We, at Deegloo and Digital Poirots, love it when students take it up a notch and apply for various competitions that test their knowledge and persistence.
That’s why we jumped on the chance to be a part of the
Lumen Data Science competition, organized by eStudent. It was an excellent opportunity to delve deep into data science and share experience with students.
As one of the activities, we had the opportunity to do a
workshop on how to present your software solutions and convey business value to judges or clients. 🗨️
Our Marketing Manager Valentina shared some tips & tricks for public speaking and what content you should focus on while presenting during her presentation at FER.
So we decided to put together some quick advice here on what you should do when presenting, which will get in handy when you have to do it at your student job:
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Take care of how your presentation looks. Visuals and less text are the way to go. Keep it concise and outline only the most important facts. Straight to the point is the name of the game.
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Data storytelling. - Just as in any other story you have to have characters, setting, conflict, and resolution. Present data as you would present a story. Fewer tables, and more graphs, please.
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Engage the audience. - Connect with your audience and pay close attention to their reactions. You have to create a bond with them straight at the beginning.
🦸♀️ If you are scared of public speaking, do some exercises.
Power posing or hyping up (e.g. playing a favorite song before) can help. Also, practice as much as you need so you’ll feel relaxed and confident when it’s showtime.
🔍 Outline the
pain points of your problem or software, then stick to the
business value your solution will provide. That’s your selling point.
⏱️ Documentation and reports are cool and necessary but don’t drag them into your content.
Keep it clean and short. Slides are a supporting tool, not the main part of your presentation.
💡 How to construct your presentation:
- Introduce yourself or your team
- Describe the problem or task you had. Focus on pain points.
- Describe the process and structure of idea generation and validation.
- Describe the solution you came up with and the process behind it. This is the technical part of your solution.
- Outline the business benefits and benefits for the end user.
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Prepare yourself for possible questions that might come up at the end of the presentation. Try to analyze what you’ve done and where somebody might have some confusion or question. Great preparation is already half of your win.
🧘 And lastly,
relax. We all make mistakes. We seem reserved and can draw a blank when presenting. It happened to all of us. When that happens, pick yourself up and keep going, and just smile.
If you have any questions or really hate presenting, you can always reach out to us via our websites or LinkedIn. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. And strike a power pose. ✌️
Informacijsko i programsko inženjerstvo