Oral presentations

Today in class, we covered the elements of oral presentations. For evaluation criteria, students came up with speaking, content, organization, presentation aids, thesis statement, creativity, and coherence. We then compared it to an article on Steve Jobs' presentation skills, "How to Wow 'Em Like Steve Jobs" by Camine Gallo in BusinessWeek Online. According to Gallo, what makes Jobs' presentations great are the following elements: Sell the Benefit; Practice, Practice, and More Practice; Keep it Visual; Exude passion, energy, and enthusiasm; and "And One More Thing ...". Obviously, there were some connections and some not-connections.

After comparing Jobs' style, we then looked at The Ten Commandments of Client Presentations. Three of the 10 commandments were Tell a Story, Don't Tell What it is, Show What it Means; and Be a Person. These three in particular reminded me of the summary on Steve Jobs' presentations.

When we think about how to apply these different perspectives to an academic presentation, it becomes more interesing. Research papers have a question/thesis, data collection methods, analysis/interpretation of the data, comparison with readings of research in that area, and then a conclusion. It seems that "Sell the benefit" would be related to the research question/thesis, and "Keep it visual" would connect to graphs and charts on one's data. But some of the other aspects take more imagination to connect. Hmm. Why?