Self Evaluation (The real final post)

So, my project is over and done with at long last. It has actually been really fun but also tiring in the end. I am glad it is over but I actually do look forward to recording more, maybe if I had a two week- a month break I could be ready to do this project all over again. Most definitely it has been my favorite school project of all time.

So, time to evaluate.
First of all, there was a time constraint. This may have been our biggest problem. Setting up 3 amps and a mic stand took a little too much time for my happiness. On the bright side, we went as quickly as humanly possible and I think with questions and setup included we kept it about 13-14 minutes long. Although 3-4 minutes over our time limit which definitely was not good, it did seek to enhance the presentation hopefully balancing things out in the end,
Our power-point was something I was proud of. We planned our speech according to the power-point so that as we went we could have animations make pictures and words appear as we talked making the background flow very well with the foreground. I also thought the presentation showed a lot of our progress as it had many original pictures so it accurately represented the various portions of our presentation.
Showing our product was another major success. The showing of the product also acted as a hook. At first we wanted to do the performance at the end of the presentation but we came to the conclusion, "What is a better hook than live music?". This stuck true for us as we grabbed the audience's attention for the rest of our presentation by showing our product at the same time.
Inspiring through our passion may have been a bit of a rough spot. We did focus a lot on our process and although we tried to inspire, it may have been a little overshadowed by our process explanation. That being said, I think we did a pretty good job of bringing the presentation together into our underlying theme that was meant to be inspiring.
We explained our process pretty well. Talking about complications and success's at the same time definitely helped to give a full scope of how the process of recording an album was like. Also using little jokes along the way helped to give a more realistic way of explaining how our experience was. This also served as a device to keep the audience's attention.
Our purpose (If you are passionate about something and proud of the work you do in that field, you can achieve any goal) was brought together pretty nicely at the end of the presentation. However, I would have liked to hint at it a little more throughout the beginning of the presentation as well as the end. Although not a travesty that this did not happen, it would have been nice to have people come to the purpose at the end along with us instead of us explaining the entire thing. Having people have an understanding of our purpose before the ending was something a little rough through the presentation.
Our organization came together pretty well. Having a musical intro served as a nice hook and I think starting with inspiration, then complication, then our experience, and finally our purpose served well as an order of doing things. Transitions are the only part that could have been slightly smoother. Although certain times they flowed, such as from inspiration to complication, there were other times the transitions were a bit rough. A good example of this was from our recording experience to our underlying purpose. That could have been done a bit more artfully.
Delivery was probably a strong point. Owen presented very well and I think my speech was pretty clear and accurate. I tried to be genuine as well as professional to associate with my audience while still educating. The only real complication here was leaving my notecards on the table below the stage while setting up (I was in a major rush to get everything set up). This may have set me back a bit in the beginning from nervousness without them, but ended up being fine as I had everything I would say basically memorized.
As far as the Ted commandments goes, I tried to follow them as well as I could. Although time ended up being a slight issue and my speech may have been a bit stammered in the beginning, all told we tried to follow the commandments to the best of our ability.

So, all being said and laid out on the table I would say this was one of the best presentations Owen or I have ever given. Not only was the project long and hard (yet rewarding) but this presentation took a lot of discussion and set-up. That being said, I am very proud of all the work leading up to this presentation (from writing to recording to planning for the Ted Talk) and am happy to finally have done it.

Out of thirty I would give us either a 27 (90%) or 28 (93%). This actually depends on how bad it was that we took up extra time. Obviously, I am not the one running things under a time constraint so in my opinion it was not a huge deal. But, of course it could have been a major nuisance and I just don't know what it's like to run a show under a time limit.

Thanks again for reading my blog over these past weeks and accompanying Owen and I on our journey to record an album.

It's been fun!

Bye everybody!

~~Max