To answer or not to answer?

What do you do when your presentation gets interrupted by a question from the audience and you were planning to answer the point a few slides down? Answering it will disrupt your carefully designed story flow. Not answering it might upset the audience. My suggested approach differs by presentation setting.

• For huge audiences (a big TED talk for example), you are unlikely to be interrupted.
• For slightly smaller audiences, you can say that people should hold of questions until the end of the presentation. After that, only hacklers can still decide to interrupt you.
• If you get a question in a presentation for a big group of people, I would answer it really briefly (yes, good point, we do have a blue colour option) and say that you will get to it in more detail later on, look a way from the asker to stop the dialogue.
• In smaller meetings, you can sometimes completely go off script and let the audience guide your presentation. A good example would be a pitch to partners in a VC firm, where they read the material beforehand and have a number of very specific questions they want to see answered. Being stubborn here and sticking to your script will upset the meeting.
• In one on one meetings you need to read the body language of the person sitting in front of you. When someone keeps on asking what it is that your product actually does, it is better to kill off the issue rather than have the person sitting and guessing with a frown on her face until you get to the right point in your presentation. A person who is guessing, is not listening to what you say.

In short, the smaller the audience, and the better prepared they are, the more story flow disruption you can allow. 

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Art: Johannes Vermeer, Girl interrupted during her music lesson, 1660

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Presenting at a pitch competition: audience versus professional jury

They are different. The audience will put more value on:

• Entertainment value ("stunning" slides, unusual props, presentation style)
• Emotional connection to your business idea (not-for-profit ideas do well)
• Emotional connection to the speaker (is she sympathetic, an underdog taking on big bad forces in the world)
• Whether they actually remember you after a long morning of pitches (most of the audience will not take notes)

The professional audience will put more value on the business potential of your idea.

Focus on the objective: winning the pitch competition, which is different than receiving a cheque.

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Art: Jean-Léon Gérôme, Police Verso, 1872

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Missing: presentation skill teaching in schools

Presentations have become incredibly important in business:

• It is harder to stand out to sell stuff. Fifty years ago, people would buy products from local, familiar suppliers. Now companies buy from suppliers across the globe.
• The amount of new ideas is proliferating. Fifty years ago, you learned how your industry works and then spent 40 years working in it. Now, technology and creatively linking multiple disciplines give an endless flow of new business concepts that need explaining.
• Good presenters get promoted in big corporates, good presenters manage to get funding fro their startups. Presenting is a key career skill.

Presentation design needs to be incorporated in the curriculum and include elements from traditional courses:

1. Art, drawing, photography, typography
2. Data visualisation (mathematics, economics, science)
3. Psychology
4. Literature, (story) writing
5. Computer skills
6. Acting

I can see that it is hard to implement drastic changes in the curriculum of schools. One solutions is to give students one big presentation project throughout the year, and have them work on it during lessons of existing classes (mathematics, economics, art, etc.).

I have worked with 15-16 year olds (as part of the MEET program here in Israel) and discovered that these kids - free of historical baggage of bullet points - are actually pretty good at designing bold visual slides. What needs work is the basics of pitching a business idea, and presentation delivery skills. 

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Art: Charles Hunt, Children acting the 'Play Scene' from "Hamlet," Act II, Scene ii, 1863

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Introverts and fear of public speaking

Being an introvert and being afraid of public speaking are 2 different things.

Introverts find it hard to engage in small talk, introverts think before they speak, introverts do not enjoy loud crowds, let alone trying to make yourself heard in them.

But, introverts can be great public speakers. On stage, there is no small talk, but the real substance of your presentation. People are quiet and listening to you. The perfect spot for an introvert to shine.

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