GLIEMR Afterword to Trainees

Dear All,
Even though we could not complete the programme as scheduled, those of you who did persevere still achieved a great deal - and I believe your confidence in yourself and your expectations of yourself are now very high. I hope you go from strength to strength, using this new found skill in both your academic and your professional lives. What is especially noteworthy is that you learnt to speak without a written script and yet were conscious of keeping your presentation interesting to your audience. Most importantly, however, I hope the programme made you conscious that it is critical to know precisely what you intend to say, and then to focus it to the needs of your audience, rather than to your own need to express yourself. For your convenience I recap here the broad principles that we studied. 1) The four critical factors that you have to take into account BEFORE starting to speak are: the Audience; the Time available for your presentation; your primary Objective in making your speech or presentation (to inform, to persuade, to motivate or to entertain); and the essence or gist of your Message. 2) A Message requires to be focussed. A general idea of the message we call a Theme. Once we know the theme, we first need to decide on which Aspect of the theme we want to consider. Once we know that aspect, we need to focus on the exact Topic that is suitable for the given time and the audience. 3) To explain a new concept or idea effectively, we can use the four-part structure: Define, Describe, Illustrate, Re-phrase. 4) In making a visual presentation, whether using PowerPoint or any other programme like GapMinder, it is important to ensure that the visual element is clear, colourful and vivid. This means taking care to edit each slide - removing unnecessary or less important matter; keeping fonts large (not smaller than 20 points anyway); using bright colours; and adding relevant graphics to make the subject come alive to the audience. Most of all, if you are showing a graphic, be especially careful not to describe the graphic (this is ..., that is ..., here you see ..., there you can see ...); instead try and tell the story behind the graphic. I would also like to remind you of the very inspiring video of economist Hans Rosling, who demonstrated masterfully how to use visuals in a presentation. Look him up again on You Tube. 5) In an Informative presentation, a. Having taken the Audience and the Time into consideration, your message must contain something that is new to the audience; or a new way of looking at something that the audience is familiar with. b. In all informative presentations, the first and essential requirement is to really know the topic. There is no shortcut to this. If you already know the subject, try and go into a little more depth than you normally look for, just to enhance your own command of the subject. If you find the subject new or unfamiliar, study it until you can explain it in your own words. c. But as you have seen, your knowledge of the subject is not sufficient to make a good presentation. You need to be able to focus (see 2 above). This means you need to phrase your topic as precisely as you can. d. Once you have got your topic precisely worded, remember the Rule of Three. Divide your presentation into (ideally) three sections (you will really need to think creatively to do this). Be sure that all sections are of roughly equal duration and weight. e. Finally your presentation sequence will be: Attention-getting Opening; Precise Statement of Topic, Preview, Main Sections, Recap and Memorable Closing. Caution: NEVER study your presentation by heart. It is almost always noticed by the audience and reduces your credibility. It also reduces your self-confidence in the long term.

Kurien Joseph
6 January 2012