PRESENTATION SKILLS

What people fear most?

6

Death

Financial problems

4 Failing exams

3 Snakes

2 Heights

1 Public Speaking
2

#1 Fear

Feared More Than Death!

THE FACTS: Shaky hands, blushing
cheeks, memory loss, nausea, and
knocking knees
NORMAL!

Fears

LALIOPHOBIA

Fear of Speaking

GLOSSOPHOBIA

Fear of public speaking

Symptoms: Glossophobia

Fast pulse
Shallow breathing
Dry mouth
Cold extremities
Tight nerves
Sweaty palms

We need to get rid of. But how?

5

Why do we need these skills?

On the job

Briefing a group
Leading a team
Making a speech
Training
Off the job

Conducting a program
6

Perception about the speaker!

More Professional
More Persuasive
More Credible
More Interesting
And Better prepared

Executive Success & Presentation Skills

80%
70%

Intelligence

60%

Experience

50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Communication
Skills

Integrity
Executives
8

Most Common Mistakes

Poor 1st impression

Frozen in one spot
Weak eye contact
Poor preparation
No enthusiasm
Poor visual aids
Weak close
9

What this talk is about

How to give a good talk
Why to present
What to present (and what to
leave out)
How to present

10

Your paper is the

product
Your talk is the
advertisement

Bad Reasons to give a talk

To show everyone how smart you

are

To tell them everything you know

about your topic

To give all the technical details of

your work
12

Good Reasons to give a

talk

To give the audience an intuitive

feel for your idea

To entice them to read your paper

In short: To engage, excite, and

provoke the audience
13

The Ideal Audience

Has read all your previous work

Is highly educated
Is eager to learn about the latest
developments in the area of your
subject
Is fresh and alert

14

The Actual Audience

Has never heard of you
Does not know your subject
Is hardly interested in your
subject
Just came back from lunch and
is ready for a nap

15

Your Mission:
Wake up your audience
and
make them happy they did

Ingredients for a
great presentation
Motivation (20%)
Your Key Idea (80%)
3. There is no #3

1.
2.

Preparation

Research the Audience

Expectations
Size
Who talks before you

Write

Start writing
Dont stop to edit
A messy first attempt
18

Presentation Aids: Effectiveness

Words only
Pictures only
Words &
Pictures
Comprehension & Retention
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Dont

o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

Weaknesses
Low level of customer orientation dissatisfied internal & external customers
Lack of skill in handling politicians resulting in misplaced priorities of investment
Insufficient level of openness to new ideas
Reluctance to take risks and value opportunities
Inability to operate with a long term perspective
Crisis management becoming victims of own success
Hard headed departmental boundaries
Inability to partner unions
Improper performance reward linkages
Authority-responsibility mismatch
Inadequate development of subordinates
Missing stress on ethical behaviour
Out of place costing and monitoring system
.
.

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Do

Not more than Seven lines per visual

Seven words per line

Text large enough

Use symbols, images, graphs

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Preparation: Rehearse

Learn your presentation

Practice, practice, & practice
Check it out before friends/mirror
Internalize

23

Preparation: Rehearse
Mark Twain
It usually takes more than 3 weeks to
prepare a good spontaneous speech of
about five minutes;
In case you want me to speak for 2
hours - I am ready, now.

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Rule #1
Tell me
why I should care
(and fast)

Rule #2
Tell me what you
found out,
not what you
know

Rule #3
Make it
Memorable

If the audience remembers only one thing

from your talk, what should it be?

Your Key Idea

You must identify a key idea.

Be specific.

Be absolutely specific.

Dont leave your audience to figure it out for

themselves.
Say If you remember nothing else, remember this.

Organize your talk around this specific goal.

Ruthlessly remove material that is irrelevant to this

goal.

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Rule #4
Use Examples

The Role of Examples

To
To
To
To
To

motivate the work

convey the basic intuition
illustrate The Idea in action
show extreme cases
highlight shortcomings

When time is short, omit the general

case, not the example
30

What to leave
out

Rule #5
(the 2 Minute Rule)
Detailed Outlines
are a Waste of Time

Outline of my talk

Background
Introduction
Overview
Benchmark results
Related work
Shortcomings
Conclusions and further work
33

No Outline!

Outline of my talk: conveys

near zero information at the
start of your talk
But maybe put up an outline for
orientation after your motivation
and signposts at pause points
during the talk

34

Rule #6
Integrate Related Work
Do not present related
work
But:

You absolutely must know the

related work; respond readily
to questions
Do not disparage the opposition

Xs very interesting work does Y; I

have extended it to do Z

Rule #7
Omit Technical
Details

Omit Technical Details

Even though every line is

drenched in your blood and sweat,
dense clouds of notation will
send your audience to sleep
Present specific aspects only;
refer to the paper for the details
By all means have backup slides
to use in response to questions
37

How to Present

Rule #8
Be enthusiastic
39

Enthusiasm

If you are not excited by your idea,

why should the audience be?
It wakes them up
Enthusiasm makes people
dramatically more receptive
It gets you loosened up,
breathing, moving around
40

Rule #9
Do not
apologize
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Do not apologize

I didnt have time to prepare

this talk properly
My computer broke down, so I
dont have the results I
expected
I dont have time to tell you
about this
I dont feel qualified to address
this audience
42

Rule #10
Stage Fright Is
Normal
43

What to do about it

Deep breathing during

previous talk
Script your first few (and last few)
sentences precisely
Move around a lot, use large
gestures, wave your arms
Go to the restroom first
44

Rule #11
Be Seen and
Heard
45

Be seen and heard

Point at the screen, not at the

overhead projector
Speak to someone at the back of the
room, even if you have a
microphone on
Make eye contact; identify a nodder,
and speak to him or her (better still,
more than one)
Watch audience for questions
46

Rule #12
Questions are
good

Questions

Questions are not a problem

Questions are a golden opportunity to
connect with your audience
Specifically encourage questions
during your talk: pause briefly now
and then, ask for questions
Be prepared to truncate your talk if you
run out of time. Better to connect,
and not to present all your material
48

Rule #13
Know your
Presentation
Program
(PPT, Keynote)

Presenting your slides

Use animation effects
very
very

very
very

very
very
very
sparingly
50

Attention & Interest

Interest elements

Natural
Tendency
Opening

Body

Close
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Rule #14
Never
ever
run over time

Finishing

Audiences get restive and

essentially stop listening when your
time is up. Continuing is very
counter productive
Simply truncate and conclude
Do not say would you like me to go
on? (its hard to say no thanks)
Say Thank You!
53

The general
There
Is Hopestandard
is so low that you
dont have to be
outstanding to stand
out
You will attend 50x as many
talks as you give. Watch other
peoples talks intelligently, and
pick up ideas for what to do
54

Thanks!