Tutorial 2: Presentation Skills

Introduction:

Nowadays, conducting presentations has become of elemental importance in almost every job. It is getting so common that you already have to do presentations as part of a job interview.  Thus, you have to convince the interviewer to get your dream job, but how? Skills in creating and designing a presentation are definetely crucial (e.g. use programs like Microsoft Power Point or Apple Key Note), but there is more to consider, namely your presentation skills, your presentation style. This tutorial will give you some insights “how to make an effective presentation”.

The Golden Rules for a “WOW” presentation

 I divided the golden rules into several rubrics to make the difference more clearer:

Content:

• Do your Homework: You need to know what you are talking about. Make some research and add additional information.
• Have an Agenda: Make the audience clear what you will talk about and what the audience can expect from you.
• Have a catchy Conclusion: Summarize in own words and be enthusiastic as you were at the beginning.
• Give room for questions: Make at the beginning of your presentation clear that there will be room for addressing questions. You can do it in between or just at the end of your presentation. It is your decision!

Design and Layout:

• Use Images where you can: Be careful with small, pixelated images! Those pictures can have an opposing effect
• Keep the Word Count low per slide: Use bullet point or key words instead of whole sentences
• Be Careful with Animations: Too many animations can make your presentation look unprofessional. Use animations only for grabbing special attention in particular situations
• Have a Consistent Layout: e.g. check for different font sizes, font styles etc.
• Avoid Clutter: let some white space open!
• Make the Text Big Enough: Ensure readability!
• Be Careful with Colorful Backgrounds. Depending on the light influence in the presentation room  the audience can not read the slides
• Use Graphs or Smart Arts to explain concepts
• Use Videos or Audios: Be careful! It should not be too long, otherwise the audience will lose attention.

Present it your Way:

• Practice: Simulate at least once your presentation at home and imagine a virtual audience. Thereby you get a feeling of the presentation flow. Practice transition from slide to slide to make the presentation liquid.
• Give the Audience enough Time to Read your Slides or Watch the Pictures: It is clear that you know the slides by heart, but the audience first to read everything.
• Smile to your Audience: You have to radiate confidence and the impression you are feeling well
• Have Eye-Contact with the Audience: Do not be shy! Eye-contact is the number 1 business rule. Demonstrate confidence!
• Be Sure to have Inflection in your Voice: It is very important to change the voice level during the presentation and not become monotonous in presenting.  “Play with your voice” to keep the audience’s attention and direct them by e.g. raising your voice to the most important points of your presentation
• Use Gesticulation and Mimic: Be as active as possible to get the attention you deserve. You should even walk around a little bit, for instance move from the right to the left side of the screen, but not to often. I recommend move 2-3 times if have an presentation of around 20 min.
• Walk Back to your Seat with a Smile: Even it was not perfect, you should show that you are satisfied with the result. Always express confidennce
• If possible: Use a Clicker, so you do not have to stand near the computer.
• Provide an Handout!

Conclusion:

Although there are some rules each presenter should give attention to, you have a lot of freedom to make your presentation unique. You should always have a good feeling with your presentation and you always should personalize your presentation. There are so many ways to differentiate your presentation from other presentations, e.g. layout, structure, presentation style.

If you really want to impress other people, e.g. your interviewer, you can make use of a new presentation paradigm that is emerging: It is called “zooming presentation”. Programs like Prezi, AHEAD or even Plugins like Plex for Microsoft Power Point are are online available. These zooming presentations are different from the tradition ones, since they are based on one infinite canvas on which all content is presented. It is like a big map you can use. You can create complex visual messages and use a nonlinear structure. Finally, check out this link to see what exactly the zooming presentation technology is about. It is very interesting.

References:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentation
• http://www.wikihow.com/Do-a-Presentation-in-Class
• https://elearning2.courses.ufl.edu/portal/site/9154eb6d-fdb4-4011-82c5-5b3ae4534d11/page/58a06e8d-d9f6-405b-b2b3-5847693c53c3
• http://prezi.com/
• http://jpowellgroup.com/wp-content/images/presentation-skills-coaching.jpg
• http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/willy-peter_schaub/windowslivewriter/presentationskillsalachuckpart1_8f84/clipart_of_29692_smjpg_2.jpg
• 
  

Presentation Project

First of all, I want to say how much fun this project was. Besides the fun part, I learned some interesting new presentation and WEB 2.0 skills and improved my Microsoft PowerPoint knowledge. Although I have worked with PowerPoint quite often in the past, during my studies at Maastricht University, here, like on every occasion, I learnt something new. Besides PowerPoint, I got into contact with some other new software, allowing me to record my voice, transforming the PowerPoint presentation into a video and uploading it automatically on a Web 2.0 platform. 

It was quite new for me to make a presentation, but not conduct it in front of an audience. I missed this part of presenting quite strong. Just recording the voice, speaking in a microphone, is not same as speaking in front of people. It was really hard for me, not being monotonous during the voice recording. Although I had prepared notes, I tried to speak freely and fluently, getting a little bit the flair of presenting. Usually I prefer to have contact with the audience and interact with it. To me the presentation is totally clear and logically in sequence, but of course this has not to be the same for somebody else. Unfortunately there is no room for a question-answer-session, which I really appreciated in past presentations. Sometimes it is just a small question that could make the difference. However it was a totally new experience and I really enjoyed making my first online presentation. 

