Reference no: EM132719474

Question: The case of ...The "Creative" Presenter

Michelle Abellard was excited. She was going to get an opportunity to make a presentation to her psychology class on a topic that she'd recently researched for a report: creativity.

She immediately set to work, planning a grand entrance: She would enter the class dressed in a clown suit (last year's Halloween costume) with her dachshund, Soprano, at her side. She would open her presentation by asking the audience for their definition of creativity and bring candies to throw out to those who answered. To show just how creative she could be, she decided to develop a set of "wild and crazy" slides. She spent days lovingly designing the slides, each one with a different background and colour scheme. She experimented with several different-coloured fonts on each slide, although she decided on lavender for all the titles-it was, after all, her favourite colour. She ended up spending so much time designing the slides that she didn't have much time left over to think about what to put on them, but she came up with a creative solution, cutting and pasting paragraphs from her recently submitted report onto each slide. Her plan was to end the presentation with a bang by having her dog-who wasn't called Soprano for nothing-sing for the audience. What a splash she'd make ... people would be talking about her presentation for the rest of the semester!

Well, Michelle did make her presentation, and people were certainly talking about it, but they were mainly commenting on the negative feedback Michelle received from the instructor, who decided to use the occasion to teach Michelle and the rest of the students what not to do.

1. How well did Michelle use her time to plan her presentation? What advice would you give her about the preparation stage of planning a presentation?

2. Clearly, Michelle was enthusiastic about the topic of creativity, and she tried hard to make it come alive for her audience. Where did she go wrong?

3. What was Michelle's priority when preparing this presentation? What should have been her priority?

4. Do you agree with Michelle's instructor's decision to provide feedback publicly? Why or why not?