My Presentation at STC New England's "The Coolest Thing I do in Tech Comm," April 15, 2015

This past March, I attended STC New England's monthly Scribbling Tipplers conference at Waxy O'Connor's Irish Pub in Lexington, Massachusetts. During the meeting, I mentioned that I taught an experiential learning project called iFixit to technical communication students. When I explained that this project forces students to become experts in electronic devices by deconstructing them and documenting how to repair and replace their components, she was very interested to learn more about it. I explained their mission is to reduce electronic waste and give users all around the world access to repair information that companies are increasingly restricting to third parties. She then asked if I would like to present how I teach iFixit at the New England chapter's upcoming event "The Coolest Thing I do in Tech Comm." I agreed and so I had a month to compile a 20-minute presentation for a group of 30 professionals in a conference room at the Hilton Garden Inn in Burlington, Massachusetts. Immediately, I was determined to improve after my first professional presentation I gave last year in Phoenix.

Last year, I presented at the Society of Technical Communication's Summit 2014, at the Phoenix Convention Center. This was my first professional presentation, and it was quite a learning experience in many ways. I came in, excited to present the ideas I set forth in my paper, Articulating Technical Communicators' Value to Employers. However, when it came time to give my progression, I became nervous and gave off the idea that I was unprepared and inexperienced to give a progression at a conference this size, and I felt that I had failed my audience. Afterward, some audience members said I did a commendable job getting my feet wet in presenting to professionals, but I knew there were others who were disappointed to see that I did not have a full command of my information and presentation to engage them. Ultimately, I learned that I had to be myself, not someone who I think other people wanted to see, and I had to be prepared with my presentation so that I could speak comfortably and confidently in front of my audience. I spent most of the 2014-2015 academic year at UMass Dartmouth enhancing my presentation skills so that when the opportunity arose, I would do a much better job presenting to a professional audience.

I originally envisioned a background presentation of what iFixit and how I teach it to students, which would be complemented by a live demonstration of how to create a repair guide on the site. However, I realized that I didn't want to put myself into a position where I'm rushing through the demonstration, alienating my audience, and giving an improper introduction to what is a very extensive and innovative technical writing project. I decided to keep it simple and have a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation that includes background on iFixit and a 10-step guide on how to create a procedure on the website. The next quandary was whether I should document a new device or the printer I worked on in late 2013. I ultimately decided to create an example guide from the printer just to grab screenshots from, and I would let my words and a paper handout supplement the audience's understanding of each step in the process.

I created my slides the week before the event, making sure I did not contain too much text and that the visuals were clearly visible from the back of a room. I saved it to my laptop and I was ready to walk into the hotel conference room. I arrived 30 minutes before everyone else, so I had the opportunity to practice standing behind the lectern and scan the audience's seats as I spoke. One of the chapter council members, Patty Gale, arrived afterward to set up the projector and other equipment. I had my PowerPoint file open, ready to go, but make sure I could smoothly transition slides, with my laptop away from the lectern due what I thought were short cords from the projector. I tried to pair my iPhone with a remote app to make the phone act as the remote. Unfortunately, the receiving app on my laptop crashed and caused my slides to be deleted.

I was slightly worried at first-my work for the last week just disappeared into cyberspace. When it was my turn to speak, I explained what happened, and I thought I was going to talk extemporaneously about iFixit, how I teach it to students, and detail the 10 step procedure to creating a guide on the site. However, after I made my apologizes, I realized that I had saved PDFs of all the slides and I could present them from Preview on my MacBook Pro. I explained that I'm going to present in the most interesting way: I would present and scroll down the application frame to each slide to advance the presentation. I asked Patty to let me use her laser pointer and she gave it to me for my presentation.

Unlike the shaky, nervous presenter I was in Phoenix, I spoke calmly, confidently, and persuasively about how iFixit is an innovative learning experience for students, and how it changes the way technical communication can be taught. I then directed the audience to my handout and explained each of the 10 steps, while using the laser pointer on the screenshots I took to articulate each idea. At the end of the presentation, I addressed a question that was put on a mass e-mail for the event: "Is iFixit a competitor to our own tools?" I explained that it was however one wanted to see it. Some could see it as a competitor to the official documentation from a manufacturer, but others could see it as a valuable tool that gives information in an easy-to-understand way that allows users to become empowered to take apart their own devices. The latter answer, I explained, was how several of my students felt after they completed their projects in my class.

Many audience members had questions about iFixit, which showed that I had stimulated a lot of interest and curiosity about the website, and I was more than happy to answer them. After the event formally ended, I had many professionals congratulate me on my presentation and they all said I did a good job, so I had a great feeling that I finally redeemed myself from my middling performance the previous year in Phoenix.

This experience has taught me that great presentations need to be carefully crafted-they need to be engaging, informative, and stimulate curiosity in the audience. Also, becoming an expert in the subject makes for a great presenter who can speak clearly, persuasively, and confidently to his audience. Great presentations do not just come from spending a lot of time preparing them, but they need to have safeguards in place for any technical difficulties. I managed to rescue the information from the PDF version of the slides, construct a new PowerPoint with the text and slides from that file, and uploaded the new file to Slideshare. My future presentations will have their slides on Slideshare so that I can easily access them and present, with no hesitation. You can view my slides here. Hopefully I can continue improving my presenting skills with another presentation at the New England chapter or another conference.