A lot of the organisations I work for (delivering presentation skills training) are membership organisations. I’m often asked along as one of a series of presentations. \u00c2\u00a0 Consequently there are often feedback forms to be filled in at the end of sessions\/workshops by everyone who attended.<\/p>\n
Do I think this is always a good idea? Nope.<\/p>\n
It’s not because I’m afraid of the feedback (heck, if I screw up I want to know why, so that I can apologise, correct it and make sure it doesn’t happen again) but because I’m afraid of the people giving<\/em> the feedback – more specifically I’m sometimes not sure they know what they want and what they’re providing feedback on.<\/p>\n To cite Henry Ford “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.”<\/em><\/p>\n So it is with presentations (or at least should be with presentations if you’ve judged correctly what your audience needs… which may or may not be what it wants\/thinks it needs). Sometimes, as a presenter, you’ll have a better idea of what your audience needs than they do. \u00c2\u00a0Of course, if your audience is enlightened and responds positively (saying things like “You gave us so much more than I thought I needed to know!”) then you’re laughing all the way to the re-booking.<\/p>\n On the other hand, if what your audience was clear about what it wanted but what it wanted wasn’t what it needed, you might be in trouble. \u00c2\u00a0Of course, the best thing to do is check this out with the organisers beforehand so that this kind of situation can’t happen… but with the best will in the world, sometimes you’re going to be ambushed.<\/p>\n There’s another couple of issue that presenters might like to consider – about the feedback form themselves. \u00c2\u00a0Firstly, I can tell you based upon over 20 years as a researcher at a University (heck, you didn’t think the Dr<\/strong> Raybould thing was for show, did you?!) it’s remarkably easy to bias your results based upon how you phrase questions…<\/p>\n More importantly, however, is the question of the perfect feedback form. I’m not pretending all my feedbacks are perfect. They’re not. \u00c2\u00a0A significant minority, however, appear to suggest that I can’t improve. \u00c2\u00a0While that’s flattering, it’s not helpful. Nor is it true.<\/p>\n So how can I, as a presenter, get constructive and useful feedback about presentations if the audience isn’t the best judge? \u00c2\u00a0Well I’m sure there are other techniques available but one of our chosen ways is the ‘critical friend’. \u00c2\u00a0Not only do we sometimes sit in on each other’s presentations but we invite our competitors to sit in on them!<\/p>\n Sure, it’s a risk because we’re giving away our IP, but we think it’s worth it because the feedback we can get from someone who’s an outside expert with no vested interest in us being great can be very useful indeed.<\/p>\n Besides, I’ve made some good friends that way! \u00c2\u00a0:)<\/p>\n What ways do you think about getting feedback? \u00c2\u00a0What about giving it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A lot of the organisations I work for (delivering presentation skills training) are membership organisations. I’m often asked along as one of a series of presentations. \u00c2\u00a0 Consequently there are often feedback forms to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-blog-related","category-presentation-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}