Organization and Preparation

1. I feel that Reynold's most important point is to give heavy thought to the purpose of your presentation. Doing this forces you to consider vital parts of your presentation, such as how to tailor your presentation to your audience.

Another important point is balance of content. A good presentation will not succeed with too little content, but it also will fail if there is too much content. The presenter must figure out the correct amount of information to give and remember to keep simplicity, clarity, and relevance in mind. Brevity, in this case, is the soul of a good presentation.

Presence, Reynolds asserts, is key to a good presentation. The presenter needs to keep the audience in mind at all times, and needs to be aware of what will retain their attention, as well as figure out ways for them to retain as much information as possible.

2. Reynolds provides many significant questions to ask yourself when putting together a presentation. I will be sure to ask myself questions like "Is this really relevant?", "Can I explain my main point in less than one minute?", "Am I using clear language?", and "Is my presentation structured clearly?

3. A few parallels can be drawn between presentation preparation and product design. For instance, both a designer and a presenter can ask themselves "Is this really relevant?" when considering what to include. For the presenter, answering this question would help to weed out unnecessary information. For the designer, this question may help them decide to leave out certain extraneous features in his or her product.

Simplicity is important in both product design and presentation preparation. A device that is too complex will frustrate consumers, and a presentation that is too complex will frustrate an audience.

Placing yourself in the shoes of an audience member or of a consumer is vital to success. If you can see a consumer easily operating your design without your expertise and mastery of the product, then you have succeeded. Likewise, if you can imagine an audience member walking away from a presentation with an adequate understanding of your topic without your background knowledge, then your presentation is a success.

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I'd be very interested in discussing fashion during Week 9. Apologies to the boys.

(But not really...)

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