Although I really like playing around with PowerPoint and all its “funky” functions, I tried to keep my presentation modest. With respect to my impression, the usage of too many animations could distract the listener and could be some kind of unprofessional. I styled my presentation using the slide master function which is one the easiest and efficient ways to have a consistent and styled design.

For voice recording and video manipulation I used a quite good program, called Camtasia Studio 7, which I found online after some research. It is not a freeware program, but you can test it for 30 days free. If I would need such software more often, I would definitely buy this software. It is really intuitive and provides a lot of opportunities and services. For instance you can directly upload your work to Screencast.com, an online sharing platform with 2GB storage for free. Furthermore Camtasia Studio 7 provides a PowerPoint Add-in function, i.e. you can record everything while you are in PowerPoint and afterwards transfer everything to the digital mixing console. In addition to that you can do a lot of animations, like slide transitions etc.

What I some kind disliked was working on the source document and on the storyboard. The storyboard task could be very helpful and effective, when you are doing a really long and complicated presentation. In my case, it was not really of adding value, since I had the storyboard from the beginning on in mind. However, it was fun to do the storyboard with Microsoft Paint and see how difficult it is to draw something using a mouse and not your hand. With the source document I struggled a little bit with regard to copyright violations of pictures and videos. First I used some public domain webpages, but I did not find any related or useful media source. Later I used google.com for finding pictures of interest, but worried about copyrights. I therefore consulted the discussion board and found there some help.  

Lastly, I am looking forward to the evaluation of a peer. I am highly interested in the feedback of other students, helping me to improve my presentation style.

The presentation can be found, using the link below:

Help Haiti 

Sources:

The picture is retrieved from: 

• http://onewebhosting.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/blog_powerpoint1.jpg

Excel Project

To give you, my dear reader, a feeling about the Excel assignment, I first like to start with a short introduction to the problem, which has to be solved. This is followed by a paragraph dealing with data formatting tasks. The last paragraph introduces you to data analysis by using Pivot tables, a very useful Excel tool.

Introduction:

A fitness center is designing a new workout plan for their customers and is doing some research about the effectiveness, by testing the workout in practice. After data of 500 people participating was collected, fitness center management needs some help in preparing, formatting and analyzing the newly gathered data to determine if the workout is effective and should be implemented, i.e. offered to their customers.

Formatting the raw data:

A lot of data was already given, as the age and the gender of the 500 participants. Furthermore the subject’s heart rate was recorded in a one minute interval, whereby the workout lasts for 15 minutes, followed by a 5 minutes cool-down period.

According to the given data it is not possible for the decision makers to draw any conclusion about the workout program. 

Therefore, some data adjustment/manipulation is needed. Following the assignment I created some new columns and used Excel formulas to calculate the values of interest:

• Column D: MaxHR stands for the maximal heart allowed and it is estimated to be 220 less the age. Therefore the formula for cell D3 is: =220-B3
• Column E: TgtHR is the target heart the workout wants to achieve and is estimated to be 80% of the MaxHR. It is a measure of success and the formula for cell E3 is: =D3*$E$1. In cell E1, the percentage (80%) is given and you have to make it an absolute value by the dollar signs. It is very useful to have the percentage in a separate cell, since you can easily adjust the whole data by just changing cell E1, for instance from 80% to 90%.
• Column F: HighestHR stands for the highest heart rate a participant achieved during the training. You can easily find this value using the following formula for the cell F3: =MAX(I3:AC3)
• Column F: TgtAchieved shows, if the target heart rate is achieved. You can use the “If-formula” and for the cell F3 it looks like: =IF(OR(F3=E3;F3>E3);"yes";"no"). If the target heart rate is achieved (higher or equal the max. heart rate, then there should be a “yes”, otherwise a “no”.
• Column G: PctIncreaseHR stands for the percentage increase in the heart rate from the lowest to the highest heart rate value. The formula for cell G3 is: =(F3-I3)/I 

Now we have data, which can be used to interpret the usefulness and effectiveness of the new workout. Still data is not very clear. Therefore the next paragraph shows you how to fix the issue of making data clearer and valuable through data analysis

Data analysis:

You can use the Pivot-table function of Excel to summarize and combine data. A pivot table is a great reporting tool that sorts and sums (raw) data into a clear layout in a new worksheet. For instance if the manager wants to know for which demographic group the workout was the most beneficial you can use such Pivot-tables to analyze. The following screenshot shows such a Pivot table.

 

  

But how to create such a Pivot Table?

1. Mark all date that is of interest for your Pivot-table 
2.   Go to the Insert tab and select Pivot-table to your left 
1. Select target data 
2. Choose where you want the Pivot table to be placed (new worksheet) 
3.  The new work sheet will open and you can now use the Pivot-table field list to arrange and sort data appropriately.

1. Just by choosing fields and dragging them to particular fields like “Row Labels” or Column Labels” you can create a useful data matrix 
2. In the field “values” you have to drag the variable of interest, which was “PctIncreaseHR” in my case.
4.   The output can be adjusted 
1.   Group items, for instance I grouped Subject Age into decades, i.e. Group 1 is from age 20 to  29, Group 2 is from 30-39 and so on. 
2.    Delete Grand Total rows/colums 
3.    Summarize values as “sum”, “counts” or “averages”, etc 
4.   Format cells e.g. turn numbers into percentages or change decimals