Anyhoo, in addition to hashing out the details of the upcoming meeting/hackathon, we also knocked around ideas for upcoming presentations. Which involves, of course, recruiting speakers. Wherein lies the problem. Because, you see, the Venn diagram of people who know a lot about something interesting and the people who have the ability to get up in front of a crowd of their peers and roll out that information in a structured, digestible way is not what'cha'call a perfect circle, y'know?
But the rub is that the only people to show up for a "How to Give a Presentation" presentation are likely to come from a single demographic -- i.e. the folks who don't want to see the presenter's feelings hurt.
So I'm doing this online. Think of it as a self-study course. If you're old enough to remember people working out to a Jazzercise VCR, so much the better.
Now. I do at least one presentation a year. Mostly to give back, but partly to look the beast of public speaking in its many eyeballs and say, "I ain't scared 'a you." (The beastie and I both know it's a
Anyhoo. After six or seven years (depending on how you count) of competitive public speaking, I have a few things to pass down to the up-and-coming generation of geek-speakers. Normally, I'd issue a "your mileage may vary" kind of disclaimer, but if you haven't done this more than one or two times, stick with the program until you are comfortable enough not to need it. (This is highly analogous to following a recipe to the number until you grok what makes it tick, m'kay?)
I'm assuming that you have one of the following:
- A topic you're so passionate about that you're bursting at the seams with its awesomeness, or
- Your boss has "voluntold" you to present on something of relevance to your co-workers
1.) Pull out your favourite plain-text editor. Yes, plain-text. Heck, Notepad, for all I care. Because you are emphatically NOT ALLOWED TO FORMAT ANYTHING at this point. Got that editor fired up? Groovy. Now shut up and let your brain barf out a bullet-list. Single-level only. Don't think: Just get it on the screen. Like, yesterday.
Done? Fabulous. Whatever you do, don't fall in love. Because, about a century before George R. R. Martin, "Murder your darlings" was already legit. literary advice.
2.) Organise. Okay, NOW you're allowed to be hierarchical. But not more than three levels, including section-headers. That effectively leaves you with two levels of detail. Why only two? Because this is soooooooooooo not about you dazzling anyone with nuance; this is about you not boring the ever-loving snot out of the people who are graciously lending you their attention-span.
Cut-and-paste, drag-and-drop until the content feels like it should flow like cream into the brain of someone who knows nothing about the subject.
Nope, don't fall in love here, either. You're going to both murder and mutilate very shortly.
3.) Show, don't tell. Time to lean on images. First, create a folder at the same level as your brain-dump. Now go search and scroll. At a bare-bones minimum, you're going to want images to jazz up your section-header pages. I prefer sly, snarky humour m'self -- big surprise there -- but follow your intended audiences tastes. Whatever you pick, name the file descriptively. You're going to need that information at your fingertips.
Can you convert either-ors into flow-charts? Go. Side-by-side comparisons as tables? Dooo eeeeet. Comparisons/Contrasts as Venn diagrams? Make it so, Number One.
Are you showing code-samples? Excellent. Go type them up, make sure they compile, and then screen-capture them. Ditto the output. This is your insurance against wi-fi issues. Also: You know all those nervous presenters you've seen trying to type code live? This is precisely why you won't be them. You're welcome.
4.) Unit-testing. First, brace yourself for some ugly truths. Deep breath. Now, translate your outline (and images) to simple slides. Simple slides, d'ya hear?! PUT THAT ANIMATION MENU DOWN. Animations are for closers. (Sorry-not-sorry, Alec Baldwin.)
Uh-oh: Some of those topics don't fit onto a single slide, now do they? Huh. Guess you should be thinking about how you're going to break them up into separate topics, mmmm? 'sokay, it's not like you lose points for this. This is the "mutilation" I talked about. Good thing you never let that outline give you big chibi puppy-dog-eyes, amirite?
When you're done, convert the whole thing to PDF, and close your slide editor.
5.) First integration test. Close the door. Keep your laptop/keyboard within arm's reach. Open the document in PDF format. Annnnnnnnd...present! (No stopping allowed -- just plough through it, already.)
