Let’s be honest. I always look down on my work, but I feel like this talk was painfully drawn out. I always talk slowly, but this one was just painful. Furthermore, the way I held myself during the talk was awkward to look at and awkward to carry out. Eye contact was not as strong, especially at the beginning, and there are obvious spots of hesitation at the beginning. When reviewing this talk, there are few things that I look at positively, but I can definitely say that this was not one of my better presentations.
The speed at which I moved was slow. Too slow. In fact, it lost a race against a hare and jumped off a cliff. In the end, it lost viewers’ attention, and it made people think I did not know what I was talking about. It creates an image of hesitation where a TED talk is supposed to be fast, lively, and upbeat. While this presentational style might work for something else, it did not work with this medium.
Then, the way I held myself. Throughout the presentation my shoulders are slumped back. My hands are held awkwardly, and my legs are close together. All in all, this is not a powerful pose. It does not portray confidence in either what I am saying or what I am doing. At the same point, I seem almost to be holding back from the audience, distancing myself and my ideas from those who are trying to understand what I am saying.
Eye contact. I look down too much. By looking down, I seem to be hesitant, nervous, and not confident in what I say.
Content-wise, the presentation seemed disconnected, poorly formatted, and inappropriate for the audience at hand. Use of informal language and lack of voice inflection loses the audience’s attention, and I, sadly to say, seem to have lost my audience.
All in all, this was not my best talk.video-20131114-101809.h264
