Turmeric and Trimming

Taking medicine, taking counsel…

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Disciple: Took your advice and tried a capsule of turmeric.

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Master: And?

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Disciple: Stomach pains receded, and joint pain decreased.

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Master: And what effect did that have on your day?

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BEFORE

Disciple: Got to work. Tidied up my PowerPoint slides.

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Master: Good. You’d used a lot of unedited screenshots.

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Disciple: Yes. Took your advice on that one too. I rebuilt them directly onto the slide by cutting and pasting.

_________

AFTER

Voice-over

Artists often seek to reduce a subject to its essential lines and colors. Cutting clutter in a picture is why paintings can look better than a photograph of the same scene. PPT too. Too much reality, too much detail, too much noise.

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Presentation Learning Outcomes

The presentation winds up...

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Producer: Thank you to the speakers today. I want to ask the audience before we close. “What’s your takeaway today? What point had personal relevance for you?”

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Audience 1: It was, “Think like a designer.”

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Audience 2: “Find the story in the data.”

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Audience 3: “Tailor your presentation to the audience.”

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Audience 4: “What emotions do you want the audience to feel?”

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Audience 5: “Keep it simple, don’t over-decorate the design.”

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Audience 6: “Turn your ideas into visuals.”

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Audience 7: “Think of it as a performance, not just a presentation.”

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Audience 8: Plan it like a movie, from producer to director, with the most important role being the editor who CUTS.”

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Audience 8: A good presentation takes a lot of time to prepare and rehearse.”

____________

Voice-over

The gratifying part about a presentation is that the audience asks questions and a dialogue between speaker and audience develops. To trigger that, you need a good chairperson to prompt the personal learning outcomes at the conclusion: “What’s your takeaway today?”

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Presentation Titles: subtlety vs exhortative ad copy

Spicing up a PowerPoint…

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Ted: Title slide. "Better presentations." Too weak.

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Edward: I agree. How about some alliteration? "Powerful presentations."

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Ted: Still no power. How about a metaphor? “Supercharge your delivery.”

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Edward: Ha. Souping up a pizza scooter?

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Ted: "Inspirational performances"?

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Edward: Still sounds like ad copy for consumers instead targeting academics. “Buy now while stocks last” sort of thing. Exhortative. Even extortionist?

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Ted: Maybe academics sometimes need a bit of ad copy exhortation.

________

Voice-over

In the end a compromise is reached. "Mastering the art of professional presenting." Understated upskilling : “mastering the art.” Maintaining the dignity of a “profession.”

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A TED-type talk: a performed presentation

After the plenary…

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Anika: Marvellous. He didn’t read a single word. Just talked.

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Markus: And the PPT slides. What images. Dozens of them.

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Anika: So there you have it. He’d memorized his talk. A performance against the backdrop of a cascade of brilliant visuals.

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Markus: Like theater. Or a movie.

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Anika: Why can’t academics all present like that.

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Source: The Best Schools

Markus: It’s called “reading a paper”. Seems they don’t know how to talk, or even read.

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Anika: I wonder how much coaching presenters receive before doing a TED talk?

__________

Voice-over

Academic conference presentations. Head down over a script, gabbling or mumbling. A very few can passably read as if they were a radio broadcaster. Even fewer can actually perform their script. Tribute to the Henry Jenkins plenary at NECS on 180627.

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