The Internship Final Demo - How to present your work?

How should you prepare for and present your work to your team, and why it matters?

Washington, USA

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For an Audio Summary, click the Play button below:

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A lot of us are afraid of presenting to a big audience. Some of us feel unprepared and not sure if we will be able to present our work in the best manner. While you are busy with the details of the project work during your internship, remember that at some point you will be asked to present your work to the wider team. The Intern Demo is a great tradition followed by a lot of Tech companies, where usually the entire organization is invited, and the team’s interns are given an opportunity to present their work. The demo usually happens at the end of your internship as you are wrapping up your work. So, how should you prepare for this important milestone of your internship? Are there things that you could anticipate and prepare for that would make this a memorable experience.

During the heart of my summer internship at Microsoft back in 2005, as I got busy in implementing the multiple UI pages for the Portfolio Modeler, I remember printing out the final UI of each page as I finished it and hanging it on the cork board. In total I finished implementing about 14 Project Web App UI pages, and I remember creating this wall of screen shots of the full feature. Anytime someone dropped by my office, they would start looking at the screenshots and this would give me an invaluable channel of direct feedback and understand what resonated with the team. It also became immensely motivating to complete each new UI page and aim to stretch myself and complete the full feature.

In the second half of my internship, Matt introduced me to the idea of starting to prepare for the Intern Demo. He mentioned that during the demo, I will be able to present my work to the entire Project team and get to showcase all the hard work I put into my internship and receive recognition for my efforts. This felt like a huge opportunity and I instantly recognized how valuable it would be to demonstrate my work to the entire team.

“It would be great if I will be able to demonstrate the fully functional Portfolio Modeler feature, to the entire Project Team”, I thought to myself.

Perhaps, this opportunity that I was going to get in the end, motivated me to go above and beyond the initial scope of the intern project, and deliver a fully functional Portfolio Modeler feature.

Tip #1: Presenting your work is an important part of professional life. It may feel overwhelming, but the recognition that comes with it, will make you feel valued and inspire you to do epic work.

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