Making Effective Presentations - Ryerson University · 2009-10-19 · Making Effective...

Department of Computer Science Faculty of Engineering,Architecture and Science

Making Effective Presentations

Alex Ferworn

LEADERS OF TOMORROWDepartment of Computer Science Faculty of Engineering,

Architecture and Science

Topics• Fear and Attention• Human Interest• Delivering your message• The basic presentation• Presentation Technology



Fear• 9 most common phobias (Forbes Magazine 2007)

– Bugs, mice, snakes and bats– Heights– Water– Public Transportation– Storms– Closed Spaces– Tunnels and Bridges– Crowds– Public Speaking



Fear is your Friend

• It makes you prepare• It makes you practice• It makes you worry• It makes the taste of success so much sweeter• Embrace the fear!



Attention Span

• Time spent concentrating on a singleactivity.

• More Enjoyment == Longer Attention Span.• In a study of 2,600 children, researchers found,

– that early exposure to television may have a negativeimpact on attention span. Journal of Pediatrics

– It was suggested that internet browsing can have asimilar effect. BBC NEWS



Paying Attention is Hard Work

Human attention is the scarcest resource-- Herbert Simon



Boredom is Brutal



Keep Them Interested

Surprise Shock

A good Story



YOU

• Do not use “media” to hide you• The audience came to see you• The media should enhance the presentation, not BE the

presentation• If all you are going to do is read from the slides or

overheads, then just send them the slides• Remember, only you can prevent “Death by PowerPoint”



You are the messenger

• A mannerism is a stereotyped movementor habit peculiar to a given individual

• Avoid mannerisms– Common examples

• Repeating a word or phrase• Rattling• Talking to a wall• Hiding behind a dias

• Keep on message



Memory Limitations• Short-term memory: ~ 7 simple things

• Long-term, they get 1 or 2 from your talk– reinforce the core message, not details

• Build a decent story to help memory

1 2 3 4 5 6 7



Introduction

• Is to grab attention not to be technical

• Explain why the subject is important



Presentation Body

• It takes approximately 2 minutes to speakabout 1 projected image

• Bullets act as reminders for you– Avoid the temptation to read bullets– Avoid temptation to read notes

• Bullets should be backed by facts– A bullet without a fact tends to shoot you in

the foot.



1

idea per slide



Questions

• Listen very carefully• Repeat the question and

make sure you have it right• Answer succinctly and clearly



Conclusions• Not a Summary• What they should remember• Aim your talk at the audience that is there• Try and get feedback right away

– Helps improve your presentation• Someday your career may hinge on a talk



Presentation Technology

• Figure out how the hardware works beforethe presentation– Even the use of a pencil requires practice

• Use a tool to help you look good– There are many software presentation tools– Pick one



Use a Slide Template

• Use a set font and color scheme.• Different styles are disconcerting to the

audience.• You want the audience to focus on what

you present, not the way you present.



Fonts

• Choose a clean font that is easy to read.– Ariel works great most times

• Roman and Gothic typefaces are easier toread than Script or Old English.

• Stick with one or two types of fonts.



Font Size

• Bulleted items should be no smaller than 22points.

• The title should be no smaller than 28points.

• Do not break these rules unless

you have to!



Bullets

• Keep each bullet to one or two lines.• Limit the number of bullets on a screen to six,

four if there is a large title, logo, picture, etc.– This is known as “cueing”– You want to “cue” the audience in on what you are

going to say.• Cues can be thought of as a brief “preview.”• This gives the audience a “framework” to build upon.• It helps them remember



Bullets (con.)• If you crowd in too much text, the audience will

not read it.– Too much text makes it look busy and is hard to read.– Why should they spend the energy reading it, when

you are going to tell them what it says?– Our reading speed does not match our listening

speed; hence, they confuse instead of reinforcingeach other.

– Boy there is a lot of text on this slide…hey I’ll throw insome math as well, that will make it clearer I bet.

– That was fun ;-)– Remember this slide when you are doing yours!

!

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Caps and Italics

• Do not use all capital letters– Makes text hard to read– Conceals acronyms– Denies their use for EMPHASIS

• Italics– Used for “quotes”– Used to highlight thoughts or ideas– Used for book, journal, or magazine titles



Use Pictures as Visual Metaphors

this is one word that I am writingThis thesis presents a compilation framework fortranslating ANSI CThe first part of this

document describes Pegasus, theinternal representation of CASH, and a series of novelprogram transformations performed by CASH.

The most notable of these are a new optimal register-promotion algorithm and partial redundancy eliminationfor memory accesses based on predicate manipulation.

The second part of this document evaluates theperformance of the generated circuits usingsimulation. Usingmediaprocessingbenchmarks,weshowthatforthedomainofembeddedcomputation,thecircuitsgeneratedbyCASHcansustainhighlevelsofinstructionlevelparallelism,duetotheeffectiveuseofdataflowsoftwarepipelining.

A comparison of Spatial Computation and superscalarprocessors highlights some of the weaknesses of our modelof computation, such as the lack of branch predictionack of branch predictionand register renaming.and register renaming.

Low-level simulation however suggests that the energy efficiency of

Application-Specific Hardware is three orders ofmagnitude better than superscalar processors, one order ofmagnitude better than low-power digital signal processors andasynchronous processors, and approaching custom hardware chips.

A picture is worth 1000 words



Clashing Colors forbackgrounds

• Colors that aredirectly opposite fromone another are saidto clash.

• These providereadability - e.g.yellow on blue.

Department of Computer Science Faculty of Engineering,Architecture and Science

To make a slide stand out,change the font or background



TimeALWAYS end on time

Even if you have to cut



Conclusion

• Interest == Attention• YOU make it interesting• Practice, practice, practice• Embrace fear

Making Effective Presentations - Ryerson University · 2009-10-19 · Making Effective...

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