Help With Creating an Owl & Ibis Presentation

 

This is for anyone who has never made a presentation at Owl & Ibis - A Confluence of Minds and thinks they might like to but need a little encouragement and want assistance. It is also for those who have presented in the past and would like to branch out in their method of presentation for their next go.

I encourage everyone to make a presentation at least once. There is a great wealth of knowledge and wisdom among those of you who attend or who have shown an interest in the Confluence. Among you are parents, professors, teachers, artists, engineers, lawyers, musicians, singers, students, diplomats, social scientists, Burning Man attendees, Dark Mountain followers, economists, geneticists, independent scholars, natural philosophers, counsellors and psychotherapists, authors, poets, librarians, military veterans, pilots, medical doctors and other health professionals, humanitarian assistance workers, political activists, world travellers, fluent speakers of multiple languages, curmudgeons, rabble rousers and other provokers, and diverse high flourishers.

Many of you are retired and have had time to reflect on your professional, vocational, and avocational accomplishments, the fruits you think your work has produced, and the pros and cons of the fields, jobs, and roles you have labored in. The O&I Confluence is a diverse, inclusive, egalitarian, and tolerant lot. When the Confluence convenes, all tributaries are equal and become one. For those unfamiliar, the Owl & Ibis credo may be found here.

The Confluence will continue to occur monthly, online via Zoom for the foreseeable future.

Those who have chaired a meeting, made a presentation, and moderated the discussion that followed (when presenting you take on all three roles) say it is one of the best educational experiences they have had. More than the new information gleaned from doing the presentation research and prep, the knowledge and insights shared during the discussion are also illuminating and often mind-changing for the presenter and others.

There are very few presentation rules. Presentations at O&I Confluences (meetings) may be made using a wide range of means: orally (video or sound recorded, or live) with or without accompanying visual media (slides and/or videos); with email attachment handouts sent out before the presentation; or using multimedia (still and animated graphics, videos, and accompanying music).

The message is not the medium although the presentation medium can favorably influence a message's persuadability. O&I, after all, exists to inform and persuade through reasoned argumentation and discussion.

Below is a note from veteran O&I presenter Mona Leiter who has made four superb O&I presentations. The list of others and their presentations (many with links to slideshows, etc.) may also be found at that link, under the three-bar menu button at the upper left of the main page.

I highly recommend Mona. She has mastered multimedia presentations from a technical and persuasive standpoint, and her O&I presentations are among the best in terms of content (objective and subjective knowledge and experience), analysis, and argumentation.

Following is Mona's kind, unsolicited offer of free assistance to anyone wanting to prepare an O&I presentation.

Jim

}:> & ~:)

P.S. Though I do not possess Mona's computer technical skills, I too have assisted presenters in the past with advice, feedback, and PowerPoint help, and remain willing to do so again.

~ ~ ~

NOTE FROM MONA LEITER

Good evening everyone.

This is for those who have not done an Owl & Ibis presentation before. Here is an idea I am offering.

Over the past day or so I was thinking about the number of people in our group who have not done a presentation yet and it got me thinking.  Maybe the use of the tech involved seems rather daunting.  I feel we have a wealth of knowledge, passions, interesting stories etc. among the people in our group and I want to help with getting those things out into the group if I can.

I would like to offer to help with putting together PowerPoints, or videos along the lines of the ones I do - where images, sound, music, and video clips are all put together (the videos would just be for our groups and not to put online - if the latter would be the intent then we would need to be mindful of using copyrighted materials).

• So if someone wants to send me links to videos and pictures they want to use - and the text they have in mind I can put it together.  
• Individuals could also send me their recorded narration if they have any or the text they wanted narrated and I could do it for them.  (I found from my experience of working with someone on their presentation that I could record her narration through our Zoom consultation sessions.  I then saved the audio and added it to the video.  So this is an option as well.)
• Then they could let me know the styles of music they like and would want to use and I can add that in too.  I have copyright free music of a wide variety of instrumental styles I can use and put in the background due to my membership on a website called Storyblocks (this also has video and images that would help to illustrate things).
• And in the end if they like, after the video or prerecorded PowerPoint plays - I could do a Q and A with the person doing the presentation (again if they like) and afterwards we open up for discussion.

For Owl & Ibis the lead time for this would likely be at least a month.  If someone did not want much added then the turn over time may only need to be a couple of weeks.  In either case, this would involve some Zoom collaboration sessions so I can get their feedback on how what I have put together is coming.  But if it would be more elaborate like the ones I sometimes put together using my Movavi software then, again, maybe more like a month would be appropriate.

I am working on both a web page and video that will explain this whole process and options.  So anyone that would like help please let me know  (This applies to anyone - not just those who haven't presented before).  We can discuss the possibilities. I look forward to collaborating with you in the future!

Mona