bs:

My speech overall was ok. I thought I had a good idea that was different then what I normally talk about but I didn’t finish it like I had plan. My eye contact wasn’t the best and my tone wasn’t either. Ive tried really hard all semester to try and change my tone but its hard with a laid back personality and laid back tone. I also had one mistake on one of my slides I try to fix a word before I went on and didn’t notice that I had messed up the whole slide. I felt real dumb cause slide design has become easy to me through this class. I could have used index cards instead of a paper but I felt more comfortable with a paper. Im not sure if that’s less professional but I feel more relaxed with a piece of paper with notes on it instead of index card. Overall I thought my body language was good it was positive and let the audience know I was confident I also had a very hand gestures which is good. Another area I could have improved was with my timing my speech was well over the amounted time when I practiced. I got up there and rushed myself and didn’t make all my points clear which hurt me in the long run. It also made it seem like my speech was shorter then what it was . overall I felt my speech was very good but if I had to pick a way to give a presentation it would be the standalone presentation

ucomm375mcfalls

I know it’s painful, but watching yourself give a presentation or speech is by far one of the fastest ways to get self-aware about your skills. You’ll see things that you didn’t while you were preparing, and you’ll consume the presentation from the audience’s point of view. You may experience some…

I picked my standalone of course because after lookin over everyones in the class I felt that I could make a lot of major improvements to mine. In the middle of my standalone I could have improved my tone greatly. The start and the end was strong but when I was given the real information I could have done a little better. I have a real laid back tone and I need to learn how to express it more to  get my audience attention. When I am laid back it makes the crowd laid back and not pay as much attention as they should. I also should improve my placement of the text. I put words on every slide I tought the text match the tone I was trying to go with. I put the words in the middle and it might have taken away from the picture I was showing. Some of the pictures of dogs I had were not clear. It made it difficult for the audience to see th message I was trying to get across. I thought the music I added to the presentation was perfect for the way I wanted my message to come across. I opened up with a low and very mean tone and that was the point of the message I was trying to give. To end the assignment I went with a positive message so the audience knew that I was trying to get happy and good message. Next time I will pay attention to the little details.

bsucomm375mcfalls:

This week’s assignment:

Log into our class account on youtube and choose one of the existing standalone presentations. Watch this presentation. Act as the editor of the project— consider both the “big picture” as well as the detail levels. What would you do to improve this standalone project?

After looking over the classes big talks for the first round I was very impressed with the start. I feel that everyone has really let what they have learned shined through on this project. If we were to record our first project and this one there is a huge difference I think almost everyone has improved. Even from just presenting our favorite speech on the second day we have made great improvements. I thought overall everyone has improved their delivery. Everyone focused on the little things that stood out in their speech such as tone of voice and body language. I though nick sarantkis talk was very good. He made his points stand out as well as keeping the audience’s attention. He made sure right away that you knew what his talk was about. I found a lot of good pointers that I can use for my big talk when I go. I also struggled with some ideas but by watching a couple of these presentations I know what im going to talk about. I also enjoyed peoples layout for their big talks. The power points were the strongest I’ve seen them. Even if the person didn’t use PowerPoint they still had very strong displays to help get their points across. I think that’s the biggest thing ive taken away from watching these presentation is how to make my powerpoints simple and easy. Hopefully it will help me get my point across like it did for nicks and I also hope they creative.

bsucomm375mcfalls:

Log in to our class youtube account and take some time to watch a few last lectures.  I recommend you watch Nick Sarantakis’ talk (in my humble opinion, it’s the best one).  Watch others as well.  Choose one to focus on, and act as the editor/critic/evaluator/consultant.  What needs to be done to the presentation to make it excellent?

I can’t even lie off the break I decided to listen to Tony Porter because he was the only black guy on the front page of the website. When I found out the topic he was talking about I figured it related to me more than I expected. He gives a presentation on what it is to be a man. The example when he talks about how his dad made him seem like everything a man did had to be masculine and everything a women did had to be soft I could relate to that because when I was younger I felt that way. Then he started talking about how he catches himself repeating some of the things his dad does and he doesn’t understand why. I myself do that all the time and I never really understood why till he described it a little and I were able to get a better understanding. I also could relate when he talked about the fear and the man box. How a man isn’t suppose to cry and breaking down the man box.  I think this is a great speech because it offers a different look on a area of life that people overlook. When he broke down how the little boy said it would destroy him if his coach called him a girl. I never realized that ment that we are downgrading women and what we look at as women. Also when he gave an example about wanting some and saying women are objects. I looked over that and MR. Porter pointed it out.

bsucomm375mcfalls:

