Presentations - Not the Worst Thing Ever

When it comes to making and giving presentations, there are a few basics that I've learned over the years that can make the process much easier on yourself and your audience. Presenting has never come easy for me (as an INTJ) but it really is a necessity for many positions out there, knowing how to articulate your ideas to groups of people so that they are fairly presented and favorably received could make a world of difference, in the right situations.

My first tip is to know your audience, try to tailor your presentation to match their skill levels. You don't want to lose your audience in the details, nor do you want to leave them with no background information at all. Ideally the presentation should briefly cover some basic aspects that everyone in the audience should know, and then the rest of the time should be spent on new/interesting material.

Next tip; don't read your slides word for word. In my experience reading from slides can reflect poorly on the presentation, especially if they are text heavy and that is the only things you say. Slides should offer short and interesting key ideas as jumping off points for you to talk about. This does require more preparation but I think it shows that you are more dedicated and interested in the subject, it shows that the ideas are coming from you and not the slides. You want the audience to be listening to what you have to say, not trying to read your slides to glean information from them.

Lastly, try to look around the room and remain engaged with the audience. A general good tip for public speaking, the idea is that you want to be talking to the audience, not just into the ether somewhere.  A big part of this is being confident in what you are presenting and speaking like you know what you are talking about, once you can do that talking to groups of people does become much easier.

Public speaking is not my forte, but by doing the three things mentioned above I have found that it is not unbearable. (Especially true in the IT field, where many of us are in the same boat)