Speaker 1: Giving a presentation is really, really scary for a lot of people. And the first biggest tip I want to tell you is just stick with one big takeaway that people should get from your presentation and the one big problem that you are solving. That is it. Now, I've seen a load of presentations, especially really sort of in-depth scientific presentations where people just overwhelm the audience with too much information. When you are planning your research presentation or any presentation for that matter, you have to think about the one big thing that you want people to take away, the one big sort of like aha moment or that one sort of phrase that you want people to take away. That's absolutely fine. Also, people really relate to problems. The problems that you are solving, people also want to solve them when they hear them. You can do little asides, but make sure that you do not overwhelm that one big takeaway message by sort of like trying to show about all the other information and all the other things you know about. People don't care. They won't remember it. So keep it simple. One big problem, one big take-home message, that's all you've got time for and that's all your audience really wants. The second biggest thing that I want you to realize is that people will remember how you make them feel and not what you say. So what this means is that if you make your audience feel comfortable, relaxed, and like you know what you're talking about, they will remember you for giving a good presentation. They will not remember a good presentation that is delivered poorly and makes them feel awkward. They'll try to forget about it. So practicing, making sure that your pacing is good, making sure you look at the audience, all of these really simple, basic kind of presentation things that you know about really do help make the audience remember you for all the right reasons. Now here's a little thing that not a lot of people talk about is that I have given so many presentations and every single time, people look really bored and confused and people are squinting and doing weird things with their face and they don't even realize it. And then they come up to me at the end of the presentation and they're like, oh, that was the best presentation, thank you so much. And I'm like, you're lying. But this has happened so many times that you've got to remember that when people are concentrating, listening, and don't realize that you're like also a person looking at them, they do weird things with their face and they're not always like, oh yeah, yeah, you're doing a great job, uh-huh, I get this, mm. They're not doing that. They're doing weird stuff. They're frowning, just worry about delivering, nice and confidently, and don't get put off by those weird sort of like gurney faces that are looking your way. They don't realize they're doing it. Consider using AI tools like ChatGPT and Bing from Microsoft to create headlines and titles to make your presentations more persuasive and powerful. I ask for power words, things like headlines that are more engaging, headlines that trigger curiosity. All of these things plugged into an AI language model really can make your presentation go from blur to excellent. And that's because people are fed up of seeing the basic introduction. They're fed up of seeing conclusions. They're fed up of seeing results. In fact, you can use that heading as a way to give that big message. You can say instead of results, you can put what you found. You know, not what you found, like what you found, your conclusions. And that just makes it far more engaging for the people that are trying to follow the structure of your talk. Use bullet points as a last resort. Really, no one wants bullet points. We are fed up of seeing bullet points on presentations. There are tons of more engaging and visually appealing ways to express information and use bullet points. If you cannot put a diagram, a table, just a schematic, an image, anything that you've got, think about using it before using bullet points. If you have to use bullet points, keep them short, keep them concise, and do not read them word for word because that is boring. Then people can really listen to you instead of trying to skim read all of the different bullet points that you've got on your slides. When I've been training people in the past to give presentations, they have been wanting to memorize everything they're saying because they feel like it will help them on the day. It will not help you on the day. You have to avoid memorizing, but know the route. You need to know the pathway through your slides, and you can use the slides like a simple sort of like marker so that you know you need to talk about these certain things instead of like having a sentence you need to say. That is far more stressful than just knowing what you need to talk roughly about at given a sort of certain slide or prompt or image that you see. Now you see, I've given so many presentations. I've given invited talks, I've given symposia, I've given 10 minute talks. The shortest talk I gave when I was pitching my startup was 30 seconds. So I've done the lot. And the thing is, is that it has always gone differently to how I imagined it would go, and it's always gone better. And that's because when you're put in front of an audience, that adrenaline sort of like gets pumping, you're more alert, you're more in the moment, and things just get better, I can assure you. So don't memorize what you want to say. Just know what you want to say and let it come out naturally. The ums, the ahs, the kind of slip ups, all make it more human, make it more memorable. And trust me, it will never go the way you want, but it will come out exactly how it should come out on the day. Stay around until the end of this video because at the end, I'm going to share with you something that really works and it's so simple. Anyone can do it, but it really elevates your presentation game. Humans are simple creatures, so do not worry about repeating your