Reviewing the video recording for our oral presentation 2, I realized that albeit there were significant improvements over the previous presentation and commendable job delivered by my teammates, I felt I still had a bit of ground to cover on a personal front.
Our group’s presentation was aimed at “Deploying an Integrated SMS Ordering System at Techno Edge”. Though we had sufficient and appropriate content, I feel the delivery was not up to the expected standards.
Nervousness is one thing that has haunted me during all my public speaking junctures. Minutes preceding this presentation, I was nervous but I believe I managed to not let my nervousness dictate my performance during the presentation. This time I did not stumble upon my words though there is still a room for improvement.
At various points of the presentation I noticed myself looking back at the screen and glancing over the cue cards I was using. Though referring back to the screen was not an issue as my part involved statistics, I felt that the cue-cards were uncalled for. After watching the video I realized I referred more to the screen than to the cue cards, deeming them unnecessary. At some points I found myself holding the cue cards in an odd manner, which might have distracted the audience. Perhaps more rehearsals would have allowed me to work on that.
One aspect where I noticed a considerable improvement was the body language. I maintained a considerable amount of eye contact with the audience. Unnecessary use of hand gestures was cut down and I appeared much more confident than my previous presentations.
Overall I feel it was a presentation well executed by our team. Certain issues need to be addressed and a couple of skills need to be brushed up. Hope to bring out the improvisations in the future.
7 comments:
Hi Saurabh,
In my opinion, you did a good job. Actually, I didn’t notice the fact that you were nervous all along. I think for the most part, your presentation went smoothly.
My conviction is that there is nothing wrong in referring to the slides oftentimes for your part. Your content was mainly dealing with statistics and explaining the results. It was important to direct the focus and attention of the audience to the screen which contained very valuable data that were gathered. If I may mention informally, perhaps it could be a way of telling the audience that, “Hey, stop staring at my face for a moment. The pie charts on the screen are more important than how I look like.” :)
Not enough practice? I think you must have forgotten how many times we did rehearsals and practices for this presentation. Hahas. Anyway, maybe you thought that you could have practiced more at your own pace and time. Nevertheless, all in all, I would like to commend you, teammates, for investing your time and effort to drop by on different days and times so that we could practice together (even if it meant sneaking into some tutorial/laboratory rooms and doing it in front of strangers while using the projector, which felt quite awkward. Hahas.)
All the best for Oral Defense! =)
Regards,
Paul
Hi Saurabh !
Interestingly , I have to disagree with you on most points as I believe you had put up a very concise and impactful oral presentation. Not only were you engaging and clear, you also appeared confident and professional.
Firstly, you did not come across as nervous nor were you speaking at a blindingly fast pace. You enunciated all your points clearly and was very impactful in the way you delivered them. You achieved all that by making good use of stress and gestures.
Secondly, I felt that although some of the materials you were presenting were quite dry, you managed to retain my attention ( as well the audience) by presenting in a loud and confident tone. It could be difficult to come across as a confident speaker without being excessive but you achieved that.
Lastly, I do believe in time , you would realize that you are actually quite an effective presenter. With more experience, you definitely would be a very competent speaker.
Best Regards,
Khairul
Hello Saurabh!
I'd like to congratulate you and your group on having a good presentation! I thought the idea was quite viable and should be expanded on in the future.
Same as most of the people, I thought nervousness was basically one of the main factors that affected our performance. However, I do not remember you being too nervous when you were presenting. You covered the survey results and statistics well and also emphasized on the important points.
Honestly, I feel that the time allocated to a person should not be that big a deal. It should just be a guideline to follow to make sure that the presentation will not be too long and draggy. As long as you have brought your point across in a simple and concise manner(the 7Cs!), it should be fine.
Once again, I feel that each presentation should be taken as a practice and a lesson for us to improve in the future!
Cheers
Qinxian
Hi Saurabh,
In my opinion I think that you did an excellent job and your performance has surely boosted the team’s performance. I was surprised to see from your post that you were a bit nervous during the presentation but I am sure that you weren’t as you had lot and lot of confidence instilled in yourself.
Though both of our parts were dry, I thought your performance was far far better than mine as you had a very good eye contact with the audience and the pace you used for your presentation was excellent as your message was clearly understood by the audience and thereby it was an excellent communication.
I don’t think looking at the screen and using cue cards seems to be a problem especially with our part viz. explaining the survey as our part is more of statistics and it is difficult to memorize them.
I personally felt that you were able to attract the whole lot of audience with your confident tone and I hope that you continue to do this in the future too.
Overall, A clear and concise presentation from you and I wish you all the best for your Oral defense !!!
Regards,
Santhosh
Hey Saurabh,
Congrats on doing an excellent job! I must say that you appeared and sounded well rehearsed and looked really professional especially shown by your confident body language.
Initially, I could hear the nervousness in your voice when you first started out with your part and it surprised me quite a bit as, in my opinion, you seemed really comfortable speaking to the audience in OP1. However, the signs disappeared in a short while and I was glad that you continued to give an enthusiastic and engaging speech! The variations in your tone kept your part engaging although you had to present the statistics to us and I thought that it was quite natural for you to face the screen as you pointed out the statistics. To me, it did not seem to affect your performance at all.
I agree with you that more rehearsals will indeed help to hone your presentation skills. I also believe that you will improve even further for the next presentation! All the best for Oral Defense!
Regards,
Win Yee
Hi Saurabh,
I think we did a pretty good job in our presentation, though there were a few things we could have improved on. I didn't get the impression that you were nervous at all, especially when you were speaking.
Its good thing that you referred to your slides occasionally rather than rely on the cue cards. I think for our entire group, the cue cards were not really a good idea since they became distractions for all of us and since we didn't really need them.
I can understand why you think you should have slowed down - but since you were presenting the statistics, there probably wasn't all that much more that you could have said. As it was, you presented the information with clarity and coherence. I think one of the biggest differences between this presentation and the oral presentation 1 was that this around, we were presenting something that was not designed and created by us - unlike our own code in oral presentation 1. This made us a tiny bit more unsure of ourselves and thus made this presentation seem more intimidating. This probably will not be an issue for the oral defense.
I agree with you that on the whole ours was a good team effort and presentation.
Cheers,
Abhinav
Hi Saurabh,
At this point in time, while thinking of comments to write, I had realized that almost everybody had the same conclusion after their second oral presentation.
Everyone felt that they had made significant improvements over their first oral presentation, everyone felt that there was much to be desired from the outcome of their second presentation, and everyone thought that everyone else were doing much better than them.
Well, the ‘everyone’ I was referring to was inclusive of me. After commenting on several posts, I had to say that it felt as though I’m commenting on my own blog over and over again... haha...
That being said, I’ll go back to commenting your blog.
I had to agree with most of the points you brought up in your post. The pacing and body language that you utilized were definitely improved. Seeing how everyone slowly develop and mature into a better presenter is amazing, and it’s definitely the work of this module.
You also mentioned that you referred back to the screen too much, and was worried that your cue cards were unnecessary.
Actually, I feel that referring back to the screen isn’t too bad. In fact, it’s important to refer back to screen from time to time, especially when it is your teammate clicking for you, so that you will not go ahead or fall behind the slides (and therefore give an annoyed look at your clicking friend whenever necessary).
Cheers
Zhen Yong
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