Kentaro ToyamaSummer School on Computing for Socio-Economic Development

MSR India / Indian Institute of ScienceJune 25, 2010

Explain how to give a “good” oral presntation, which is exciting and fun……………….

Good presentations are Difficult because there are many factors to consider, such as Content, format, font Size,,Posture, ,volume, length ,,audience, storyline, etc.

If you know how to put the factors together correctly ,,it can lead to a good presentation. Otherwise, the presenttion will not be half as good as it can be.

The Goal: In this talk, the focus is on All of the Above except for the content…… PowerPoint is a “Great” tool for giving presentations: 6 million PPTs everyday are given

The “advantages” of using Powerpoint will be reviewed. Here is a summary: Easy to use Animations Bullets can be used by anyone, even people who don’t understand “parallel structure”

You may have realized that this slide is a parody. If so, please raise your left hand! The attention span equation (McClay, Renie, Sales Training Solutions, Kaplan

Publishing, 2006) will also be discussed, for anyone who still hasn’t caught on:

2 of 98March 23, 1998 – Jim Gray Workshop Series

Just kidding!

Explain how to give a “good” oral presntation, which is exciting and fun……………….

Good presentations are Difficult because there are many factors to consider, such as Content, format, font Size,,Posture, ,volume, length ,,audience, storyline, etc.

If you know how to put the factors together correctly ,,it can lead to a good presentation. Otherwise, the presenttion will not be half as good as it can be.

The Goal: In this talk, the focus is on All of the Above except for the content…… PowerPoint is a “Great” tool for giving presentations: 6 million PPTs everyday are given

The “advantages” of using Powerpoint will be reviewed. Here is a summary: Easy to use Animations Bullets can be used by anyone, even people who don’t understand “parallel structure”

You may have realized that this slide is a parody. If so, please raise your left hand! The attention span equation (McClay, Renie, Sales Training Solutions, Kaplan

Publishing, 2006) will also be discussed, for anyone who still hasn’t caught on:

2 of 98March 23, 1998 – Jim Gray Workshop Series

Boring is the enemy.

Make It Memorable!A Presentation on Presentations

Kentaro Toyama

Summer School on Computing for Socio-Economic Development

MSR India / Indian Institute of Science

June 25, 2010

The Goal?

The audience should…

understand,

remember, and

be impressed

with your message.

Outline

Audience

Brevity

Structure

Story

Emotion

Miscellaneous Tips

Preparation

Outline

Audience

Brevity

Structure

Story

Emotion

Miscellaneous Tips

Preparation

One Problem

I have no idea what

he’s talking about!

Slide 22 and so far, it’s all review

of stuff we all know! Where’s the new stuff?

I just don’t get these Japanese jokes. Or,

maybe they’re not

even jokes?

I wonder if they’ll have pakoras for

lunch.

Boring is the enemy –tailor content for the audience.

Another Problem

Source: Niemansverdriet, J. W. http://www.catalysis.nl/links/presentations/presentation.phpCaveat: original source of the graph could not be traced; might be an urban myth.

15 min 30 min 45 min

Reported degree of attention during a talk.

Boring is their enemy.

Outline

Audience

Brevity

Structure

Story

Emotion

Miscellaneous Tips

Preparation

Boring, monotonous, too long, and overly-detailed-in-a-way- that-nobody-could-possibly-grasp-or-rememberis the enemy. Oh, and just because you have 60 minutes to speak doesn’t mean that you have to fill all 60 minutes. Of course, too short while missing content is no good, either. As Einstein said, “Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.” In addition, Shakespeare also wrote, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” And, in a quotation attributed to Mark Twain, but more likely to have been written by Blaise Pascal, there’s this comment, which is telling: “I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have the time.” Conciseness takes time, effort, and intelligence!

Outline

Audience

Brevity

Structure

Story

Emotion

Miscellaneous Tips

Preparation

Chunking

Source: Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81-97.

“…the span of immediate memory impose[s] severe limitations on the amount of information that we are able to receive, process, and remember.”

“By organizing the stimulus input simultaneously into several dimensions and successively into a sequence or chunks, we manage to break (or at least stretch) this informational bottleneck.”

AC

A

C

H

E

S

O

R

T

I

NF

O

RM

E

D

I

R

I

S

• I• N• F• O• D• R• T• R• H• O• M

• A• I• C• A• C• I• E• S• R• E• S

Labial Coronal Dorsal Radical

Nasal M N

Plosive T, D CC

Fricative F SS H

Liquid RRR

AA CC D EE F H III M N OO RRR SS T

1 instance: D F H M N T 2 instances: AA CC EE OO SS 3 instances: III RRR

AA

EE

III

OO

None Vertical Horizontal Rotational All

F, RRR AA, M, T CC, D, EE N, SS H, III, OO

22 letters, 13 unique letters, 41% vowels, nothing after “U”

Alphabetical

Aggregate

Occurrence

Symmetry

Phonetic

I SACRIFICED RAT HORMONES

Thanks to the Internet Anagram Server: http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

A CA C HE SO R TI NF O RMED I RI S

ACA CHE SORT INFORMED IRI S

AC A CHESO RT INFORM E DIRI S

Boring and unstructured is the enemy.

Outline

Audience

Brevity

Structure

Story

Emotion

Miscellaneous Tips

Preparation

Typical Movie Plot

Outline

Introduction Problem Statement Related Work Proposed Solution Results / Proof / Analysis Future Work

Set up

Conflict

False climax

Rising action

Climax

Denouement

The typical talk outline actually makes a pretty good story!

