Lot to learn

Theses days I'm attending a summer course in Harvard, Cambridge and some teachers of the university are telling us their papers, giing us avices to do a good research and papers, etc.

The thing is that comparing with theme, we don't know how to speak in public. When they present, they look at audience's eyes, they make jokes, they make the presentation interactive and easy to follow, they are qell-structured.... but the most important is their gestures, hey way of talking, slow, clear and loud, just as they were acting in a show.

I know this is the american way of presenting, but I think that's really a good example of what an effective oral communication has to be. Is difficult to make the presentations as they do, but I'll try!!!!

Another try!

Another try to improve my oral presentations!!! We have been accepted to this conference, in Pisa, to present a paper. The presentation will be in English. We don't not the presentation time yet, but we will prepare a good power point to make people paying attention to our presentation, try to speak apropriately and answering questions the best way possible.

I'll tell you about later on!!

These days

As you all know, the period of peace in Spain has finished. This announcement has made politicinas speak about that. They are in prelectoral period and is ineresting to look at their speaches, the way they speak, the tone, their face, etc.

Yesterday, the president of Spain, Mr. Zapatero, was interviwe by a famous journalist, Iñaki Gabilondo. I could watch only the last minutes (I was watching Polònia) but the tone, the words and the gestures where firm and showing everybody that the way the band has chosen is not the best to achive the peace. It was possible not to listen to the president but understanding what he said only watching at his facial and hands gestures.

On the other hand, the president of the opposition has a similar speach, but their gestures are different, and is easy to understand that they want to use the announcement as a electoral weapon. This is not the best way to improve the situation.

So, to speak in public is necessary to have a good guide, good voice, etc., but is is also important to gesture in order to reinforce the message.

Managing a crisis

In one class, Miquel told us the importance of managing a crisis. Last Thursday we have problems with the light in the campus. At that moment, my students and I were at the class, using the computers. Whithout the light, obviously, the computers didn't work. The reaction of the students was to shout out laud and ask for finishing the class.

I realized that we were in a crisis!! It was the last class before the test and we needed the computers!!! I relax myself and tried to calm them and we continue the class as the best way possible.

That was a try to avaluate myself as a crisis manager and I think I was not so bad at doing so. We could finish the class and we answer the questions of the class together.

Tomorrow is the test... we'll see if they understood the class....

A different try

Continuing with the conference, today I want to talk about the oral presentations. While the authors where presenting their papers, I could analyse their presentations. I look their ppt, the way they present the papers, etc.

My conclusion is that I could realize that a lot of people can’t speak in public. It’s true that I’m not an expert, but I always thought, and I try to do in my presentations, that I have to speak clearly, trying to make people be interested in what I’m saying, designing my ppt in order to make people following my explanations, but not making them read everything, the slides have to be clear and clean, with only some information, I have to try to speak properly the language, in this case, English, etc. in fact there where people doing so, but others have boring and unclear ppt, speaking very slowly with the same rhythm all the time…. and is not difficult to lose attention. Also, many people were not able to finish the presentation on time, what makes them less interesting. And all this were, sometimes, joined with lack knowledge of English, which makes worst some presentations.

So, the only thing I can say is that going to a conference is interesting for your thesis or your investigation, but also because you can learn more about speaking appropriately in public.

My poster

As I told you in my last comment, last week I went to a conference. I had to present a poster, but I didn’t know if I had to present in 5 minutes my poster or if I should wait for somebody who asks me something about it.

Finally, the situation was the second one, but it was not so horrible. I mean, I wanted to present in order to practice my oral presentations, but I had some questions and I could tell people part of the poster. One person was interested in keeping in touch and, why not, trying to share information and research.

But, as you all know, the design of the poster is also important. I though the design was not bad, because I tried to combine the colours as good as possible to make people look at it. In fact, many people look at it, what was really good, but one French researcher congratulates me for the design!!!

So, although it was not what I though at the beginning, after presenting my poster I was really happy and felt satisfied for my job. Next time we have to try to present an oral presentation!! We’ll continue working….

One try

This week I'm going to a meeting in Jerez de la Frontera, near Cadiz. I'm going to present a poster about the creation of teamworks in a sample of Spanish firms. I will have some minutes to talk about our investigation, probably in Spanish, and I'm preparing my guide. I hope the audience would be patient, please!!!!!!!!!