How in the Heck do I give a presentation?
Created: 29 March 2016 Modified:Presentations seem so very difficult. Something that takes hours of preperation and rehearsal … or so I thought. We just had a conversation with Kristen Hunter that showed us a better way. She presented here in Louisville, KY for CodePaLOUsa. Many of us want to discuss and share what we are excited about with others. Figuring out how to do that is where Kristen is here to help us.
The personal obstacle I have found most challenging is the “imposter syndrome”. Either overburdening myself with expectations that are not reasonable to meet or seeing what I want to share as not being substantial enough. What Kristen shows us is that we should narrate our journey and talk about where it took us. Others have not likely taken the same journey and your experiences are worth sharing. You are not there to provide the canonical and one true way to solve the problem.
A few months ago I gave a brief presentation on Dependency Inversion. In part it was quite stressfull in trying to come up with defensive arguments to support my conclusions. We should remember that not everyone will agree with us and that is OK. This is where the brilliance of telling your story shines. When you are telling your story and having a conversation with the audience it is also OK to be wrong or disagree.
Kristen was a font of good advice for presenting and I highly recommend her talk if you have the opportunity. She has inspired me to go back and rework the presentation as a story about how Dependency Inversion made my life better. One that I am excited, and only marginally nervous, about telling.
tags: presentation - tech - programming - kristen hunter - codepalousa