When creating the presentation, I worked off previously created material that our company had used in the past for Search Marketing education and then spiced it up with Social Media Marketing and Multimedia production elements since those are the areas that I fancy.  Only one issue arose for me doing this:

Not taking in to consideration the danger associated with Social Media and youngsters.  The moment my slide came up with various logos of Social Media sites, I had a counselor looking back to remind the kids about how “evil” Social Media was and the deadly results that occur from using it.  I was shocked and my face probably turned white as I realized that these kids are constantly told that these websites are horrible and here I am preaching about how valuable they are.  Luckily, I was able to reinforce how they should be used in moderation towards the end of my presentation while still getting my point across about how companies are using them.  

So here I was, talking about all of the creative skill sets that can be applied to the Internet (writing, photography, web design, etc.) and the one thing that peaked their interest was Paid Search Marketing.  I would say just about every question dealth with paid one way or another.  For one thing, they didn’t ask questions like they did with the surgeon of “what is the craziest thing you found in a person?” No.  They were providing me with various scenarios and asking how or what a company would do to respond.  I wanted to talk about taking pretty pictures and making them Search friendly, while they wanted to talk about CPCs and budgeting.

 After working with a high school’s musical for two years I knew how to present the material in a way that captivated them.  It was more example and situation driven than technical jargon.  We essentially dumbed down the material without losing meaning.  My favorite thing was talking about Googlebot.  Instead of talking about search engine spiders, I talked specifically to Google, citing examples of SERPs along the way.  

This presentation adds to my portfolio of knowledge exchange with kids. We’ll see how many more test audiences I can accumulate of those under the age of 18 until I make a presentation for a crowd of elders (yes – elders who are not even aware of what the Internet is).  Who knows, I may have to present it the same way.  Dumbed down and kid friendly.  Next time I can think more about my audience rather than the goal of the presentation.