Session 5: Spice Up Your Presentation Skills
Sunday, October 27, 2013

Presenting is not a very popular topic to most people; in fact, it is usually a dreaded subject people tend to avoid. When deciding which session to attend during this time, I wasn’t too sure how I would feel about this one, but I grabbed a chair and opened my portfolio for some note taking.

When Dr. Joseph Trahan began his session my eyes were glued to him. There is no room for exaggeration when I say he demonstrates what he preaches. This man had me excited about standing in front of a crowd with a PowerPoint as my background. Live tweeting was faster than I have ever seen it. Everyone in that room loved what Dr. Trahan had to say.

“You’re going to be nervous, just accept it,” said Dr. Trahan. Who isn’t nervous before a presentation? We are all human, and we all have emotions. Usually once the presenter gets into his or her groove, he or she loosens up and has a great presentation. It’s all about understanding what’s important to your audience, though. One will lose the audience’s attention if he or she is not tending to what is wanting to be heard.

Dr. Trahan stressed many areas of presentations: eye contact, movement, gestures, introduction, body, conclusion, and storytelling. In order to have a successful presentation, one must pay attention to those aspects.

Probably my favorite part of the entire session was Dr. Trahan took so many questions from the audience. PRSSA had so many curiosities on presentations. He took the time to answer as many as he could to the best of his ability, including my question. Yes, I mustered up some courage, spoke into the microphone, and asked, “How do you cover word vomit during a presentation?” Dr. Trahan said that was a new term for him, but once I explained that word vomit is something someone says that he or she didn’t mean to say, he took the microphone back. He said something along the lines of rolling with the punches and gave some examples of word vomit he’s experienced.

Overall, this PRSSA session was great! Who knew that a presentation of presentations could be so stimulating?