important take home message multiple times throughout the presentation. If that is something that you can do, do it. Make sure there is a three or four word simple take home message that you can put in throughout your presentation. People remember things you repeat. If you repeat things, people will remember them. Remember the repeating? It works. Keep on repeating things and honestly, the repetition really works because the repetition is what sticks in people's minds. Repeat the things you need to repeat because it makes it sticky, not in like a gross way, like in their minds. You get it. When you're giving a presentation, make sure you visit the room that you're giving the presentation in before talking and get used to the room, the layout, where people are going to be, and also importantly, any tech that you need to get used to to give your presentation. Where does your USB stick go? Are you using their laptop? Do you need to plug your laptop in? Have they got a pointer? All of this really makes sure that you feel comfortable and therefore your audience feels comfortable while watching you. I've seen so many people and this is like really annoying, especially when it comes to older professors and academics. They always go, I don't need a mic and they go, can you hear me at the back? And people go, yes, and then they don't talk in that voice anymore and they go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're like, you changed your voice. It doesn't impress me when you don't need to use a microphone. It just annoys the people at the back and can't hear you. So get used to the tech, use it to your advantage and it will make your audience much more comfortable. I promise. Quite often the design of your talk is dictated by your university or the company you're working at. They'll say, here, here's our boring design palette and you need to stick with that. But if you don't have a template, go to different places to find color palettes. Having a really simple color palette with background kind of like colors and then a standout contrasting color will help you pick out those key things in your design that you want people to remember. And there's plenty of websites online where you can find this information. You can download the color palettes. Go check them out. I'll put some options here. And yeah, it just makes it so much nicer to look at. You don't need to be a design genius anymore. You can just use the internet. There are so many awesome places these days where you can actually get really great graphics and photos for your presentation. Whether or not it's Pixabay, whether or not it's Unsplash, which is my favorite at the moment, they're completely free and open to use. But my favorite thing that's growing quickly is Midjourney. Using Midjourney to create images for your presentation I think will be the future and it just means that you can get any style of anything really easily with just text. The last tip I've got for you is to full on, full frontal your audience. Now we as humans get very scared when everyone's looking at you and you're the only one looking that way. Maybe it's due to like not wanting to stand out and to kind of go with the crowd but it is an important part of giving a presentation. Full frontal looking at the audience. I've seen so many people sort of like do this to their slides and then you can't really hear them and it's just really awkward. And you know, do you look at the person? Do you look at the slides? No. You want people focused on you and using your slides as a nice kind of visual justification for what you're talking about. So full on look at the audience and if you can and if you're comfortable, I always say to my PhD students and master's students, stand away from the lectern. The lectern can become this weird little island of security that just makes you look really scared. Holding onto it for dear life and it will really elevate your performance and your presentation skills because it is something that people perceive as super confident, super natural, and trust me, you will get used to it the more you do it. Nothing is better than practice for presentations. So getting out and doing it as much as possible means that those really sort of like advanced skills of standing out in front of an audience with no protection and I mean, you know, you wear clothes obviously but no protection from a lectern or a mic stand or anything is something that will just make people go, wow, they're confident. I should listen to this person. It's a weird psychological hack that I've been using and it really works. If you like this video, I gave a talk in Sydney University where I talked about all of the best presentation tips that you were never told about. So go check that out here. It looks like that. I think the link goes there. Go check that out because it will be a really great sort of addition to this video. So there we have it. There's everything you need to know about delivering a powerful presentation. Whether or not it's research, science, business, or otherwise, stick with these 10 tips and I promise you your presentation skills will improve and people will be saying, hmm, that was a great presentation and you'll be like, hmm, yeah, I know, thanks. Let me know in the comments which ones you would add and also there are more ways you can engage with me. The first way is to sign up to my newsletter. Head over to andrewstapleton.com.au forward slash newsletter. The link is in the description and when you sign up, you'll get five emails over about two weeks. Everything from the tools I've used, the podcast I've been on, how to write the perfect abstract, and more. It's exclusive content available for free so go sign up now and also go check out academiainsider.com. That's my project where I've got my eBooks, I've got a resource pack, I've got a blog, I've got a forum and it's all there to make sure that your PhD and academia and grad school works for you. So I'll see you over there. All right then, I'll see you in the next video.