Kentaro Toyama
Summer School on Computing for Socio-Economic Development
MSR India / Indian Institute of Science
June 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.
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
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……
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PowerPoint is a “Great” tool for giving presentations: 6 million PPTs everyday are given
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The “advantages” of using Powerpoint will be reviewed. Here is a summary:
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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:
March 23, 1998 – Jim Gray Workshop Series 2 of 98
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:
March 23, 1998 – Jim Gray Workshop Series 2 of 98
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
15 min
30 min
45 min
Reported degree of attention during a talk.
Source: Niemansverdriet, J. W. http://www.catalysis.nl/links/presentations/presentation.php
Caveat: original source of the graph could not be traced; might be an urban myth.
Boring is their enemy.
Outline
Audience
Brevity
Structure
Story
Emotion
Miscellaneous Tips
Preparation
Boring, monotonous, too long, and overly-detailed-ina-way- that-nobody-could-possibly-grasp-or-remember
is 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
“…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.”
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.
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A
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Alphabetical
AA CC D EE F H III M N OO RRR SS T
Aggregate
22 letters, 13 unique letters, 41% vowels, nothing after “U”
Occurrence
1 instance:
2 instances:
3 instances:
Symmetry
DFHMNT
AA CC EE OO SS
III RRR
None
Vertical
Horizontal Rotational
F, RRR
AA, M, T
CC, D, EE
III
Nasal
Phonetic
EE
OO
AA
Labial
Coronal
M
N
Plosive
Fricative
Liquid
N, SS
T, D
F
SS
RRR
Dorsal
All
H, III, OO
Radical
CC
H
A A CC D EE F H I I I M N O O RRR SS T
A CACHE SORT INFORMED IRIS
MICRO SO F T RESE ARCH INDIA
I SACRIFICED RAT HORMONES
Thanks to the Internet Anagram Server: http://wordsmith.org/anagram/
Boring and unstructured is the enemy.
Outline
Audience
Brevity
Structure
Story
Emotion
Miscellaneous Tips
Preparation
Typical Movie Plot
Boy meets girl.
Set up
Girl ignores boy.
Conflict
Boy’s friends console. False climax
Boy plots to get girl.
The plot works!
Happiness ever after.
Rising action
Climax
Outline
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Introduction
Problem Statement
Related Work
Proposed Solution
Results / Proof / Analysis
Future Work
Denouement
The typical talk outline actually makes a pretty good story!
Alternate storylines
can work, too!
Boring is the enemy, and
good 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 Tips
Make 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 creativity
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html
Robert Lang on mathematics of origami
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/robert_lang_folds_way_new_origami.html
Ron Eglash on fractals in Africa
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ron_eglash_on_african_fractals.html
Hans Rosling on world poverty
http://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.
Research results for mostly researcher audience.
Summary
Used typical CS
talk outline.
Bollywood references for
mostly Indian audience.
Microsoft iPod video and Zune
Keep the audience in mind. for Microsoft audience.
Didn’t discuss
Math and CS talks
Tried to keep
font-size, etc.
for
CS
audience.
Less is more.
slides simple. Didn’t talk about
Think and re-think structure.
Tell a good story.
Engage emotions.
Story co-evolved
Tried to insert intentional with structure.
boredom (first slide) and humor.
Used links for
Each section linked
miscellaneous tips. to next by some logic.
Omit some content.
Nothing
specific CS talks
Structure of seven points took some time.
Gave talk aloud
at least twice.
Slides took roughly
two hours a
beats good preparation.
day for a week.
Not sure I really needed to do the
Could have practiced some more!
animated text, but it was fun
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:
•
•
•
•
•
–
–
–
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:
•
•
–
–
Microsoft references
Bollywood references
Computer-science references
References to scientific research
Logical, deductive arguments
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.