Revised 2 Minute Moment Project #1

Revised 2 Minute Moment Project #1
Public Speaking

The Nature of the Experience. 

I feel public speaking can be a very compelling experience for myself and my students.  I also hope to make it compelling to the audience.  I feel the beginning of this video/presentation is not compelling because it sounds like it is going to be just list of facts and events without much feeling behind them.  The first part was even hard for me to deliver because it was the same old information about the project we have told for the past year and a half.  We had to use it to set the scene or give the background necessary for people to understand the second half in context. 

In the second part of the video/presentation I try to make it more compelling by interjecting more feeling and more personal details about the Expedition to Palau and what my students accomplished.   The second or more compelling part of the presentation made me feel proud of our accomplishments and I could see and feel the audience being drawn into the story.  

The Design of the Experience.

Some background first, this was an ignite presentation.  The format required us to give a five minute presentation with 20 slides and the slides were set to transition automatically without any control by the speakers.  If you haven't given this type of presentation before you should give it a try.  It was fun.  

I narrowed this 5 minute presentation down to 2 minutes for this project.  I kept the beginning of the presentation which is basically and introduction to who we are and how we got started.  Just the facts so to say.  We have said those words over 20 times in public and we are beginning to say them with little feeling and it is starting to show. Thus the first half is less compelling to me as a speaker and to the audience.  For this project that is what I wanted for the first half.  

For the middle I placed a slide from the presentation that explains our mission in text format.  Not very compelling either. 

The second half of the presentation is the part that is more compelling to me as a speaker.  I tried to show this by emphasizing the personal side of the story.  The photos in the background are also more interesting to look at but it is the heartfelt story that makes this part compelling.  I feel proud to tell this part of the story and how this experience changed me and my students.  

I used the same camera and setting because I feel that we have to be able to tell a good story.  Sometimes we have very little control of our speaking venue and our audience.  We present where we are asked to present and we make do with the equipment and the room.  But, the story has to come from the heart and draw people in both visually and as a personal heartfelt story.

I feel the key to transforming a presentation into a compelling presentation is being able to tell a personal, heartfelt story and relating this to the audience in a way that they to can feel a connection to the story and the speaker.  It was my intent to show this with this video project.