Week 9 – 19th – 26/11/21 | Creative Entrepreneurship | Pitching & Presenting

Pitching & Presenting

The worst thing about presenting ( apart from all of it), is that people literally have to stare at you and listen whilst you try not to say something stupid and then spend the rest of the year cringing about it. This week we talked about how where the audience is situated makes a difference to the pressure that can be felt as a speaker. If the audience is scattered and further away it can add the pressure of trying to project your voice on top of having to recall your talk. However, if they are scattered you can pretend you are talking to each person but really just make eye contact with empty chairs and no one will know the difference.

 

When pitching, sticking to your time limit and speaking in plain English are a must. It is respectful to your audience and anyone speaking after you, to not take up more of their time than necessary. There is nothing worse than planning to be somewhere and someone talking a lot longer than they should – although a minute or so is within reason. Unnecessary jargon to sound smart will just baffle your audience. Plain English will allow your audience to interpret what you say without extra brainpower required – it sounds obvious but we’ve all thrown in a big word to sound smart in the past. Being succinct  is key.

Whether it’s Google Slides or Powerpoint, slide shows have stood the test of time. Why? Because they allow for visual and text content to be easily digested by viewers without bombarding them with an overload of information. Provided they are used correctly.

(uncle Ben- Spiderman, not the rice)

Do’s and Dont’s of a Slide Presentation

Simple is best. Remember the old websites from the 90′ that has pop up ads and 20 typefaces and zero colour scheme :

 

So this is what a slide should not resemble. Typography is half of your content, so font choices are important Pairing fonts with sites such as www.fontpair.co as well as Google fonts or Adobe can make all the difference between a listener and a daydreamer in the audience. Crazy fonts and crazy transitions suggest your content is lacking so much that you had to distract from it. The same can be said for overuse of video content, the audience came to hear you speak – not Youtube. The art of storytelling with the use of slides should cause the most amount of impact with the least amount of content. As a speaker, our research should do the talking and the slides are there as a visual aid and a reminder for what we already know.

  • Bullet points separate the text content for the viewer and allow their eyes to flow along with the screen, without them it can cause confusion and more tie spent reading than listening. As well as this, a multitude of slides is more of a distraction than an aid. Constantly clicking quickly through slides will ensure your audience loses focus and/or lose interest. There is only so much content someone can digest in a period of time. Checking to spell is by far the most obvious but most overlooked factor of a presentation – something I have been guilty of. Adding a plugin such as Grammarly or getting someone to check your work is the best approach t0 this potential problem.

Making sure content is aligned can mean the difference between a good and bead slide show, as designers, we should do this instinctively. It looks cleaner and more professional, whilst also ensuring legibility. Choosing a theme related to your subject is a good starting point as well as sketching out the main points you want to talk about and how that might look before investing time on screen. This structure will make putting together a slide presentation a more efficient process. Being prepared by handing out reading materials beforehand can save time wasting as well as ensuring all the technology you require is in working order e.g pointer, laptop, etc. A backup of your slideshow is good practice just in case something goes wrong with the original. But most importantly, practice makes perfect. Practice timing, practice in front of a few friends or family – or a dog will do. Just practice!

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