Hi, Ya Wen.

I personally think that you are too hard on yourself and also perhaps trying to achieve the impossible by striving to get the perfect ending in presentation. I admire your personal endeavor to improve your presentation skill and I think you have improved. Every presenter often does notice any improvement on her part until such thing is pointed out to them. For example, based on the note that I had taken, you spoke very clearly and exhibited only a few or no “errr” and “umm” at all. This shows you have a clear picture of your presentation as shown by the smooth delivery of your content.

However, I did notice that your presentation appeared scripted and your tone of voice lacks the variation or enthusiasm which might result in “losing audience’s attention”. I also agree with you that you have the unfortunate role to deliver near the middle end of the presentation when audience often begins to lose their attention and patience. If you wish to learn from example, try to see how Rohit presented his part. He appeared to be excited about the content of the presentation and it rubbed on the audiences who perked up and paid attention. Try also to maintain your own presentation pace and do not be affected too much by the audience’s response.

Lastly, I know how bad nervousness can affect one’s performance in presentation. One way is to ensure you have sufficiently practiced until you achieve the confidence to present your content. Another advice is to practice calming techniques such as meditation, power pose or breathing technique before the presentation.

I hope you will strive to improve your presentation and good luck in your endeavor.

Regards,

Eric Linardy
 

Hi Yea Wen,
Your post seemed kind of emotional. It is good to always ask yourself about the presentation such as what is good or what went wrong. Personally I felt that you did fine. Sitting down there as the “OED”, I can see that your group made the effort to create the slides using haiku and the pictures were awesome. As for your delivery part, I could sense that you were quite nervous at the start of the presentation which caused you to start swallowing saliva down your throat and even stumble over a few words. However, everyone gets nervous I guess. You also mentioned that you could feel that the audiences were losing interest in your presentation probably because you were the third speaker and you were repeating the same selling points. However, one advice would be to look around in search for a few audiences who are still paying attention and gave them the eye contact. With their nodding of heads and smile, I believe these will definitely boost your confidence. I did the same during my OP too. I felt that my presentation was boring but once I noticed a few nodding of heads from a few classmates like Chandra, Rohit and Shi Ying, it did give me some assurance through their acknowledgements.
Overall, I think your group did a great job and we as the audiences could hardly come up with any questions to ask. Do not feel sad over your performance during OP as it is already over. Smile because you been there, and done it!:)

Cheers,
Yong Sheng  

Thanks a lot for your encouragement, Eric! Maybe I was really too hard on myself but honestly I feel that my improvement is not as great as the rest. And thanks for pointing out my errors as well. I agree with what you mentioned. I know that my presentation is rather scripted but if I do not present according to a script, I worried that I may not able to construct sentences that flow during the presentation itself. Nevertheless, I will remember what you have mentioned and use it to further improve my presentation in the future:)


Yong Sheng, the advice that you gave is really useful, I will try it the next time if similar situation occurs. Anyway, I didn't mean to make my post so emotional, hopefully it did not affect your mood after reading my post. Thanks a lot for the encouragement!:)  

Hello Yea Wen,

I am shocked by your comments. You are being too hard on yourself. I believe that everybody has improved over the course of few months in terms of presentation skills and no doubt, we can never be perfect. I like the way Yong Sheng suggested, which is to spend more time giving eye contact to those who are interested, and slowly think of ways to grab other's attention during your presentation.

Besides, the topic you are doing is on Wi-Fi and honestly, the proposal was very clear on what needs to be done. However, since this presentation is graded, you all did your very best to sell the idea. I would have bought it actually.

There will be a day when you will be selling an idea you have created, and trust me, with passion and courage, you will sure find ways to make the audience sit there and listen to you intently. After all, humans are just poor listener, so bear with it.

You have done your very best and I enjoyed your group's presentation. It was clear, simple, and easy to understand. Both of us just have to work on one important thing and that is nervousness during presentation.

Min Thu  

Hi Min Thu,

I think my post sounds to emotional already since you are the third person saying that I am too hard on myself. I know that no one can be perfect but I just feel slightly dissapointed when I compare my rate of improvement with the rest such as Ding Ding, Thao or even you. Thanks a lot for your encouragement and for liking our presentation as well.  

Hey Yea Wen,
I don't think I have to repeat the fact that you are being to cynical about your presentation.
I would also agree with Yong Sheng as I try to look at people who seem interested with what I am talking about rather than look at those who are already bored with me. Moreover, since after all we are students and most of us do not have any background knowledge about the topic you were presenting,we probably are not the ideal audience and so I do not think you should blame the lack of interest on your delivery style.
I personally feel that if the respective people from the computer center were the audience they would be more than willing to pay attention to what you are speaking as the idea as whole is brilliant.
Overall,I would say that your presentation was clear and simple and that you should never shy away from being confident about yourself.  

Hi Sai,

It is really encouraging to hear from so many of you that my performance is not as bad as I thought. Thanks so much!I will keep in mind of all the advices given.