jay cross

Who says technical presentations can't be engaging?

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:10:35 GMT

People often ask if technical or science-related presentations can be as compelling as presentations covering other less technical topics. Now, not every presentation has earth-shattering, Nobel-Prize winning significance, but I assume if you are talking about your research or current issues in your field, etc. that your words have a benefit for someone else. I assume it is important, otherwise why waste your time and the time of others? And if it is important, then being effective matters. No one ever said that clarity and a connection with the audience were sufficient conditions for an effective talk; we only ever said they were necessary conditions.

Three years ago I gave some advice for people giving technical presentations in this post. The money quote I still believe is from engineer and scientist Dr. Jay H. Lehr in his 1985 article "Let There Be Stoning" (download article in PDF).

"Failure to spend the [presentation] time wisely and well, failure to educate, entertain, elucidate, enlighten, and most important of all, failure to maintain attention and interest should be punishable by stoning. There is no excuse for tedium."

??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??????????????????? ? Jay H. Lehr

This week I heard from Naveen Sinha, a graduate student in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. He too has noticed three things that the good lectures/presentations share. In his words:

They have an outline near the beginning of the talk, which they repeat along the way so the audience can become reoriented with the larger-scale structure of the presentation.
The slides use a full sentence at the top to summarize the key point, or none at all. Shorter titles are rarely effective. I learned about this from "The Craft of Scientific Presentations" and it's been good advice so far.
The slides are as simple as possible.

Naveen noted the presentation skills of one of his professors Richard Losick and Princeton professor Bonnie Bassler as good examples. "Both seem to focus on telling a story that the audience will remember, rather than simply showing all their data."

TED Talk: Dr. Bonnie Bassler
Naveen's right about Dr. Bassler; she's fantastic. This is an excellent TED talk below. Dr. Bassler is really good at speaking in a very down-to-earth, conversational manner. There is great clarity to her narrative. For example, she often says "The question is then _______" or "So the question is this: _______." Along the way she also answers the two questions we often have as listeners but that too often go unanswered: "So what? and "Why does it matter (to me/us)?" I love her style. She never relies on the confidence monitors (that we can tell) or bullet points (there are none) but instead she moves her eyes naturally around the room, clearly engrossed in what she is explaining but also very much in the moment. She references the screen often but only to illustrate her point. She uses her hands a great deal to explain processes, just as you would in ordinary, natural conversation.

Sample visuals
Dr. Bassler's visuals are quite simple and for the most part they were a good companion to her talk, yet the attention was on her and her descriptions. At times when she was not speaking about something on screen behind her, TED put up her video which gets all the attention back on her. You can do something similar in a classroom or at smaller conferences by placing black slides in between sections or using the B key on your notebook to make the screen black (don't worry: the room will not go dark because you still have the lights on, right?).

?

Yes, Dr. Bassler is talking to a general audience here, albeit an extraordinarily educated one. But I think this supports the notion that talks on science-related fields can posses both important content and great clarity that connects with an audience.

Specifically, what should I do?
Each presentation case is different. Audiences vary as do presenter personalities. What you actually do will depend on many things. But if you want tips from a scientist on how to give a good talk at a conference, this PDF by Jay H. Lehr (Let There Be Stoning) is still very good advice. Also remember to look for the story of your content. Information alone is not story. Look here for more info on the power of story.

Links
? The Excitement of Science
? NOVA Science Now piece on Dr. Bassler (video)
? The Craft of Scientific Presentations by Michael Alley
? Trees, maps, and theorems Effective communication for rational minds by Jean-luc Doumont
? Advanced Presentations by Design: Creating Communication that Drives Action? by Andrew Abela
? Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis? by Stephen Few (new: highly recommended)

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