Presentation Skills

today, had a good time at the office..reason : I had a presentation skills training for the entire day :)
actually ,we are supposed to prepare 2 presentations as the part of the pre-training assignment. I didn't have time to prepare two of them, so, had prepared just one presentation and the topic was 'Humor is a serious business'. Well, frankly speaking, I took it off from my soft skills classes that I attended during my college :) but yeah, since I did not have a backup of that presentation, had to prepare it all from scratch. Thankfully, I remembered most of the presentation and so, did not have much difficulty in searching for the relevant material...
The training as such was pretty normal..Apart from re-iterating some points on body language and gestures and non-verbal communication, the facilitator did not add much value to the content. However, the best part of the training was that first, the crowd that attended the training was an interesting lot...they were all full of energy and enthusiasm and second, the facilitator was very much amicable and friendly. So, though the training started off with a serious note ( there were a couple of people who even took down some notes on effective presentation techniques in the first half an hour), as the time went by, it became more and more informal. At one time, we felt that all of us were immediate team members and that we are sitting together discussing some junk to cut the time :)
coming to the structure of the entire training, it started off with a brief DOs about effective presentation techniques followed by individual presentations. I was the first to start. Though it was all good, I failed at managing time. While I was supposed to complete the entire presentation in 5 mins, I took 13 mins :))
Never the less, it was very well taken and I could catch the attention of the audience.
Well, re-conciling some of the aspects that I need to correct, first thing would be 'Preparation' . I'm sure, had a prepared a little bit, I could have given a much better presentation. Lack of proper practice was evident in the presentation, at least for me.
Second thing is the use of unnecessary fillers. 'Like' is one thing that I tend to add before almost every word. The reasons are many. First, I give myself more time to think about what I speak. It also acts as a stress mitigator. But, I have noticed that usage of 'Like'often took off the attention of the listeners from the content of the presentation.
Lastly, its the time management. I did not notice how much time I was taking all the while.
Ofcourse, good voice modulation, spontaneity, knowledge about the subject and pro-activeness in presenting was some of the good qualities that I should be happy about :))
Nyways, all our presentations are recorded and we are going to get the DVD soon. So, looking at them again, hopefully, will give better insights in to our week areas and our strengths.
After the class, I left for gym. Spent about a couple of hours there and headed back to home.
Now, the news. Guess what...I'm purchasing a car :))))
well, though not a new one, but never the less, I'm promoted from a two wheeler rider to a four wheeler owner ;)
Thats all for now. Its kind of getting late here, (12:15 AM, infact)
I'll retire for the day..
Luv