This week’s entry is all about Wednesday. The day started off with a presentation all about presentations. I knew this was coming because a couple of weeks ago Steve had asked how we feel about presentations and I replied “I can’t stand them to be honest”. I have never liked presentations I have done around 10 in my life but they never get any easier.
So after the presentation when Steve said the day was devoted solely to our presentation skills my heart sank. We had to research, create and deliver a presentation on a colour given to us by Steve.
After being missed out when he was assigning colours, I was given the colour yellow and partnered up with Jamie. It seemed a suitable colour for me as I was feeling a bit chicken at the time. This was good as I had never spoken in any detail to Jamie before.
I think the nerves of the presentation eased off a little whilst gathering information from the internet, it didn’t seem that back stand up and talk about yellow for a few minutes no big deal. But after dinner the nerves really started to kick back in especially when I rehearsed the presentation in front of Jamie. I managed around 5 real words before blurting out I need to remember more I think.
After our Rehearsal period it was time to start with Gemma being the first up I was more nervous now about the presentation than any other time in the day and this was not made any easier by the people coming back down who said they were going to have to go back up later on and try again.
As the time went on and on I tried to get some work done but found I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the presentation and in 3 hours I managed to get a grid for my screen design planned for my A3 project. As more and more time went past though I started to calm down I know bits of what I’m talking about I should be ok and Steve and Diane will only give me positive feedback its not as if they were going to laugh in my face if I got it wrong. This was good for me to realise and made me more confident when taking the long walk up the stairs after waiting for nearly three hours. We were also able to have a laugh in the canteen which eased the tension it was good to talk and realise everyone else was feeling the same as me.
I can’t remember what I said about the presentation as I was focused on standing still and speaking slowly. I also tried to show the palm of my hand when pointing to the images on the screen because Ben and Drew had reminded me that this is supposed to a good sign.
After the presentation I received some good feedback and overall the comments were good I think. I was very pleased it was over though I have to say.
I would say the day taught me that if I am well prepared and take confidence from other people I can do a good presentation. The nerves are never going to go away for me I don’t think it is just one of those things that I have no control over so I have to learn to manage it in a way that suits me.
For next time I think I will rehearse more and create a better guidelines sheet so that I can remember key words from the presentation because the sheet I had confused me more than anything but it was good to have it there to reassure me.
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7 comments:
Thanks for the mention, I'm touched. I was the same when I was stood up in front of Steve and Diane, I just kept thinking stand still and show them your palms.
I'm sure it will get easier and especially if we are talking about subjects we know more about.
Nice on Rich. To say you really hate presentations sound's like you did alright. I thought I didn't mind them too much and I went to pot.
It is just one of those 'practice makes perfect' things Steve goes on about though. And by the sounds we'll be getting ALOT of practice.
I think a little bit of nerves keeps that edge to yourself. It's probably only very few people that don't feel any nerves at all, and I felt them (and by the sounds of it everyone else too).
They'll get easier, trust me Rich.
I agree with what you said about your nerves getting worse when people were coming down saying that they had to go and do it again. I felt exactly the same. I think that Craig is right as well, this was always going to be a difficult exercise as we have very little experience of doing presentations but hopefully it will get easier!
Hopefully yeah! My excuse to doing very poor goes down to, I was second up so I didn't get much feedback on how it was, but that's just looking for an exscuse
Hi Rich, I found my main problem with the presentation was the wit after dinner, the nerve really started to build. Even though they seemed to of disapeared when I actually did the presentation.
I think you need to be a bit more evealuative in the blog though!
As I said on Craig B's blog the fact it was a presentation under 'Test' conditions seemed to add pressure to the event.
I bet you didn't start laughing uncontrollably like I did though.(very weird!)
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