Professional Practice presentation
The basic purpose of Rich Britnell’s Professional Practice class that I am taking at Auburn this semester is to prepare students for the “real world”. Students are asked to research various areas having to do with life after college and deliver a presentation to the class. In addition Rich lectures on a variety of topics and there are related presentations by various professionals. Rather than participate in the research presentations, Rich asked me to give a presentation on my personal career experience. Today I gave a presentation relating my experiences 15 years ago finding my first job and shared a few things I have learned as a professional over the years.
The photo above shows me beginning the presentation. I have had to sit through more bad PowerPoint presentations over the years than I care to remember. As a bit of a joke I began my presentation with this awful PPT template slide and followed up with a slide suggesting I was going to walk them through my life story bullet point by bullet point (in a nervous monotone).
I laughingly switched gears and went into more of an interactive presentation that was hopefully a bit more engaging. Honestly I think my little joke may have been lost on most of the class. Maybe they’ll appreciate it more the first time they have to sit through one of those read-it-off-the-screen presentations ;-)
(The slide above says “Just kidding.”)
At the end there was a time for a nice Q&A session. Afterward several students approached me to tell me how much they appreciated my presentation. All I can hope is that some of what I said will help some of these kids get their first job and be better professionals. Who knows, maybe I’ll be working for one of them someday :-)
Thanks to Matt Sussenbach for grabbing these shots for me.
February 17th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
[...] regularly for the upcoming PMA show. I even got a phone call from Kodak today while I was giving a presentation. I’ve worked with PR firms before. In fact, I have even hired them to work for me. Seeing how [...]
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:17 am
Ever since I heard two 3rd graders talking about giving PowerPoint presentations to their class, I have avoided using it. Interesting piece of info, in the wake of the space shuttle Columbia disaster, it was discovered that the exact scenario of the orbiter being struck by a piece of foam was brought up a year before the disaster. The problem, it was item #8 on page #35, of a two hour PPT presentation and nobody noticed or remembered. So let this be a lesson, PowerPoint KILLS!
Personally, I follow the 10-20-30 guideline for when I have to give a presentation. No more than 10 slides, no font smaller than 20 points, and last no longer than 30 minutes. If you can’t present your idea with those constraints, you need to go back and work on it some more.
I also try and include lasers and a fog machine in my presentations. That always works.
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:50 pm
@Mulsanne: My presentations are really more like slide shows and I only use PowerPoint because I can quickly lay out my slides on my Mac then easily transfer the file to the PC hooked up to the projection system. For me, it’s just another tool I use to convey thoughts and concepts via images.
I agree that PPT sucks. I have even had direct experience with the way the government drowns themselves in the stuff while working on an exhibit project with Lockheed Martin. A wise man once said “if you have nothing to say, say it with PowerPoint.”