Vishal Kotcherlakota
I didn't feel comfortable in front of everyone.
I got feedback that I was "too technical".
I didn't have enough time to share my ideas.
Presenting is your secret weapon.
It will make you more persuasive.
It will get you noticed (in a good way).
...and it's how you'll get your own startup off the ground one day. :)
No course will make you enjoy public speaking.
But, hopefully, today you will learn about tools that will make you more effective at it.
Overlook any of these three, and your presentation won't be as effective as it should be.
Audience | Story | Delivery
What are the use cases for your presentation?
How can you meet those use cases?
What sort of backgound do they have?
The goal of presenting is to inform and persuade.
Who are you trying to inform?
Who are you trying to persuade?
It's important to keep your audience focused and on-track.
When there are mixed audiences, focus on the people who will benefit most.
Use a "plant". Have an informed audience member that can help you deflect questions or manage discussion.
Knowing your audience is crucial. It can drastically change what you're planning on doing.
Put in the work ahead of time to manage your audience. It will make your presentation more impactful.
If you don't know who they are, why should they be listening to you anyway?
Audience | Story | Delivery
“If you don’t know what you want to achieve in your presentation your audience never will.” - Harvey Diamond
This is a deceptively simple question, especially for engineers.
It's vast and it's got many different facets to it.
It's hard to comprehend without any context.
Your job is to plot a course across for your audience.
Different people have different depths of understanding.
You already know your audience. What's their depth? What do they really need to know?
People are most likely to understand your solution in the context of the problems it solves.
A great tool for making your topic relatable is identifying "the pain".
"The pain" has many forms, but it often translates to lost money and/or time.
What is the issue? What are its impacts?
Is there a solution? How well does it work?
You can overwhelm your audience with the details.
Find the right depth that fits your audience.
Identifying "the pain" your solution eases is a great tool for finding that depth.
Audience | Story | Delivery
“There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.” – Dale Carnegie
Practice is important, but it can only get you so far. It's really easy to sound like a rehearsed parrot.
What you might need is a paradigm shift.
You're having a conversation.
Conversations are much less stressful (after all, you have them every day).
They imply a dialogue between you and the audience.
They allow for a great deal of flexibility.
People think in terms of stories, not facts.
The easiest way to start into a conversation is to tell a relatable story.
Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice is what you need to practice.
A conversational style of presenting will make you more dynamic and engaging.
Use relatable stories as a tool for bringing your audience in and engaging them with your topic.
Use practice to focus on your delivery instead of memorizing your presentation.
“No one ever complains about a speech being too short!” – Ira Hayes
A framework for thinking about presentations--audience, story, delivery.
Audience: who are they and what do they care about?
Story: Finding the right technical depth.
Delivery: Reframing your presentations as conversations.