How to survive the ad-hoc presentation in five steps?
Ever been in a situation where you’re required to present something ad-hoc? At work, at the university or a party? For most of us it’s not as easy as for some. The heart starts pumping and you really don’t know what to do. You haven’t prepared! How can you present anything, you don’t even know where to begin.
I faced this situation in the university many times. Not really because it was ad-hoc, I just wasn’t prepared. At work I try to prepare. But sometimes there are real ad-hoc situations. I’m not the one to jump up and present stuff at any given moment. I don’t especially like presentations. But I live with it.
The most important tip for any presenter is confidence. You can’t force it. You just have to be confident. The public can sense it and they’ll pay more attention. It makes things a lot easier for you. So get some confidence, it’ll come in handy.
As the presentation is going to be ad-hoc, your body doesn’t really have the time to build up the butterflies and make it to the defensive mode. You take 2-4 minutes, prepare your visualization if any and begin. This way you skip the part where you usually try to back out. The faster you go up there the easier it will be.
The best part of an ad-hoc presentation is that you don’t have time to prepare those ugly and cumbersome PowerPoint presentations. I know you suck at doing them. You then have a choice to make: whip up a quick and dirty PowerPoint with key points only, use a black/white board or some other form of visualization. Images or symbols are best. If there’s none just use words. One word or short sentence per slide. You really don’t need more. It takes 2 to 3 minutes.
The visual means prepared force you to stick to the main points. This is important. Stick to the main points and get the message across. Mission accomplished.
To be able to do that though, expertise is needed. Quoting Mr. Einstein, if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. When you can explain it simply you’re golden. This means that sticking to the main points and creating the quick PowerPoint was easy for you.
There’s really nothing difficult. Confidence is the key and the other parts support it. As an addition, people don’t expect ad-hoc presentations to be awesome so you get some slack. Meaning you can really spruce up real presenting skills in these kinds of events. And the best part: anyone can do it.
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