presentations you can consider clicking more discretely.
I appreciate the way your slides were designed to have less words and more pictures. However, on certain occasions some pictures were quite irrelevant and do not add value or understanding to the presentation slides and were hence distractions.
I applaud your through answering of questions during Q&A. However, I thought you could have been more direct and concise at answering because sometimes I wondered whether what you replied was answering to the question posed. It was only at the end that there was the eureka moment - but that was several minutes into your explanation already.
Hi Isaac,
ReplyDeleteAs I've already commented to you, I was really impressed by the clarity and the pin-point accuracy in which you delivered your presentation. It can be exemplified by how you described current methods of encouraging racial harmony as top down, and what is needed as a bottom up approach.
What I think could be improved is the dress code of yours. It would be better if you would invest in a button up shirt, which would make you look more presentable as a presentable. Other than this,presentation wise,you are in my opinion, quite impeccable.
Do teach us simpler ways to keep our nerves out of the way. If I were to recite Latin in my head, it would probably sound like this: Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, Enterococcus.. etc. And these would surely provide the opposite of the intended effects.
Overall, superb superb presentation. I'm sold.
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ReplyDeleteWhen I started reading the first paragraph of your blog post, I thought of a crime scene investigation that was dated 11 April 2011(: I guess this is the result of watching too many “CSIs”.
ReplyDeleteI must say I really enjoyed your group’s presentation as it was very convincing and appealing, especially to a future teacher like me. I would definitely consider your group’s proposal as I believe that such programmes would reap much benefit for Singapore’s future.
For your presentation, I especially value your calm and collected nature which exudes much confidence. Moreover, you made good eye contact and it was clear that you had a good grasp of the content. You paced yourself really well and maintained a good posture. However, as Michelle mentioned, the clicking of the remote control at the screen was very distracting. Moreover, I felt that you could have varied your tone to emphasize certain words, as much of your presentation was rather monotonous, making it boring at times. Your slides were a little too wordy, making it hard to read through all of them while listening to your presentation. Besides, like Edwin suggested, you could have considered dressing more formally instead of wearing a black t-shirt, since the dress code was stated as smart casual. Furthermore, I personally felt that your sense of humour did not cater to the audience. At the same time, you could have been more courteous, instead of saying “what all Singaporeans complain about”, “usually delete their mailbox” and “xenophobia”-all having a negative connotation, you could have presented it in a more considerate manner, although what you have said might be true.
Overall, it was an outstanding presentation from you as I really enjoyed the confidence you exude during your presentation.
Cheers!
“Job well done!” These words rang through my head as I witness your performance. Even though I am only able to have a short one-to-one rehearsal with you due to time constrain, you did exceptionally well despite lacking rehearsal with the rest of the team.
ReplyDeleteYou style is clean and straight to the point. That’s the reason I placed you to cover the background. I am impressed with your ability to remember that amount of statistical facts. This ability is truly an asset to any team.
I will be going shopping on the coming holidays, you want to come along? G2000 has sales from time to time and formal clothes can go as low as $27.
Hey Issac,
ReplyDeleteI personally felt that your presentation skills have shown great improvement since the peer teaching. And I was impressed with the fact that] you had an excellent grasp of the content, you were practically in control of it and you exuded great confidence.
However, similar to what others have mentioned, I felt the way you used the remote was really distracting. For some reason, the clicking sound was phenomenally loud and the flicking motion was excessive.
Nevertheless, I still feel that you did a great job. All the best for your future presentations!