Objectives, Observers and Context – Presentation

Someone said “Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions.” Is it not very true. One word can raise or bring down an entire nation. One word can inspire people. One word can change the path of the future. The point here is, our words define everything ahead of us. That’s what makes the presentations a very important part of business and other walks of life. What we speak or what we put forward defines our personality and the points we expect.

A presentation is a powerful communication tool which are used to persuade listeners to take a particular course of action, convey information and provide a forum for discussion, gain commitment and engage people in problem solving. There are many types of presentation designed for specific purposes; Sales presentations to outline the benefits and give listeners a reason to buy, Business plan presentations which puts forward the future plans articulating the company goals… Whatever our presentations are about, its very important to keep it short, simple and powerful and never dump a lot of information. We should know that Brevity is the soul of wit.

The presentations should be based on the size, the type of audience, the time of the day, the audio-visual setup available, and others. We should never let loose ends while preparations. Every single details of the presentation should be analyzed and rectified clearly. Have a clear and focused thinking,think about the audience, the context of the presentation and the objectives of the presentation. HBS pocket mentor mentions that a clear objective something that is related to the outcome you want from the presentation. An objective can be of persuasion, discussion about some ongoing project, feedback about an introduced work method, or a sales objective. We are the ones who need to clearly define what our objective is?. Start by asking yourself, “What do I want my audience to do as a result?”.

You should know your audience well. Presentations is considered as an interactive media between the presenter and the audience. The better you understand your listeners, the more you can customize the presentation. You should be able to answer the biggest questions like how and why the listeners are related to the topic of presentation, what they expect from it? do they know about you? what is going to be their reactions towards the presentation? and other questions in the same line. The more you understand your audience or the people at the other side of the encounter, the more chances that you win.

The other very important thing to be noted is the context of the presentation. Check on the

environment, the setup of the presentation area and the procedure, the time of the presentation i.e. whether you are presenting in the last or first or somewhere in the middle, the time allotted for your presentation and others. We should be ready in the boots, before the presentation. Its better to be on the shore rather than get in the water and blame the cold. So prepare yourself better taking into consideration the Objectives of your presentation, your audience and the context of it.