Flip-a-whata??

I generally love talking. To myself. To people. To walls. (too far?) I’ve never really been one to get stage fright or tongue twisted when put in the spotlight. I love interacting and I love teaching.

This week in MCOM, the first group of presenters had to give their flipchart convention style presentation. Ya know? Like a giant post-it note that you somehow have to manage to make professional looking?? Yikes is right. Unfortunately, I was in the first group. Now I say unfortunately because I am a very visual learner. I have never given a flipchart presentation and was banking on watching the first group of presentations to get an idea of what I wanted to do. Buuuutttt, it just didn’t work out that way J

Needless to say, my presentation went decent. I got through it at least. But I certainly had a great deal more nerves that a normal presentation. I tried not to dwell on it too much before the presentations, but afterwards I was able to put a lot of thought into it.

What were my findings you ask? Well most importantly I discovered I have an irrational fear of socks. Every time I looked down and saw sock peeking out at the ankles I would start sweating.

So that’s not true in the slightest. I don’t know why that came to mind, but it did.

What I actually realized was that unfamiliar ideas or formats give me a great deal of anxiety. As a presenter, you are technically viewed as the expert on your given topic. But on this presentation, I did not feel like the expert of what I was doing. Flipcharts are foreign to me, and the anxiety they caused me made me want to punch them (the flipcharts that is. Not humans). Similarly, I had never presented to such a small number of people. Although this caused me a great deal of stress, it made me realize the importance of being yourself and being relaxed. A more intimate setting like that calls for a very down-to-earth presentations if you want to connect with the audience.

So from now on, I’m going to do my best to be relaxed and personable in every type of presentation. Because I think that lesson rings true to every and any type of presentation.