This month I’ve done more presentations for work than I have, really, ever.
Earlier in the month my company had a developer convention. We took over the local science centre, and gave a bunch of talks. My family asked if they could come to see me present, but it was employees only.
I had originally volunteered to give a talk because I saw it as a way to challenge myself. And presenting is a valuable skill to have. So I figured out something that I was working on that might be worth giving a speech about and submitted it to the organizers.
Thankfully, they didn’t select me. But my manager grabbed two other people on my team and assigned the three of us to give a presentation. That one was accepted. It was significantly easier and a better learning experience; not everything depended on me.
We split up the project, had meetings, made slideshows, and did practice sessions.
We gave our talk on the 16th. I think it went well; my manager complemented me afterwards. He said I had good skills and looked confident. I did feel old-school because I wrote my speech in point form on cue cards. Most others either winged it or read from their computer.
Today, I gave another speech. This one was easier.
They had a panel on running; they want to get people to join for the Vancouver Sun Run. I volunteered and they accepted.
It was not a big event. There were a total of ten people in the audience, and about seven panelists. It didn’t help that it was just after lunch, so people may not have returned yet.
For me it was a chance to talk about how great I am for 5-7 minutes. I may have gone over, because I’m just that awesome. Basically I talked about running ultramarathons. I touched a bit on daily running, but I had run out of time so I had to stop.