Presenting…presentations

A big aspect of information security for me is awareness ie helping spread the word about what Security is and how it affects individuals (after all, this Easy Cyber blog site is all about that). I thought I’d share this story about a presentation I gave last year, and how I did my best to avoid it being dull.

Last year I was fortunate enough to present to a room full of fellow professionals at an event in Europe. I’d known for several months that I’d be doing so, and for me it was a big deal. It was the first time I’d had the opportunity, and there was the potential to be presenting to well over 100 people – but I wouldn’t know the real figure till I got started.

I was determined that I wasn’t going to blow it.

I’m guessing that most of you have, like me, sat through your fair share of presentations. I’m also guessing that many of those have been dire, where the presenter spent most of the time droning on in a monotone, reading verbatim from every slide, and every slide was covered in dense text with occasional bullet points.

I’m guessing that the number of presentations which has given you a lightbulb moment, an “aha” moment, some kind of inspiration and which have left you feeling energised and enthusiastic is few and far between.

For my talk, I was determined that I wasn’t going to produce a dire presentation, and that I would do my best to be inspirational and have the attendees enthused by my presentation.  I was also aware that the topic – retraining existing staff to work in cyber security – had the potential to be very dull indeed.

I really like TED talks, and I watch or listen to a lot of them, so I thought I’d try to produce my own version.  I therefore did a lot of background reading, with emphasis on how to prepare and deliver TED-worthy presentations (yes, there are a lot of books out there which cover that topic).

I learned that even before starting on my slides, I should work out what messages I wanted to convey, what the key points were. I should work on having a killer opening, one which engaged and intrigued the audience from the outset, one which grabbed their attention.

I also learned that when it comes to slides, words = bad, pictures or images = good. After all, you want people to be focussed on what you’re saying, not on reading what’s on the slide. If you’re reading off the slide, why are you there? The attendees could simply be sent the slide deck and read that for themselves. Slides are an aide memoire, nothing more.

And I learned that your body gives a lot away when you’re talking. Moving around, shuffling from one foot to the next, fidgeting with your hands, jingling keys, says “so” or “um” a lot, all those sort of things detract from the message you’re hoping to convey, and reduce the perception that you’re an expert in the topic.

I practiced what I was going to say – many times. I wrote out my introduction and honed that, many times.  I recorded clips of me presenting so I could see what bad habits I had – and tried not to do them. I ran through the slides over and over, reducing them to no more than 5 or 6 words on each.  All of this helped boost my confidence and reduce my nerves.  Unfortunately for Dee she also had to hear it several times, and her feedback was invaluable.

Did it work?  Yes, I think it did.  Of the 60 or so people who came along, less than half left feedback, but on the whole the presentation was well received. For my first attempt at a big event like that, I was really pleased with the feedback.

Will I take the same approach in future? Absolutely, if time permits.  I think the attendees benefited and I think I benefited from the process.

The days of wordy slides and boring presenters should be at an end.  Make sure you’re not stuck in the past with them.