great ideas all around , the following can help you confront and ease up the tough bit , getting your job at hand accomplished:
a> Use the nervous energy don’t block it, redirect it (ask yourself NOT where you are , but what you are supposed to do being where you are and just focus on that), set the tone of the presentation as if its a discussion, make it interactive and you are educating people, setting the context of the discussion. So know your subject better , that should be the only thing you should really be nervous about, so understand the what, why , when and how of your subject matter.
Try not to keep loose ends, try to resolve the puzzles and contradictions of your subject(the areas that you are going to cover) as much as you can. Depending on the length and breadth (highly technical or introductory educational) of the discussion you might be ready to dive deep or just sort of sequentially move on from one topic to the next relating each to the other . If you organise your presentation in the form of links , cues and relationship between the sub-topics, half of your preparation is done.
b> Make it interactive make eye contact , no not just for the sake of making an eye contact but because you want to know what people are absorbing and what they can’t relate to, you want to keep them interested.
This doesn’t happen if you yourself is not interested in the subject matter of the discussion.
So again be thorough and try to find the motivation behind and be interested. It may not be that the whole subject interests you , but even one opening will give you a head start into the other non interesting parts.
c> Give concrete examples of problems , it makes people sit up and listen , use the board or graphics more , written words if used should be the key words which impress upon the listeners like milestones on a journey.Again it helps to keep it interesting.
d>Its not your job to play model , but its your job to present the subject matter as a model , its not you who is important , its the subject matter that the people should be more interested in (if you are thinking the other way round, you have already set yourself up for a drab presentation). So you don’t have to try harder about your appearance , keep it simple , neither do you want to draw attention positively by dressing fashionably or negatively by dressing bad. So keep it simple protocol- ish and be comfortable.
e> Only the subject matter of the presentation is important, your interest in it sets the tone, your knowledge drives it , your communication skill makes it interesting to others. Keep a logical/chronological list of items with keywords (sort of a mind mapping and linking) against each written with yourself apart from the presentation (if its a ppt or similar).
f> Take things progressively , first just aim to gain the interest of at least one person fully , if at the end of it 2-3 out of a group of 20 have participated in your discussion even in the form of nods and body language , be sure that you are in the right direction. If people ask questions that have answers later in your presentation , let them know you will touch upon that sometime later in the discussion, if they ask something which you do not know then just handle it accordingly or if they ask you something about it which you have heard about but you are not too sure about let them know about it that too , but make sure to draw them back into the presentation. Let people discuss amongst them if they are doing when in such situations.
If they know better than you on some parts of the subject you ask questions about it and encourage them to speak about it , but again draw all back to your presentation timely because you will have your own stuff to talk about in a limited time.
g> be prepared thoroughly ,intensely and interestingly (as opposed to jargonic drabness and boredom) with your subject matter because that is your job at hand and it is in your control , other things like what people are thinking about is not your job and most times beyond your control only adding to stress.
Concentrate hard and be present in the moment. Let people absorb what you are saying so don’t be too fast to switch topics and don’t be too slow so as to loose their interest, so you set the your pace or rather the subject does ideally. Just don’t try to get over with it. Pay attention and be serious about it. KEep the stress in the right place – > the subject matter of the presentation. Other things be cool and spontaneous.
Don’t do that.