I think it’s time for some more scratching. Your assignment this week is to poke around on ted.com. Watch at least the first two minutes of at least six talks that look interesting to you, given their title. Hopefully you’ll find at least one that has drawn you in so much that you just HAVE to…

I feel like to start out the presentation the dup did a very good job at getting their idea across. They were well organized and said all the right things that make it sounds like a terrific idea. They said all the right numbers and how big the profit would be if the dragons picked up their product. I feel like the product fell apart when the question and answer session. It got worst with every question that was asked. None of their answers were strong and when it got to one of the dragons he tore them apart about why he was saying no. Personally I would come up with another idea because like the board said its not very unique. Also I would have try to put up better numbers then the competitors when the dragons pointed out how the competition was doing way better in a shorter amount of time that didn’t sell me either. The part of their presentation that did kind of get me interested in their service is the numbers they said the first go around before the question period from what they said it sounded like the website was going to be a rich instant success. If I had another change like the presenters I would have known completely everything about my product. When the dragons were questioning them it felt like they was still shady in some areas. I also would try to make that service sound more unique so the drangons wouldn’t even question it

-mo

bsucomm375mcfalls:

After you watch this video (and part 2 as well, if you want to track it down), put yourself in the position of the panel— what elements of the presentation made this presentation “crumble” (as the commentator asserted)?  What would have to have been done differently for you to make these guys an offer?  What elements did work to effectively persuade?  Now put yourself in the position of the presenters— what would you have done differently if you had another chance?  What did you do right?

bsucomm375mcfalls:

http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2010/10/start-your-presentation-with-punch.html

This is an article from Garr Reynolds’s (of P. Zen) blog. Read it real quick. It’s a good reminder of the importance of starting and ending your presentation well. If you haven’t yet given your Big…

I know that right away if the speaker didn’t catch my attention then I probably won’t really pay attention to their speech. So I agree with Reynolds and how she describes the primary effect. For my favorite speech to start the year had humor in the first line that was one of the main reasons I picked along with the subject it talked about.  Humor was one of the five proven ways to begin a talk form. I do think it was a personal speech it talked about his stories and his experiences and it also related to the audience which is part of the personal paragraph Reynolds wrote about. On the other hand he could have lost the audience’s attention because all the stories were about him along with his basketball career. He never talked about anybody but himself which is ok with some speeches. I don’t remember the whole introduction of the speech but I know it was something that made the crowd laugh. The introduction wasn’t the main reason I picked the speech. I think it was more because of the subject he was talking about which is basketball and I’m a basketball player. As far as delivery, tone and overall message I’m almost positive there are better speeches out there. After this class if I started over I would definitely go with a different speech for the best speech every. After the couple lines in the introduction his speech went away from humor and got a little risky with some of the words he choose to use.

-mo

If you’re not very good with technology a standalone project will be in some ways difficult to do. It was by far the most advance technology used project I have ever done. Even though it can be a pain to figure out how to get things to work together along with coordinating the timing and pictures, I’m happy I learned it for future experience.

First word of advice I can give is do not do the project through PowerPoint. If you have a Mac use iMovies and if you have a PC use movie maker to start your project. Those programs make it easier to convert your project once it’s done. They also allow you to control the timing of the project down to the exact second. In a standalone project that is big because timing is huge in getting your point across.

Before you start your standalone you should layout your idea for the project on paper or on the computer. I planned out the words I was going to use in the project first then I went through and found pictures to match each section of my speech. This made it quick to find pictures for the project because I already knew what I was looking for when I was searching. After you find the pictures I suggest you put them in order and add any words you are going to put on the pictures. This is an overlooked part but is very important in getting your point across in your standalone. This part is one of the down falls about using movie maker because it isn’t as good with the words location as PowerPoint. I figured it out and once I did it got easy to apply to every slide.

Once you have everything in order I suggest you add your voice to the presentation first. This was found to be the one of the hardest parts to me. Lucky for me I had a roommate that claims he’s a rapper so he had a quality microphone that let me record my voice clearly. For those of you that don’t have roommates like that you can record your voice right on the program. Once you do that you make sure the timing matches each slide.

Once that is done you have to find moving music that matches your presentation perfectly. This part wasn’t too hard just make sure the music isn’t over playing your voice. The music helps the flow of your standalone so don’t over look this step. I was happy with how my standalone came out and next time it won’t take me as long to figure out how to do things because of this project. I wouldn’t put this project off till the night before either.

mo

bsucomm375mcfalls:

First, don’t forget about the bonus tumblr post (standalone survival guide, as discussed in class).

