Axiom Architectures at Google code
In writing these presentations I recognized that I was falling into the trap getting too caught up in covering every little detail. In other words I was writing a paper and passing it off as a presentation. The upshot was that the material was generating inertia rather than momentum during my talks.
So to better connect with my audience, I jotted down these presentation recommendations:
A. Comfort
- Recognize that you were invited because people believe in you.
- Take comfort from this belief.
- The audience wants to get to know you.
- Tell a memorable story.
- Maintain a consistent thread throughout your story
- Tie in your personal experiences, perspectives, insight, opinions and humor.
- Condense the slides to focus entirely in support of your story.
- Your slides are only sign posts for the audience to follow your narrative.
- Pull out any distracting diversions and props.
- List papers and references so the audience can stay connected with you and your knowledge.
- Consider suggesting some next steps.
- Close with a profound statement to invite stimulating questions.
2 comments:
Tom,
I can't tell you how excited I was to see such concise articulation of what audiences are looking for and connecting with in the tech space. Bravo! I can't wait to see this applied to your next talk. I know it will be a smash hit if it follows these items you've listed.
Impressed and looking forward to your talk at DOSUG,
Matthew J. McCullough
Excellent post.
As someone who runs a lot of meetups I think a lot about how to get tech people comfortable with speaking and improving their skills. Recently I started going to Toastmasters and there's no better way to improve your speaking than that. They give you lots of little opportunities to speak in different contexts in a very supportive environment.
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