On delivering inspiration over information

I've been asked to give a presentation to a group of library staff about the project I am managing. While the presentation is still a ways off, its promted me to start thinking about my own presentation style and how presentations of this sort are used to convey information and hopefully act as knowledge delivery channels. I've always considered myself to be an energetic, open, and informed presenter. I've received positive feedback when I've been asked to give presentations during the course of my work. Upon reflection though, the majority if not all of my presentations have centred on information delivery. Basically, they have been reports on past, current, or future activities within my field. I know that I am a clear communicator and generally am not nervous about speaking to a group on a topic I know well.

As I started thinking about what I wanted to cover in my presentation, I started to think I wanted to try tings a bit differently with this one. So I started reading a few articles on presentation styles and approaches. There is a school of thought that focuses on the idea that presentation software (eg. Keynote, PowerPoint) have made perfectly nice people into horrible presenters. I tend to agree with this. Presentation Zen takes a "less is more" approach to corporate presentations and makes some very interesting comparisons between the use of presentation software by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Seth Godin has produced an e-booklet titled "Really Bad PowerPoint and How to Avoid it".

Then I started thinking about the presentations that I've been exposed to as an audience member. I started thinking about the presentations that had inspired me and made me think about my own positions and viewpoints, and the presentations that had just described the process and outcomes of an activity or series of activities. I can think of a great example in one of the keynote addresses from a conference I attended recently.

On the first day of the conference, the keynote speaker was a woman who spoke from extensive experience as a pioneer in educating communities of children using technology and other educational tools. She also came from a background in educational administration within government and tertiary education and knew the politics of education inside and out. But it wasn't her knowledge and experience that got me. It was what she chose to talk about. While she did describe the function of the experimental education unit she had founded, she focussed on the ideas that guided the unit, rather than reporting on specific activities. She talked about industry trends in an abstract form and she demonstrated those trends with personal anecdotes and examples. Above all else, her presentation focussed on ideas, not facts. As a reflection of this, her actual presentation (eg. the slides she put up) were highly visual, with lots of graphical elements reinforcing the points she was making, and not detracting from her own very passionate presence on the stage.

My point is this: While every audience and every situation is different, I feel it is important to take advantage of the opportunity provided to you by having your audience physically present in front of you. I believe that a report on activities and initiatives is best achieved by writing and distributing a concise summary of those activities, or reporting on them in a meeting. I believe that you should take advantage of a live audience by focussing on communicating that which is very difficult to convey in writing: Ideas.

The keynote speaker I have described inspired me to apply innovative ideas and practices to my own work and profession yet in the process, provided me with enough information to get started. As for my own upcoming presentation, I think I will take a risk, break away from bullet points, graphs, and figures, and aim to inspire first and inform along the way. Lets hope it works.