Dread Cthulu, that was painful. All that goodness in your head doesn't always quite make it to the spoken word, no? The good news is that the presentation will never sound that gawdawful again. The bad news is that you have a bunch more iterative more work in front of you.
6.) Cull content. First things first. Let's get rid of the stuff that your audience, on second glance, doesn't actually need to know to understand the main points. Just get rid of it and don't look back. Yep--murder your darlings. "Red Wedding" style if necessary.
7.) Re-organise ruthlessly. Did some sections really seem like non-sequiturs when you were fumbling your way through them? Move them before they try to consolidate their positions. Do some still stick out like the proverbial sore thumb? You might want to re-think their importance.
8.) Subsequent integration tests. Follow the recipe for "First integration test." This is basically analogous to the "childbirth amnesia" women experience between their first and second (and even subsequent) children. Sure, the first time is generally the worst, but even so...yeeowch. But, in fairness, perhaps not quite as bad. Maybe.
Keep iterating: Cull and re-organise. Work on something else for awhile and let things simmer on the proverbial back-burner. The content is starting to fall into its rightful places.
9.) Refine the flow. No slide-deck, however well put together, will always flow seamlessly from one section into the next. Or subsection. Or maybe even between bullet-points on the same slide. You probably noticed that during the iterations, yes? That's okay. Seriously okay. Because, really, if it were All About the bullet-points alone, you could (and -- let's face it -- should) just email the slide-desk and let people read it at their leisure. Your value-add is to, quite literally, read between the lines. And the page-breaks, for that matter.
Condense your bullet-points. They exist as hooks for your content, the war-stories you're going to tell, the experienced opinions you're going to lay down. You are there to riff on, not read from, the slides, remember? Now start bridging the slides with transition material. Trust me: This material is more for your sake than even your audience's.
Repeat until your gut tells you it's done. You're not really done, but roll with the sweet illusion for a short time, m'kay?
10.) Beta-test with a trusted (and brutally honest!) peer. And no, I don't mean your cat. I'm talking about someone who has a similar background but not the level of expertise in your subject matter. This will be painful, guaranteed. But you're already used to that. If you've picked the right peer, the feedback will be tough to process. That's okay. The trick is to triage the big-ticket items (e.g. she was totally lost with this whole section). Ignore the nit-picky stuff. No, really. Yes, it's the easiest to fix. But in terms of bang-for-the-loonie? Fuggedabbouddit.
11.) Dance without a net. By this time (several days in), your creation should be starting to breathe on its own. At the risk of sounding pervy, take it into the shower with you. (Not the laptop, silly!) Blanking between sections is perfectly normal and, really, who cares what the shower curtain thinks? If you're visually-oriented like me, the images you picked out for your section-header slides will help trigger the unwritten "glue" content.
12.) Dress rehearsal. At least a day (but no more than two days) before the scheduled presentation, Do a couple runs. If you can arrange to make them in the same conference room (or whatever) in which you'll give the final product, so much the better. What's in your head and what comes out of your mouth should be fairly close on the second try.
Pro tip: Limit the # of rehearsals per day if you don't want your vocal cords to turn on you on The Big Day. If you're still feeling dicey two days out, try three whispered full rehearsals, but no more.
13.) The real deal. Honestly, there's nothing that I can say or that you can do that will truly prepare you for all the eyeballs boring into you when you get up. You will be terrified...and that's okay. Like Q said to James Bond: "Never let them see you bleed." You're going to be riding on obsessive preparation and your think-meat's muscle-memory. This is precisely why you screen-capped your code samples and output.
Okay...because you've read this far and (apparently) trust my experience on this, I'm going to drop an ugly secret: You're going to need to go through this process many times -- dozens, in fact -- before you can trust your mind to stuff your lizard-brain into a sound- and chew-proof box. And the box is the best you can hope for. That lizard-beastie will always be there.
Sorry 'bout that, but to tell you otherwise would be to lie to you. Not to mention short-circuit the process of you becoming that rarest of birds: The geek who can teach. And we need more of you more than ever. The opening shots of a war between the people who actually know what's going on and the mouth-breathing ideologues who think they can shoot from the hip have already been fired. And not by our side.
So, to tweak the closing line from all my presentations: Now get out there and teach something awesome.
