“Click to add title”...Some thoughts on presenting

Michael EdsonDirector, Web and New Media Strategy

Smithsonian Institution, Office of the CIOApril 2, 2013

What you do with this is a matter of

I have given a lot of presentations

http://www.flickr.com/photos/airforceone/4724520242/ ”Air Force One” by Stefano Petroni CC-NC-BY

I have made mistakes in judgment and execution

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51493609@N00/2849352139/ (used with permission of the photographer)

I have felt disappointment and humiliation

Photo (C) Dan Hill (used with permission) http://www.flickr.com/photos/cityofsound/5099410640/in/photostream/

Here are5 things

I’ve learned

Still from High Noon (1952) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Noon

Still from High Noon (1952) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Noon

1. Take a stand

Still from High Noon (1952) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Noon

1. Take a stand

You get paid (with time, attention, the cost of travel, the opportunity cost of not being somewhere else)

to say something meaningful.

So take a stand and tell us what you believe in.

Still from High Noon (1952) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Noon

1. Take a stand

Passive voiceNavel gazing

Passing the buck(e.g. “Museums should be more open...”)

No

Still from High Noon (1952) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Noon

1. Take a stand

Active voiceWork on stuff that matters

Own the solutions(e.g. “Museums should be more open

in these 5 ways...”)

Yes

Taking a stand inpublic changes you,and acceleratesreal learning

2. Prepare

2. Prepare

Jerry Seinfeld, the richest and most famous comic in America,

regularly performs at small clubs in front of 10 people to practice

and perfect his craft.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/magazine/jerry-seinfeld-intends-to-die-standing-up.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Seinfeld will nurse a single joke for years, amending, abridging and reworking it incrementally, to get the thing just so. “It’s similar to calligraphy or samurai,” he says. “I want to make cricket cages. You know those Japanese cricket cages? Tiny, with the doors? That’s it for me: solitude and precision, refining a tiny thing for the sake of it.”

When he can’t tinker, he grows anxious. “If I don’t do a set in two weeks, I feel it,” he said. “I read an article a few years ago that said when you practice a sport a lot, you literally become a broadband: the nerve pathway in your brain contains a lot more information. As soon as you stop practicing, the pathway begins shrinking back down. Reading that changed my life. I used to wonder, Why am I doing these sets, getting on a stage? Don’t I know how to do this already? The answer is no. You must keep doing it. The broadband starts to narrow the moment you stop.”

Photo cc-by Michael Edson, from On Bullshit by H. G. Frankfurt

3. Don’t spread BS

3. Don’t spread BS

There’s too much junk thoughtIn the world already: Say what youknow, do your homework, and checkyour facts. Subject your own work tothe best BS detector you can find.

Photo cc-by Michael Edson, from On Bullshit by H. G. Frankfurt

Darwin Online: http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/vanWyhe_notebooks.html http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=PC-Virginia-Francis-F373&viewtype=image&pageseq=1

4. Do build a foundation

~ 22 years

4. Do build a foundation• Footnote and hyperlink

your assertions• Be clear and complete, so

others can build on what you know

• Format your slides for slideshare

• Record your talk and publish a transcript

4. Do build a foundation“The genius of Darwin wasn’t that he thought of modification with descent, it’s that he wrote it down in such a way that the idea would never drift away again...”

{I don’t know the source for this,but I read it years ago...}

http://usingdata.tumblr.com/post/31654556655/you-could-write-the-entire-history-of-science-in

5. Keep trying

“You could write the entire history of science in the last50 years in terms of papers rejected by Science or Nature.”

Paul C. Lauterbur, Nobel prize winner for his original research on magnetic resonance imaging. His seminal paper was rejected by the journal Nature in 1973. Quoted in Kevin Davies article Public Library of Science Opens Its Door (found via Scott Berkun’s The Myths of Innovation , p.54.)

Adapted from Untitled, Rebecca Siegel, http://www.flickr.com/photos/grongar/4966015822 CC-BY

Adapted from Untitled, Rebecca Siegel, http://www.flickr.com/photos/grongar/4966015822 CC-BY

In a lot of professions, conferences are about professional advancement, dominance displays, and ego.

Adapted from Untitled, Rebecca Siegel, http://www.flickr.com/photos/grongar/4966015822 CC-BY

But we’re different. We’re building something together for the public good. It’s a big, difficult job, and everyone needs to contribute.

WE NEED EACH OTHER. WE NEED YOUR HELP.

@mpedsonSlideshare.net/edsonm