TED Advice

After watching numerous TED Talks, creating my own, and observing others I have learned several important rules one should use when creating one. After presenting mine I thought of a million things I could have changed: Say this instead of that, use this joke, ask this question. So here is what I have developed.

1. Engage your audience!
Make it interesting for your audience.  If not they will daze off and fall asleep.  Nothing is worse then sitting through a presentation when you glaze off and can't help but yawn over and over.  Plus your meaning is lost and no one walks away wowed.  I suggest asking questions, playing a humorous video, or involving them in an activity.

2. Don't use to many charts and graphs!
Some people in your audience don't benefit from charts and graphs because they aren't numbers people.  I'm one of them.  If you need graphs keep them to a minimum or have them move.  The movement will keep even the none numbers people engaged.  Or try to make a graph using words.  I have an example of this earlier in my blog posts using Graph Jam.  Look it up -- give it a try.  ( I used this in a presentation for another class and it worked out GREAT! )

3. Be short and too the point.
Don't ramble on for hours and hours if your statement is clear.  No one likes to listen to someone who sounds like a broken record on repeat.  Vary it up, take different angles to achieve your point.  This can be used and achieved through simple variation of examples - Video, Picture, Graph, Effective Question. These different ways are engaging but don't come across the same even if they do have the same point.

4.  Be confident!
Remember that this is your presentation.  You know the material, no one else.  So if you stumble on something keep going.  No one else will know but you.  When your confident it shows and everyone else believes in you.  It will be portrayed in your presentation - be it slides or another kind - and the audience will be much more engaged.  They will feel like you truly know what you are talking about.

5. Practice, Practice, Practice
No one can ever practice too much before they present.  Many professionals, including Steve Jobs, practice over and over before a presentation.  This is how they learn what works and what doesn't works.  They also learn how to avoid bad pauses, ums, likes, or other safety words you may use when presenting.  This will also help your presentation move smoother and make it more effective. Nothing is more distracting then the presenter saying like every 5 seconds (once the class notices they will begin to count how many times - therefore your meaning is lost! )

TED Talk

Description:  Alexandria Zentner takes a closer look into the social media spectrum of Twitter in regards to professional athletes and owners.  Leading a prolific discussion on the good, the bad, and the downright ugly tweets over the past few years.  Ladies and gentlemen please sit back, relax, and enjoy the show of uncensored twittering.

Our blog this week is to post our slides for our presentation.  First, I will provide a link to a youtube video which I would like to show first, followed by the slides.  I would love to hear some feedback in regards to what you think, what you would like to see, and anything inbetween. :)

YOUTUBE:

Ted slides

View more presentations from azentner.

Thanksgiving can't come soon enough <3

Sound Slides

Objective:  To create a unique sound slide presentation between 2-3 minutes.

This may seem like an easy task to people who are computer literate, but for myself it was extremely challenging.  I decided to go with a video montage of my years at St. Joe's.  I took important pictures from my freshman year to recently and placed them in correct order and decided which way they should transition (I did that part in imovie).  Then I went in Garage Band and pulled songs from my itunes and choose bits and pieces to put together -- this was the hardest part.  The songs had to sound good together and they had to make sense with the pictures.  I was able to convert this into one large song and then place it with my pictures.  The hardest part was transitioning, cropping, and placement of the pictures, along with the creation of the unique song.

So... here it is:  My Master Piece (which could use even some more tweaking -- things I saw when I published this version).  Your thoughts are greatly appreciated and encouraged!