Frustration Jan 06

Comprehensive
# including all or everything; or broad in scope

Interactive
# providing output based on input from the user. This output feeds back into the user's decision process for subsequent interaction.

I know I didn't perform well during my APCO feature presentation, maybe because I don't fully understand 100% about my feature. However I do wish to point out that I cannot concentrate when some audience already yawning even before I start my presentation, maybe it is Friday or I am the last presenter and everyone is tired. I just lost all my mood and enthusiasm when I know I already lost the attention of my audience.

Besides, I find it hard to find a balancing point between comprehensive and interesting (interactive) when making my slides. Being comprehensive means throwing everything in the slides and this means more text or becoming more like reading material instead of presentation slides.

I do have a few suggestions that might be useful or it might not.

1. Prepare 2 slides, 1 for reading purpose and for 1 presentation. The reading slides should be as comprehensive as possible and the presentation slides should contain more diagram than text. However this means more burden for the presenter and more time consuming.

2. Organize 2 sessions for presentation. First one is for basic knowledge and second one is for intermediate or advance user. The new hires don't have any knowledge on the feature and they won't understand when the senior mention more technical stuff. However this means more burden for the presenter and more time consuming as well.

3. 1 comprehensive presentation slides is prepared, then require the audience to read through or try to understand what the speaker is going to talk about. In this way, the audience would know what to expect from the speaker. The audience might jot down question and ask them during the presentation, this would be more interesting as the presenter get to interact with the audience and bring the presentation to be livelier. However I doubt that the all audience will read the slides prior to the presentation.

4. More short breaks for the audience so the audience is not tired or sleepy. Maybe try to avoid Friday where everyone is busy thinking what to do in the weekends.

Anyway, the above suggestion is what I thought of, hope it helps.