Re. Petrified presentations

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

     Someone (sorry, short memory!) asked about how to overcome fears of
     presentations. The suggestions already posted (practice untiil you can
     do it in your sleep, keep breathing, etc.) are all good. But to me,
     much of the fear comes from the prospect of standing up before an
     audience of experts who know more than I do and making a fool of
     myself: for example, knocking my cup of water into my computer, thus
     shorting it out and destroying my speaker notes and A/V support
     materials, then as I bend over to try to save the smoking $5000
     device, dropping my pants to reveal that this is the one day I chose
     to wear my "Lion King" underwear. <grin>

     That's a lot more metaphorical than factual, but it dramatizes my
     point nicely. Most of the fear of presentations isn't based on your
     lack of knowledge, since you wouldn't proclaim about anything that you
     weren't expert at, but rather on the fear of getting up in front of a
     large group... when something goes wrong in front of a large audience,
     it's hard to recover gracefully, at least compared to sharing a laugh
     over the incident with a single person. This suggests a partial
     solution, one that works well for me on those rare occasions when I
     must pitch woo to some group:

     Try out your presentation first on one of the people you will be
     selling to (for example, the person who proposes the formal
     presentation). Something informal, say a light lunch, works well
     because there's no pressure. Talk about your idea, don't formally give
     a speech. This lets the presentation become a conversation, and
     conversations are always far more forgiving than speeches. You'll
     begin to establish a rapport with the person, and this robs the
     situation of much of its tension. Few of us have difficulty talking
     clearly and passionately to a single individual, but doing the same
     thing to a mob (of whatever size) is much more tense. If you can
     persuade the one person, you can generally do the same thing again
     with the larger group: you've succeeded once, and so long as you don't
     wear your Lion King underwear, you've nothing to worry about the
     second time. <grin> Moreover, until you get past your initial
     nervousness, you can talk exclusively to (focus your eyes on) the
     person who's already seen the presentation. Once you actually get
     talking, much of your nervousness goes away and you can start making
     eye contact with the rest of the audience.

     For me, once I've actually got the first few words of my speech out
     past my tongue, momentum carries me through the rest of it. Most
     speakers seem to find the same thing.

     --Geoff Hart     #8^{)}
     geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

     Disclaimer: These comments are my own and don't represent the opinions
     of the Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada.