Opening Self-Reflection as a Presenter
Over the course of my career, I’ve performed many different types of public speaking. From informal, intimate team-level presentations to more sophisticated and formalized boardroom pitches and proposals, right through to large-scale conferences delivering keynote addresses to thousands of attendees internationally. And while my public speaking is mainly focused on the smaller, more focused internal meetings in recent years, I have always enjoyed sharing ideas and presenting work to others, whatever the scale of the audience. I don’t have any plans to move back into public speaking, but in the past I’ve spoken at large-scale conferences in Barcelona, Mexico City, Canada, and in most major cities in The United States as part of my job responsibilities during my time at The New York Times, where I would be invited to present keynote addresses on the state of real estate technologies. This work took me all over the world, but eventually wore on me, and I could feel the quality of my presentations declining as the travel schedule moved forward unabated. More importantly, I have always enjoyed the process of making the presentation materials far more than the deliver of the actual spoken performance. I love to spend time crafting a really strong set of crisp visuals for use during my time on stage, and still take pride in doing so, even for the smaller, more intimate corporate presentations I do internally now for my work at NBC News.
Examples:
Building Real Estate Products at The New York Times (Las Vegas, 2015)
Building Collaboration at The New York Times (Barcelona, 2017)
Why Social Media Is Making Us Miserable (Atlanta, 2012)
I very much enjoy presenting, especially when it is an audience that I know is unfamiliar with my work and for whom I know I can bring a fresh perspective. My time in the real estate industry, which took me all over the world with public speaking, was mainly delivered to salespeople, but in recent years my public speaking has been more focused on academic audiences, students to whom I can share the benefit of my experience, or audiences from disciplines outside of the news media space. During my time at Penn I’ve spoken publicly for several club events, including The University of Pennsylvania Democrats Society, The Penn Product Management Club, and The Penn Moviegoer. Working with undergraduate students in particular has been an unexpected joy.
Examples:
Here You Can: Team Building At NBC (New York, 2022)
Itchy Triggers: Destiny’s Habituation Tactics (Atlanta, 2017)
Guest Speaker: Product @ Penn (University of Pennsylvania, 2023)
The deeper into my career I get, the less anxious I have become, and have settled into a very calm rhythm of being able to present comfortably on the subjects I’m invited to share. That said, it has not always been like this. My first keynote, delivered to an auditorium of 2,000 people in Atlanta, saw me incredibly nervous prior to going on stage, and even more so when I did the same presentation to 5,000 people in Las Vegas several months later. I have been notorious for ‘running long’ in my presentations in the past, but continue to work hard on getting my points across in a more crisp and focused manner, and I especially enjoy the kind of public speaking which comes from the ‘fireside chat’ format, which has been my preferred format for the events I’ve done at Penn. I’m also prone to deviation into personal anecdote, and I do often like to drop in something light-hearted, something I’ve not always landed smoothly. Like all public speakers, I am a work in progress.
Examples:
Guest Speaker: How It Works at Coalesce New York (2023)
From Then To Penn (And Back Again) (University of Pennsylvania Democrats, 2021)
Applied Positive Psychology At Work (New York, 2021)
I’ve often been an audience member in the past for public speaking events, but less so these days outside of academic events of interest. As a listener, I enjoy string, clear visual materials, and struggle when there is simply too much information on a single slide. As a former designer, I am more inclined to process information visually rather than orally, although I can often be caught listening to a YouTube video instead of watching it. I much prefer printed texts, despite years of trying to adopt podcasts or even reading texts electronically. For me reading is a tactical experience, and my house is filled with books and the joy of reading and listening to physical objects. Reading, like music, is a thing, before it’s a thing consumed. My wife and I have always loved live performances, and still go to shows fairly frequently, although we can often just be found propping up the bar or sitting down just enjoying the show rather than being ‘down the front’ as we might have been in our earlier years. I love live sporting events too, especially football, and much prefer it to watching it on television.
Overall when it comes to public speaking, it’s something I’ve come to a place of peace with, and am rarely spooked by having to do it. And while I prefer the process of crafting a really sharp set of visual materials to accompany my presentation, speaking to these slides is something I’ve developed a comfort with. However, my hope is that through this class I can shake myself out of this comfort a little, learn several new approaches which I can apply at work, and built out my toolbox of styles and methods through which I can also coach others on my team.
