“Cloud Computing”
Frankly when I had initially heard of the term, my first thoughts were “Now that computing technology has become so advanced, we’re actually aiming for the skies a.k.a the sky is the limit and where better to start from than the clouds!”
Two interview sessions, several group discussions and a million articles later, I realised that it was MUCH more complex than that! A concept to get hold of, a problem to develop, surveys to conduct, data to collate and a solution to figure and present, the journey ahead would be tough. However, with a great team of 5, all was achieved and in the nick of time!
On reviewing the overall presentation of the group, I’d say all in all we managed to do a good job. We made use of creative slides with effective visual aids, relevant content explaining our observations and conclusions and supported our theory with practical examples such as dropbox and skydrive, so that the panel could relate to it. But what we probably lacked, was effective time management. Our topic was very vast, one that would need a whole lot of explanation to the idea behind our solution, but alas time chose to give up on us.
Personally even though I’d say I have improved since the last presentation, I still have more room for improvement. For instance, even though I had prepared what I would say for each slide, yet at the final moment, stage fright overcame me, and I ultimately had to speak extemporaneously. So words like ‘aaa..’ and other hindrances were still quite prevalent.
I tried to be clear and concise while speaking, and emphasized on those points that I found relevant, using effective voice modulation. I also managed to maintain a good eye contact with the audience and used appropriate hand gestures to support my explanations. However, these could still be worked on and improved.
On the whole, if I were to analyze the presentation, some of the points that I felt we could work on are:-
• Better preparation and hands-on practice with the slides, so that there could be a smooth transition between the presenters, and coherence between their explanations
• Setting a time limit for each segment, so that a time constraint would be imposed and would not be overshot
• Basing our explanations more on why our solution was most optimized rather than on the extent of the problem
