On Fri, 2004-03-19 at 15:53, John W. Holmes wrote: > 1) Rehearse: This is a must. You have to run through your presentation a > couple times and preferably in front of other people so they can provide > feedback. Some people are really good at impromptu speaking and can wing it,
This is a valid issue, but as a speaker I can tell you that after a few conferences under my belt things don't always go as planned. There was one talk in particular on the cruise where I had no choice but to "wing it" based on what I had in front of me. It happens, > 2) Dry Run: As important as rehearsing before hand is doing a dry run of the > presentation in the actual place where you'll be giving the presentation and > preferably with the actual equipment you'll be using. What looks good on I again agree, that too often people use a font that is too small to be seen and that was something that presenters could have done a better job with. However when it comes to the cables part, I have to defend the speakers. The conference had no idea that one projector would have only an s-video input, and if they had I consider it the job of the conference to inform us of that -- I've never been to a conference that didn't provide an vga-input and would personally fully expect to see one that did. > 3) Typing Code: Don't type code during your presentation. I'd bet money that > everyone watching you already knows how to type. If it's a PHP conference, > I'd bet they know how to type PHP, too. We don't need you to show us how. > When you begin a presentation by opening up a text editor and typing The last session I gave was on Smarty, during which I had 10 slides and the rest of the talk I was in my IDE doing stuff with code. Given I did have examples prepared, I did do a fair amount of "typing" during the talk and from everything I've heard it was a very successful talk. One of the most successful presentations I've ever seen was given by Don Box at Microsoft... it was a small group of us and he just started off his talk by asking for a list of XML-related topics we wanted to hear about... he wrote them all down on the whiteboard and just started talking off-the-cuff. One of the most entertaining and educational presentations I've ever seen. > , I'm walking out. Either work the code (or snippets of it) into your > slides, or open up a text editor and show an already completed file. If you > need to make or illustrate changes to the code, either put that on > subsequent slides or load sequential files where the code is already > completed. Also, on that note -- attendees seem to really love when things go wrong. I've been told, see, and actually experienced this phenomenon. When your trying to give a presentation and something doesn't quite go as expected, the experience of watching how you solve that problem (since they probably have experienced the same) is very valuable to them. It seems counter-intuitive, but many of the best things in the world often are I find :) > 5) Have a Buddy: This kind of goes along with all of the above suggestions; > try to have a buddy that can help you rehearse and give your presentation. > If you rehearse well enough, you can have your buddy flipping slides and > scrolling at the right times without you having to say "next slide" or > anything else. If you _really_ have to type, like filling out a form for > example (as a demo), then have your buddy doing that while you're explaining > things or make changes while you explain why he's doing so and what the > results will be (for example). Hell, you can even make your buddy the bad > guy that keeps you on track and on time and cuts off questions when > necessary. I don't agree with this point. I don't think a side-kick is necessary to give a good presentation. > 8) Graphics and Transitions: This one will probably raise some arguments, > but I don't see much a need for pretty graphics and transitions. It all > depends upon your topic and audience, but plain bulleted slides will get > your point across just as well as fancy flying text overtop of cute pictures > of your cat. The audience will probably be less distracted. Depending on how Completely disagree. Although I don't have the pretty transitions (I don't own a Mac), I am a firm believer in the use of pictures in your slides. Pictures help people stay interested, even if they aren't necessarily interested in the particular slide you are discussing.. plus, with the right pictures you can help break the ice between yourself and the audience - which is invaluable for the encouragement of audience participation. The audience is going to be distracted by the laptop in front of them if they don't care about what you have to say at that very moment -- having them being distracted by something you are controlling will help recapture their attention when you have something they are about to say. > interesting of a speaker you are, though, maybe you'll need these to keep > your audience interested. In the Army, we're allowed to have color on the > first slide only, then everything else is black and white with minimal > graphics (no decorations). Not only does this make things cleaner and easier > to export to other formats if necessary, it also makes the whole package > smaller and easier to provide for download and distribution. This leads me > into the next topic. Trying to draw a connection between php|cruise and the army when it comes to giving a presentation is probably as far from the reality of the situation you could possibly get. :) I think you make some valid points, but as you see I do disagree with you on a number of issues. John -- -=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=- John Coggeshall http://www.coggeshall.org/ The PHP Developer's Handbook http://www.php-handbook.com/ -=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=--=~=- -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
