As I prepared for my TED Talk, the main component that stressed me out (besides giving the talk itself) was the thought of having to watch it afterward. And, to be entirely honest, I think the five minutes I spent watching it was more uncomfortable than giving the speech in front of my classmates, even though I tried to make sure I wasn’t too hard on myself.
Most of my preparation for the content of this talk occurred as I was doing research for my essay, so the toughest part was deciding how to condense the critical points of this research. As Chris Anderson described in the article “How to Give a Killer Presentation,” I tried to make my factual data more interesting by creating a story out of it. I asked other students which burger they’d prefer during the introduction of my speech, described the shift toward new plant-based alternatives during the body, and concluded by asking a similar question about why students wouldn’t at least give the Impossible Burger a try.
Although I easily remembered almost all of my content when I presented, I don’t think my preparation process made the best use of my time. In the future, I will try to solidify a final draft outline earlier than I did for this one, so I can focus more on solidifying my information than rearranging it constantly and taking way too much time.
In terms of my delivery, while I think that parts of it were strong, I definitely see a couple of opportunities where I could easily improve. I spent too much time looking back and forth between the screen and the audience, making myself seem a little frenzied as if I’d had too much caffeine right before I took the stage (surprise: that’s exactly what had happened!). This attitude was also displayed within the many small, meaningless gestures I made instead of using greater gestures that could have had more of an impact. I also noticed that I included multiple verbal fillers as I transitioned between sections, and my speech would have been stronger without them.
Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay.
Although there were obviously some faults within my talk, specifically throughout my performance, I was pleased with how it went overall. I think the varied eye contact I made with individuals in all areas of the room was strong and that I accurately portrayed my content while maintaining interest from my audience.
My recorded talk can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M_c1PPp4ZXiW4CWIIz4IizdcEIgGf7Nj/view?usp=sharing
I’m sad I missed your speech when it occurred, I was sick, but i look forward to watching it later (Lol that’s probably going to make you stress). I had a lot of common with many of the key things you described such as the preparation aspect. It would’ve gone better for both of us if we organized everything earlier so we could actually rehearse. Good luck on everything you have planned for the future, and thanks for keeping me company during the first speech week.
I agree that the strength of your talk was definitely in the content. You had one of the most solid stories out of all of us. My favorite part was definitely your introduction. Not only did it pull me into your talk by asking a question, but it made me think that one of the burgers was meat-based, until you revealed that this wasn’t the case. This surprise kept me hooked for the rest of your talk!