Ants In My Pants

In the random scholastica category, I yesterday did a presentation skills workshop that involved the participants -- there were six of us -- giving ten-minute presentations to one another on subjects of our choosing -- which unsurprisingly turned out in every case to be related to our own research -- and being videotaped doing so. Said videos were then postmortemed by all concerned, including the workshop facilitators.

My own effort was a touch more technical than most of the others, but happily it went over pretty well, managing to explain the workings of SICM to an audience with no relevant experience or interest whose hearts reportedly sank at the sight of the title. Since I was last up, everyone had already been exposed (as tactfully as I could manage) to my own presentational prejudices by the time they came to discuss my performance, but fortunately I managed to avoid transgressing most of my own diktats and was declared to "walk the talk" as far as the PowerPoint slides were concerned.

Nevertheless, watching oneself speak is an incredibly cringe-inducing exercise and I certainly saw plenty to work on. Most glaringly: I pace, fidget and shuffle back and forth in a most distracting way, coming over like a six year old with a full bladder. I wanted to shout "keep the fuck still!" at my onscreen self the whole time, which was definitely a learning experience. I use gesture and body movement pretty well when they're needed; I just don't seem to be able to stop when they aren't...
Posted by matt at November 23, 2007 11:23 PM