The other day one of my talented and motivated students asked me to help her prepare a presentation. This got me thinking, and I came up with The Ten Laws of Preparation. Notice the definite article: THE Ten Laws. Absolutes are Ridiculous. Let’s go!
1. Everyone is different. No two people will prepare in the exact same manner. What works for me may kill you. Is that what you want? To die? Prepare for it! In your own way!
2. Don’t be an idiot. Generally speaking, people don’t retain much information from presentations. Instead they react to the presenter, to the environment, to the other people in the room. Impressions, feelings, sensations, and emotions; participants “like it” or they “don’t like it.” It means that you can give a successful presentation by being pleasant or entertaining or remarkable in some way—regardless of the materials you present.
3. Okay, let’s suppose that you want to present something meaningful, besides displaying your quirky personality. Then your presentation needs a minimum of structure. The type of structure, its complexity, and its design will vary tremendously from presentation to presentation, according to (1) the personality of the presenter, (2) the materials in question, (3) the circumstances, and (4) Mysterious Magma Flowing Through Your Innards. We’ll talk about structure some other day, but for now let’s state that SOME structure tends to be better than NO structure, and TOO MUCH structure is as problematic as NO structure.
4. Presentation Mechanics: slides, materials, objects, technology. I attended a big conference a couple of years ago. Every presenter but one projected slides on a big screen, sometimes of images only and sometimes text only. You know, the usual power-point thingy, frequently lacking in “power” and often not having a “point.” Many images were low-fidelity reproductions from the Internet. A single presenter, who happened to be a Zen teacher, simply talked to the crowd of about two hundred people. It was quite a contrast: heart, brain, and voice shared directly with the listeners, without the intermediation of images or text. The main thing, though, is to have a notion of why and how you’re going to use technology. If your why and how are good, your technology is good! And remember law #1: people are different. Power Point has friends (some of you) and enemies (some of me).
5. Redundancy (extra materials, short version, long version). Your presentation should be like an accordion, capable of expanding and contracting. I once attended a workshop for which the presenter (the accordion) was contracted, so to speak; she only had about ten minutes of material for a one-hour presentation. After she ran out of things to share (air), she stood there, silent and forlorn (deflated). I took over and continued the presentation for her, improvising a number of fine exercises on the excellent theme that she had proposed. Yes, “I inflated my accordion, uninvited.” But, hey! It was either me or Forlorn Deflation.
6. What if several participants don’t show up? What if the computer cables fail completely? What if the dog ate your homework? In my early adolescence (technically in my puberty, also known as Acne Horribilis), I found myself taking part in a kids’ program on a rinky-dink TV station. On that occasion I was going to play the recorder, after which I was going to play the cello. Cute! In front of the camera, I opened my recorder box. And to my surprise and horror the instrument wasn’t there. It was on my bed, at home, far, far away, out of reach, in Planet Crapyourpants. I quickly closed the empty box and announced, to the camera and to the world (meaning the three or four people watching the show in their homes), “Actually, I think it’d rather play the cello only. It’ll be more interesting.” (Or words to that effect. It has been fifty years since that acne-aggravating event.) It’s better not to assume that everything will go according to plan. Checking things a million times can help, but—no, what really helps is to be adaptable.
7. Psychological Preparation. Feeling good feels better than feeling bad. And the better you feel, the better you present! Beans, beans, the magical fruit! Ahead of your presentation, during it, and afterward, rely on every tool at your disposal to feel good about yourself, and also your materials, your audience, your friends, your colleagues, your family, your neighbors, your pets, your manicurist, and your psychiatrist.
8. Experience is “accumulated preparation,” and preparation is “accumulated experience.” One of my college mentors is a brilliant pianist and musicologist. He’s given thousands of concerts, plus tens of thousands of lessons and seminars and lectures. He was a child prodigy to begin with, and now he’s a professor at Harvard (emeritus). In one of our recent encounters, he told me that it has been many years since he last gave a lecture from notes. Instead, he talks a blue streak in any of three languages according to the needs of the house. He knows his stuff inside out, he’s comfortable with the limelight, he has merited the right to a high opinion of himself, and—well, People Are Very Different One From The Other. But over time, you can kinda relax about preparation and rely on . . . on a high opinion of yourself, maybe. Earn it, though!
9. Trust and faith. The materials, the mechanics, the outfit you wear: important. But having a sense, deep in yourself, that things will work out, that you’ll survive, that people are there for you and not against you, that the History of Humanity Since Time Immemorial is Full of Forgiven and Forgotten Over-Prepared and Under-Prepared Presentations, that the Skies Above Will Grant You Insights That You Didn’t See Coming Until You Found Yourself on Stage . . . “go present, and you’ll receive a present.”
10. “Nine jokes and one insight are much better than nine insights and one insult.” You know who said this, don’t you? Goethe, of course. In “Der Neue Speedy Gonzales” (1833) he wrote that “nueve chistes y una revelación son mucho mejores que nueve revelaciones y un insulto.” ¡Por supuesto!*
*Genau!
©2021, Pedro de Alcantara