Presenting for the Audience

In a virtual environment, Zoom speaker view is our stage. In past oral presentations, I stressed over eye contact, not talking to fast, and making sure I rehearsed enough to feel confident. And while all these worries persisted, this presentation included an added complexity: the Zoom stage. What does your audience see?

Much of my presentation was created with my audience's point of view in mind. Where was I on their Zoom screen? Were my slides eye catching? Was I moving my pointer enough to engage the audience in my slides? Were they even listening, with their cameras off? And the scariest question of all: will my wifi cut out in the middle? There were so many little things to think about. 

However, constantly asking myself, "Is this clear to my audience?" translated well from visual display to scientific content. I  kept asking myself if my audience, who may have little to no knowledge on the paper, would understand the information I was presenting. I found this incredibly helpful for making sure I gave appropriate background information, and was only presenting the most important points. The repetitive question and audience influence was a helpful thought to continuously think about.

In a virtual presentation, one aspect that I forgot to anticipate was the lack of audience facial response to my presentation. Typically, when presenting, you can look around the room to see head nods, confused faces, or sleepy listeners. I forgot, however, that upon sharing my screen, I could only see 2-3 little boxes, and the facial expressions were hard to see. Thus, it was odd getting little to no immediate feedback. In talking to myself, it was tempting to just go fast, but I had to remember to slow down. While I had seen the information plenty of times, it was new to my audience, and would take some time to adjust to. 

In my presentation itself, before I began, I reminded myself that I was prepared, and should be confident in my presentation. While the nerves persisted, it was a nice reminder of all the time and hard work I put into the project. The questions were what I was most nervous for, and I was pleasantly surprised by my ability to answer the ones I received. It really made more realize that I learned and retained way more than I thought I did! That was a great feeling to end the presentation on.