This week’s regular blogging assignment is this: watch at least one full episode of Dragon’s Den. You can watch whichever episode you want (easy to find on youtube). After you watch at least one…

I thought this stand alone presentation was very moving. The music matched the presentation perfectly. It help keep the mood of that time in that presentation. When it first started out the presentation had sort of a sad and depressing feel to it. The music help get that feelings cross by being slow and mellow tone. Then once the music picked up in the presentation the mood became more positive. They began to talk about solutions for the problems and the girl effect during this part of the presentation. I thought the contrast worked very well everything seem to flow together throughout the presentation. The colors of the whole presentation helped get the point across as well. The girl effect I guess main color is orange so them using that to represent the girl made the view know how they associated it to them. The timing is what really made this presentation stand out to me. First I was given enough time to read the words on the slide and it also stayed along with the beat to the music that was really interesting and cool to me. Second how the presenter used the words almost as actors in some part of the presentation. When they had the word girl and all those negative words jumped on top of the word girl I could really picture those things happening to a girl. The emotional part wasn’t that strong to me. All of my emotions about the piece usually came from the flow of music in the piece

-mo

bsucomm375mcfalls:

Thanks to Michelle from section 1 for passing this along.

Watch this very awesome video using the lens of the standalone presentation assignment.

The first time you watch it, just enjoy it.

(Go watch it.  Now.)

The second time you watch it, pay special attention to the following—

1) How the music is actually used.  It’s not just there, but rather, it’s really driving the timing and content of the presentation.

2) The very excellent use of contrast

3) How well thought out the timing of this piece is.  If you’ll notice, each visual element is there for what seems to be the perfect amount of time.

4) The emotional content of the piece, despite using no photos at all.  

Ok, so besides taking inspiration from this video (which is really the point of this one), what can we learn?  Keep in mind, this was made using flash, not powerpoint, and it (of course) doesn’t use the voice, so it’s not exactly what your assignment is, but I hope we can all agree that it has some merit.

When you respond to this post, include a general response, any criticism, what you can take away (practically), and what is the single most effective element of this piece. 

bsucomm375mcfalls:

Flip through this set of slides, and then answer the following:

1) What do you think is the central argument made through this slideshow? (What’s the POINT?)

2) How do you respond to that argument (agree? disagree? a weaker stance?)

3) How well do you think the design of this slideshow worked to support this argument? (Include a discussion of strengths and weaknesses of slides)

I think the main point of this presentation is to make us recognize that design is everywhere. It is all around us and everything we use and look at. I think it is also trying to get the point of across to be creative with design. If we are creative with our design then we will be more open to different things.

I agree with the point that the slides trying to get across. I think that design is very important and that we sometimes take for granted how big an impact it has on our lives. We use it in almost everything we do so we should appreciate it little more.

I think the presentation overall was ok. He used a couple good pictures to describe the different types of design.  The pictures didn’t really flow together in the order that he showed them. The placements of them on the slide were different and that made it kind of tough for me to adjust from slide to slide. I think the idea to keep the slides simple with the font and black and white was a good idea. When we changed the set up of some of the words like separate them out more or put them in a different area I didn’t really think that was a good idea. The presenter also changed the font size from slide to slide. I think they were trying to do it to get their point across but it just made it very difficult to for my eyes from slide to slide.

-mo

bsucomm375mcfalls:

Watch another Pecha Kucha presentation.  If this one doesn’t draw you in, feel free to pick another one (pecha-kucha.org or do a youtube or google search).  Hopefully you are starting to understand the assignnent— especially with regard to my expectation that these will be talks about “ideas.”

Two parts to this response:

1) In the spirit of Presentation Zen, get inside the head of the speaker and tell me this— what’s the point and why does it matter?

2) After you watch it, consider the relationship between constraint and creativity.  How does this format (pecha kucha) help and/or hinder the speaker’s overall performance?  Given that you will face these same constraints, what challenges are you anticipating?  How can you use constraint to your advantage?  How can you make PK work for you, rather than let it… work you over?

At first I didn’t know what the presentation was talking about. It was hitting a lot of different areas it started out talking about teaching, then about him going to work but I think they all lead up to his final point which was failure leads to achievement down the road. This matter because if we never fail we will never be able to learn from our mistakes and actually to it correctly. I also thought it was good how he pointed out how we learned to build better buildings. He showed that the buildings we had before caused deaths and that if we didn’t learn from that failure then we would still be having that problem today.

After I watch the presentation I felt that the presenter was very creative with how he got his points across. I thought he wasn’t very direct and straight forward about the point he was trying to get across but in the end everything that he had mentioned and used tied together. I think it hurt his performance at first because I lost interest when the items weren’t coming together but it helped because it was a unique way to get his point across. I could tell that the speaker had practiced a lot because he was right on pace with his slide he even gave himself a little pace time after every sentence about the slides. One of the challenges I expect to face is keeping up with the slides because I feel like the slides might shift faster then I expect them too.

mo