Presenting to Peers: Avoiding the Pitfalls?

Presenting to an audience of peers – some peoples ultimate nightmare while others simply flourish on the stage, enthralling and entertaining whilst communicating a message, product or thought in such a manner that it instantly implants on the minds of the unwitting audience.

Next month I find myself in this predicament, to present a 1 hr workshop for my peers to try and improve technology in the classroom.  My message is simply, my product clear and concise – but how do I translate this across on the professional stage?   Ok, so I’m not selling the iphone 6 or introducing the new Google Glass, but I am selling what I believe to be an extraordinary product.  A product that will make teachers’ lives much easier to deal with on a daily basis. A product that hopefully will make the audience wonder how they ever survived without it in school.  One that I have introduced and used with colleagues into Qatar Foundation here in Qatar.

So, after reading through copious amounts of research on how to present, I got my storyboard files out and began to sketch out my story.  I know what I wanted to do, but after reading the notes on the great Mr Jobs, I soon realized I might be chewing on a little too much.  For the ‘One’ talks of spending 30 hrs to plan, 30 hrs to put slides together and a further 30 hrs to practice presenting the presentation.  This got me thinking, if this is what the guys at the top of the game are setting as guidelines, then what is the timescales I need to adhere to.  I’m thinking – 6 hrs on each?  Is this then a poor reflection of how much investment I have put into mine?

Or is it an accurate reflection of how much I feel that my presentation will be one of pure class and inspiration?

I’ll leave that decision to my audience….

I’m presenting at the Teaching and Learning Forum in Doha, Qatar. on the 10th May 2014 with Qatar Foundation.

I’ll be showing this blog and warmly welcome feedback from the audience.  The presentation is also available to view online as a Prezi Presentation, here’s the link…

http://bit.ly/1tPQ9vz

 

Do my Skills become REDUNDANT every 5 Years?

So its seems that some new research studies reveal that 50% of what I have learnt how to communicate with / use in a technical environment will become totally useless.

The main reason? Technological Advances.

I read a post recently on FB that Britpop and the 1990’s will never be experienced again.  The mobile was still a futuristic device that was only good for burning money and battery life to use up the capacity of 5 texts.  Or that music will never again be communicated again through the medium of Vinyl or tapes.  Instead, people find themselves evolving and having to repurchase the same music on different formats.    This then is ‘Technology Driving Demand’ in action surely?

Furthermore, as I find myself working in the IT sector in Education, People like to think of me as a ‘techie’ or someone call ‘tech support’.  However I think that a deeper level of understanding is in motion here.  For example, someone could ask me a question on a technical issue that currently doesn’t exist, as the software hasn’t yet been invented.  The beauty about this though, is the fact that I feel the confidence to take on new technologies and make them work for me.   If I don’t know the answer, I’ll go away and work out a solution.

Instead of people constantly learning new technologies every 5 years to keep up to date, maybe we should look more at developing our in-depth understanding of how to solve problems. Lets dive more into the cognitive processes that one goes through to achieve an end result – in this case a new tool.

Maybe I should teach in the problem solving industry and leave the IT industry to the ‘Techies’ and ‘Tech support’ people!

And that although this is a thought provoking point, how will they communicate with us?