Okay ladies and gentlemen, hello, my name is Charles Odin, by the way. I'm here to give you a lecture but also, hopefully, have a good time with you all. Lectures don't have to be too serious but you can deliver them with a little bit of humor, and be respectful to your audience. Now I've been in China for many years. I've been here since 1998, here at Beida when this building, or when the Centennial Building was built. I've seen a lot of changes at Beida, and I've always enjoyed being with the people here. I've always had a great time with very intelligent students who ask very difficult questions sometimes. I remember the first time I came here. Students would come up, why was Thomas Jefferson the third president? Why wasn't he the second? I go, I don't know. They'd ask me questions about American history and I go, I don't know. I went back to America and I studied Chinese history. >> [LAUGH] >> And American history. Now when I meet Chinese people, we're talking, I know Chinese history. [SOUND] You don't know that? Really? Zheng He in the first part of the Ming Dynasty, you forgot that? I like to tease Chinese people now because I know some Chinese history. I tried to learn the culture, to make a connection and that's what you do in the first part of a presentation. You introduce yourself, what the topic's going to be, delivering English speeches and presentations. Then you try and make a connection with your audience, so they go, wow you know this guy, he's one of us. He likes our food. I love Chinese food. Come for the Chinese food and stay for the Chinese food and you won't get fat like I didn't get fat. My brother did, though, but that's another story. Anyway, it's all about finding something that you can tell as a little story in the very beginning of the presentation that will attract these students, or in this case, the audience, and make them feel happy. This guy looks confident. because when you can tell a joke or tell a funny story, usually you're comfortable with yourself. You probably know the topic you're talking about. In this case, I've been doing teaching presentations at the university level in business communications or technical communications for over 13 years. I often go to different corporations, both Chinese and international. Both as a corporate language trainer, the English teacher, or as a consultant to help them develop and improve their communications through getting to know each other's culture, which I think is a very important thing. Many times I find that when I go to a corporate meeting of some kind, the Chinese are very quiet and very polite, and don't ask questions. Not like Beida students though, and they're very interesting, to just sit there and not say anything. It's not just the Chinese who have to communicate with each other. The other people, in other countries, like say if you're offshoring for an American company of some kind, you need to also let them learn about you and develop a relationship between the two of them. I found that by trying to analyze what the other side is misunderstanding about this side and putting them together so they learn to work with each other. It shouldn't only be the Chinese that have to adapt to other corporate structures and other cultures. You should both work together and be respectful of each other's culture. Because I've been here for so long and met with so many different people, I'm not going to teach you how to make a PowerPoint. If you can't make a PowerPoint by now, then you haven't used a computer since childhood like I have. Maybe not that well but most people have been using PowerPoint and any type of high school situation or college situation. They know the basics, you open the PowerPoint, click on the new file, set it all up. You know that all ready but what you need to know is how to deliver this presentation and speeches. Now presentations and speeches are very similar. Speeches though tend to be really rigid, you must go through step-by-step, and speak exactly what you're going to say. Especially, if it's diplomatic, like when you have speakers come here to Beida, and they're, President Clinton, in 1998, I was here. He's [NOISE] very careful about what he says. You might say that presentations are much more free, you have more visual aids, for example, like this. You can move around more but I'm kind of locked into here because I can't move too much but usually, I'm a very active person. I like to move around the stage. Steve Jobs is like this. Now I'm not comparing myself to Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is probably the best in the world at working the stage, moving around, showing things, using visual aids, objects and demonstrating and enjoying what he's doing. Usually, if you're someone who knows your topic well and you are working with an audience that really would like to know what you're going to tell them. You can surprise them from time to time with something new, like he does. It makes the audience participate with you more and be more receptive to you. Now I'd like to begin by saying that I'm deeply honored to be here and I've always been a friend of Beida and I've always enjoyed being here. That's your intro, your honorific. I really like you. You're really great people. I've been dying to come here. I'm greatly honored. I'd kow tow but I don't have any room to bow. This is a time when you say wonderful sweet things. I've read some of the speeches given by visitors to Beida, for example, or other