Presenting with Confidence: 10 Tips for Librarians
November 29th, 2004In the latest round of articles from LISCareer.com, Robin Ewing tackles presentations with Presenting with Confidence: 10 Tips for Librarians. A well written piece that I highly recommend. 2 pointers that stick out include:
“4. Find – Find your own style. Your style will develop as you give more presentations. Whatever style you adopt, you want to be enthusiastic. This doesn’t mean you have to be a performer; just be excited about your topic and find a way to communicate your enthusiasm to the audience.”
“8. Connect – Connect with your audience. The audience wants you to succeed, so making a connection is easy. Involve them by asking rhetorical questions. Another way to connect is to make eye contact with people in different parts of the room. Avoid constantly scanning the audience as this will make you appear shifty.”
I have given and seen plenty of presentations over the past 3 years and one of the common issues I see is one of enthusiasm. When I am presenting on any topic I am purposely excited about it and it shows in my delivery. For example, every now and then during the presentation, I’ll say something like, “Isn’t that incredible?” or “This is going to knock your socks off”. If you’re not excited about your topic, it is hard for your audience to be excited about it. Boring presenters make for boring presentations.
Connecting with your audience goes along with enthusiasm. In addition, I always like to do something different than any other presenters at big conferences. For example, I usually hand out candy. At Internet Librarian last month, I held a contest with the audience before both of my presentations. The first one to answer library trivia questions received a piece of candy. I also did an impromptu bit with Karen Schneider on the screen, which was fun, different, and got the audience loose.
