The Ignite experience was intense. I honestly did not expect to be that nervous, but it was still a very successful and beneficial experience for me. There are many ways that I tried to prepare myself for it, and there are a few other ways that I would have liked to have tried. Here I will go into the details of how I prepared for my presentation and the steps that anyone else should try to take, especially if they don’t have much experience with public speaking.
The Ignite Format
The format of Ignite presentations is unlike any standard public speaking format. You don’t have an hour to cover all the information you want to in the depth that you want to and allow for questions at the end. You don’t even have ten minutes to allow for breathing in between sentences.
You only have 5 minutes to present a HUGE idea with a minimum and maximum of 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds.
Solidifying Your HUGE Idea
Obviously the first step in the process was choosing a topic. I wasn’t aware of the parameters of the event when I first submitted my proposal, and I was lucky enough to be able to get feedback from the event coordinator on which of a few different topics would be most suitable.
Once you know what HUGE idea you want to present on, the very next step you should take is to watch as many videos of past Ignite presentations as possible. While watching, you should try to imagine how your topic can be presented in this format. Also, you should try to imagine your presentation being immediately followed and preceded by the most successful presentations you can find. When you think of how your presentation will fit into the whole event, it will prepare you for at least one of the aspects that make a lot of people nervous: asking yourself if your idea is huge enough.
Outlining Your HUGE Idea
After I watched as many presentations as I could find, I used the slides to provide an outline for the content of my presentation. The first set of slides I made were definitely not a finished product, but it allowed me to visualize my ideas and how they would all fit together.
Once I had the basic concepts down in the slides, I started typing what I wanted to say for each one. I began with the slides that I had a clear vision for, leaving the intro and conclusion and any other slides I was unsure of until later. This helped me to understand how each segment could fit together cohesively.
Adjusting For The Format
After I had everything written out that I wanted to say, I started the slide show from the beginning and discovered how very little I could say during each slide. I only had time for 2-3 sentences each, and since I had written a paragraph for each slide it was time to figure out what information was really the most important.
I printed out the copy and underlined the key phrases that summarized what I wanted to say. After a few rounds of revisions I was finally able to fit everything into the time frame.
Practice, Practice Practice
There were a few different methods that I used to practice for the presentation. First, I went through the presentation, start to finish, about 50 times. At first, I would restart the slides if I messed up. I quickly realized that I wouldn’t have that opportunity during the actual event and that I needed to figure out how to recover instead of trying to be perfect. (That’s not easy for a perfectionist to do, by the way.)
After practicing alone in my office for a while, I asked my family to sit through the presentation a few times so that I could get used to talking in front of people.
The main thing that helped to prepare me, however, was holding my own event before the actual Ignite event. I invited my business colleagues to join me at a local coffee shop and borrowed a friend’s projector so that I could recreate the effect of having an audience. The best part of doing this was that they offered me feedback on how to present, what not to say, and my overall presentation. I offered a drawing for a $50 gift card to a restaurant and a few other items as a way of thanking them, and it really was a very successful event.
What I Would Have Done Differently
It really would have been nice if we had been able to practice at the venue before the actual event. Even though I had seen the venue and had been on the stage, it still was not enough to prepare me for the nervousness. I’ve always done much better in front of large audiences versus smaller ones, but for some reason, I still was not able to focus.
I also wish that I would have had time to work with a speech coach. I’ve heard that they really help with dealing with the nervousness and your overall performance. I definitely will be working with one for any future opportunities like this that might come up.
All in all, this was a great learning experience for me. I tend to be too hard on myself, but I really enjoyed it and definitely learned a lot of invaluable information about public speaking. I’m still not sure if I’ll be able to watch the video more than once, though.