One of the worst parts of attending conferences, workshops, etc., is sitting through the obviously unprepared presentation. Speakers meander, repeat themselves, run over time, race through the final points because they wasted too much time getting started, etc.* There is a tough balance to strike. You do not want to sound overly rehearsed or as if you are reading the paper (although that is the norm in many fields, such as English). But you want to be coherent and stay within the time limits. And that requires that you practice the talk with a timer and tweak as you must.**
[*] Not for nothing, I find these problems–especially the last two–exacerbated when the speaker uses PowerPoint.
[**] This is especially true for job talks, but it applies to any presentation.
So I liked this story about a program at American University’s Kogod Center for Business Communications, which provides dogs as an audience for students (especially those anxious about public speaking) to practice presentations. The dogs have a calming influence; the students practice before a non-judgmental audience; and the students have to work a bit to keep the audience attention (the director of the study says a dog is no more distracted than the typical college student, which might not be untrue). The accompanying video is after the jump.
My dog better be ready to sit through some talks in the coming years.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on August 9, 2016 at 12:20 PM
Comments
I liked the bit about cats too.
Posted by: Joe | Aug 9, 2016 3:17:11 PM