The lecture series continues, and there were more observations on bad habits in the presentations. During a lecture or a presentation aimed at teaching the audience, speakers usually look for interactions with the audience to gauge their understanding of the content. However, going to an extreme may annoy the audience.
The lecture series was held using Zoom, making it difficult to get feedback from the audience. In one lecture, the speaker asked us to reply by typing our responses in the chatroom. “Okay? If you’re okay, type ‘ok’,” she said. Many of us answered “ok” in the chatroom.
“Okay? Okay?” she asked again, “If you’re okay, type ‘ok ok’.”
“Can you see my screen? Type ‘screen’ if you can.”
“Let’s have a 5-minute break. Let’s type ‘5’ in the chatroom.”
We were fed up. Some of us aimlessly typed whatever the speaker requested. Some, like me, refused to type anything. After the 4-hour lecture, the chatroom was full of “ok”, “ok ok”, “yes”, “no”, “screen”, and so on. None of the messages were meaningful. I couldn’t find questions raised by the audience there – the speaker didn’t find any and answer any, of course.
Asking the audience questions is a typical way to engage them and draw their attention to the key points. It may also lead to an open discussion, helping the audience understand the topic. However, asking too many questions and demanding too much feedback may have the opposite effect. From the audience’s perspective, the speaker may not appear well-prepared and beg for responses to build confidence.
Another bad habit is putting too much content into the presentation slides. Each of the 4-hour lectures was bundled with over 200-page presentation slides full of words. It’s like copying the whole textbook to the presentation slides. It is a common misuse of presentation slides, not only in schools but in businesses all over the world. People often find excuses for putting tons of words in the presentation slides.
The giant, wordy presentation slides may look rich, but they are unreadable. If the slides have everything, the audience’s attention will be drawn to the presentation slides instead of the speaker. In a presentation, the presentation slides should cause as little distraction as possible, allowing the audience to focus on the speaker. Remember, presentation slides are meant to assist the presentation, not contain all the elements the speaker wants to deliver. Any further readings can be distributed to the audience afterwards if they are valuable to the presentation.
By observing other people’s presentations, I’ve identified both good and bad habits. After analysing these habits and having self-reflection, I try to adopt the good things and avoid the bad ones. Recently, I delivered a 45-minute lecture during my company’s Agile coach training programme. I used simple presentation slides with some opening questions for warming up and a mini-discussion to summarise the topic. Even the trainee without a technical background was engaged in my presentation.
I look forward to listening to others’ presentations and learning from them.