I need a nurse, I have a student who has passed out

I woke up in a heap of papers over hearing my social studies teacher calling for help. I was in the 9th grade and in the middle of a group presentation. I don’t recall being nervous, and at the time didn’t have a fear of public speaking. None the less, I passed out in front of my class, and so began my experiences in public speaking.

Fortunately, my first experience in the ninth grade was my worst experience. I’ve done lots of presentations since then and managed to stay on my feet and alert the entire time. But that isn’t because presenting became easier. Presenting information, especially analytical or data driven presentations is hard!

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Recently, I was fortunate to attend a talk by Jay Phinizy, who operates modernslide. Jay is passionate about making presentations beautiful and gave a brief history of ‘the slide deck’. The slide deck, alarmingly, has not changed since it’s first iteration in 1987! Why?

Jay argues that the human condition could be to blame. It’s easier to download your thoughts, put them on bullet points and read them to your audience, than it is to creatively present information. But creatively presenting information doesn’t have to be hard! When it comes time for my next presentation, I’m going to implement a few of his suggestions.

First, I’m going to ask Santa for a gimble so I can take awesome videos with my smartphone. Jay advises that videos are an awesome way to bring your presentation to life. A quick video of you developing code or working with your team can be a great way to convey the hard work you put into the subject you are presenting.

Second, I learned about a technique called ‘mirroring’. This technique involves saying the words as they appear on the screne. This creates maximum impact as the audience hears and reads the point simultaneously.

Finally, I plan on bringing energy and excitement to my presentations. Jay showed some awesome examples from Apple conferences. These examples highlighted the presenter being enthusiastic and using powerful adjectives throughout.

Be sure to checkout the site, I’m sure you will find modernslide as useful as I do. Done correctly, I hope it will be my audience feeling faint instead of me!