universities. The first page is all this, I love China, I love Beida, I love the people here, on and on and on. A lot of it's true but it's something you normally have to say when you're going to make a big speech. Now I'm not going to do that today. I already seen I've been to Beida a couple of times. I've been here a long time, I love the food, blah blah blah blah, I'm done. You do your intro, you gave your qualifications. Why they should listen you. I'm an expert because I've been here a long time, blah blah blah blah blah. You've given your qualifications, you've given your name. You've given your title and whatever's going on. That's the first slide. The second slide. I have my little switcher right here. [SOUND] Nothing happened. [SOUND] Nothing happened again. It's the Q & A slide. >> [LAUGH] >> My goodness, what happened? My presentation's backwards. Now, what I am going to do? I can't start my Q & A, or can I? Here's the thing about doing a presentation. You must be adaptable, you never know what's going to happen. Maybe noise will come in, maybe the power will go off, the computer will go nuts, the camera won't work properly. This thing might not work properly, or your slides are out of order or something like that. Then you must adapt. Now, hopefully, if you're an expert at what you're doing and you normally do presentations and you know your topic well, you can adapt. I got a Q&A slide here, what am I going to do? I'll do it backwards. I'll ask you questions, there you go. Now I have a studio audience here, very intelligent young ladies and gentlemen over here. I'd like to know more about what you would like to hear from this presentation because I'm very flexible. I can go through this presentation step by step-by-step-by-step but if I have a better idea of what you want, I'll change what I'm doing. So analyzing your audience, knowing your audience before you do your presentation, really helps a lot but I've never been here before, I don't know you. You're all nice people, I'm sure, and very intelligent and interesting but I just don't know what you need exactly. I had a report about things that are needed like cultural understanding, delivering speeches, delivering presentations but I want to ask some of my audience here now, what you want. It's always ladies first. Now whenever you're going to cross the street, and there's lots of cars, ladies first. Maybe [SOUND] it's a dark building, it's very scary, ladies first. Or time for a test, the professor always chooses a girl first. What's your question? What kind of problem can I help you with? >> I wanted to know how to do presentations such as how to attract an audience and how to make them involved in my speeches and how to make them love. >> Love you? You're a very pretty girl, it shouldn't be hard, I think. >> Laugh. >> Laugh. Both are good, love you or laugh with you, either one is nice. Thank you very much for that. That's good, and I think I included some of that already but I'm going to put some more into that. How about this gentleman, here? >> Here is the case, we often do presentations in classes. We want to know something more about in public speaking, to be more specific, how to control your stage performance. How to calm down in front of a number of people. >> [LAUGH] How not to be nervous and how to control yourself in front of a lot of people. >> Yeah. How to interact with the audience and make the presentation more vivid. >> More vivid, yeah. I hope I'm making it a little bit vivid. I'm not just going, hello ladies and gentlemen, today we have a presentation. I'm not doing that, I'm trying to get involved with you a little bit. That's an important part. Now I don't know if the audience, the international audience can hear these questions. I just repeated them a little bit. She's very interested in how to attract people and how to make people laugh and love her, perhaps, I don't know. It was a Freudian slip, it was the truth but you hid that. How about this young lady right here? One last person. >> Sometimes, when we do presentations, some of the audience is looking bored. >> [SOUND] >> I really want to learn how to get them interested in the presentations. >> [SOUND] >> Get involved in the presentations. Also, I want to know how to make them laugh and [INAUDIBLE]. >> Very good, yeah. How to keep the audience attracted to you so they don't get bored. You see somebody just [SOUND], you take a piece of chalk [SOUND] and hit him with it. Usually, they'll okay, it'll come back to you. You'll get your attention back. Now that's a problem, of course, and that's why at the very first part of your presentation, try and attract the people you're talking to. Like I said before, in the beginning, make a good connection. Be active, and look like you're interesting to them. Tell stories because when you tell a story, you learn better then if you just go fact by fact by fact by fact. For example, long ago when I was an engineer, I would have other engineers. I'm the chief engineer and they have a problem and we have something we need to deal with. I ask them questions, and they give me answers. I make a decision or I solve the problem or if I cannot, assign someone to do research and come back with information, and then we'll work on it again. This is very much what a presentation should be like. I should know what you need and give you solutions and answers to your questions and that's why I put the Q&A in the beginning. There's another Q&A at the end, don't worry.