Boy meets girl.

Girl ignores boy.

Boy’s friends console.

Boy plots to get girl.

The plot works!

Happiness ever after.

Alternate storylines can work, too!

Boring is the enemy, andgood stories aren’t boring.

Outline

Audience

Brevity

Structure

Story

Emotion

Miscellaneous Tips

Preparation

Memory and Emotion

From psychology research…

– Emotions help memory• Eysenk (1976)• Cahill & McGaugh (1995)• Nielson et al. (2002)

– Humor helps memory• Kaplan & Pascoe (1977)• Schmidt (1994)

– Caveat: Cartoons can distract from main content, if used without care

• Sagaria & Derks (1985)

Funny can be your friend.

Outline

Audience

Brevity

Structure

Story

Emotion

Miscellaneous Tips

Preparation

Miscellaneous TipsMake text legible

– Use sans-serif fonts (not serif fonts)– Keep background simple– Contrast text color with background– Use large font sizes (this is probably too

small!)– Minimize amount of text on each slide –

use keywords, not long sentences

Don’t present everything

Project confidence and respect– Stand, don’t sit– Avoid leaning– Avoid slouching– Don’t put hands in pockets– Speak loudly enough

Stick to your rhetorical goal– Everything you say and show should

contribute to the case you want to make

Apply variation to minimize boredom– Use multimedia – photos, video,

animation– Speak louder or softer, to make a point– Switch between walking and standing

Use a “teaser” slide at the beginning– Be interactive – ask the audience

questions– Create a reason for people to pay

attention until the end

Look up design suggestions

Practice, practice, practice– Practice with a live audience; get

feedback– At home, practice out loud– Memorize your slides, so you don’t have

to look at them for cues

Break rules, as necessary – these are just guidelines!

Miscellaneous Tips (Take 2)

Books• Atkinson, C. (2006) Beyond Bullet Points

http://www.beyondbullets.com

General advice for computer-science talks• Hill, M. D. (1992) “Oral presentation advice”

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~markhill/conference-talk.html

• Patterson, D. (1983) “How to give a bad talk” http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~markhill/conference-talk.html (scroll to bottom)

• Hanselman, S. (2008) “11 top tips for a successful technical presentation” http://www.hanselman.com/blog/11TopTipsForASuccessfulTechnicalPresentation.aspx

On design• Tufte, E. (1983) The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

• Tufte, E. (2006) Beautiful Evidence.

Boring is the enemy.(Some things, the audience can go read in the paper.)

Outline

Audience

Brevity

Structure

Story

Emotion

Miscellaneous Tips

Preparation

TED Presentations

Lawrence Lessig on law and creativityhttp://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html

Robert Lang on mathematics of origamihttp://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/robert_lang_folds_way_new_origami.html

Ron Eglash on fractals in Africahttp://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ron_eglash_on_african_fractals.html

Hans Rosling on world povertyhttp://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

Boring is the enemy.Learn from excellent presentations.

Summary

Keep the audience in mind.

Less is more.

Think and re-think structure.

Tell a good story.

Engage emotions.

Omit some content.

Nothing beats good preparation.

Summary

Keep the audience in mind.

Less is more.

Think and re-think structure.

Tell a good story.

Engage emotions.

Omit some content.

Nothing beats good preparation.

Bollywood references for mostly Indian audience.

Microsoft iPod video and Zunefor Microsoft audience.

Math and CS talks for CS audience.

Tried to keep slides simple.

Didn’t discussfont-size, etc.

Didn’t talk aboutspecific CS talks

Used typical CStalk outline.

Structure of seven points took some time.

Story co-evolvedwith structure.Tried to insert intentional

boredom (first slide) and humor.Used links formiscellaneous tips.

Could have practiced some more!

Gave talk aloud at least twice.

Each section linked to next by some logic.

Research results for mostly researcher audience.

Slides took roughly two hours aday for a week.

Not sure I really needed to do the animated text, but it was fun

Boring is the enemy!Boring is the enemy!Thank you very much.

Back-Up Slides

What I tried to do in this presentation…Illustrated the ideas in the presentation with the presentation itself:

– Tailored the content for an audience of mostly Indian computer-science researchers at Microsoft:

• Microsoft references• Bollywood references• Computer-science references• References to scientific research• Logical, deductive arguments

– Tried to keep slides and sections short and to the point; whole talk in <30 min

– Spent a couple of hours each day over a week to settle on structure and content

– Told a story:• Unusual opening directly raises the problem• Conceptual links tie each section to the next

– Incorporated some fun and humor

– Avoided covering everything; pointed people to other references for more

Illustrated some other ideas that I didn’t mention explicitly:

– Stuck to a legible, coherent “look and feel” that I’ve developed over time

– Asked a lot of questions to make the presentation interactive

– Guided the audience to construct main points using questions (but, illustrated with novel examples)

– Applied some PowerPoint animation, but not too much

– Used different kinds of multimedia: text, cartoons, photographs, video, puzzles

– Repeated the key message (with variations), for emphasis

– Anticipated “what about technical presentations?” question

Needs improvement:– Allocated insufficient time for practice:

only practiced out loud 2-3 times

Note: This slide is not particularly exciting, but as a back-up slide, I didn’t spend as much time on it. I also know that anyone who sees it is necessarily curious. Since this is a case where the audience brings with them their own strong motivation and reason to remember, I don’t have to work as hard to motivate or entertain.