soft skills training: powerful presentations part...
TRANSCRIPT
Soft skills training: Powerful Presentations – Part 1
Pavlos Sermpezis
28/09/2016
HY- 533 : Security, Privacy and Intelligence on the Internet
Background on presentations
How many presentations have you given in the past?a) 0b) 1 to 5c) 6 to 10d) > 10
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Background on presentations
How confident do you feel about giving a presentation?a) Very confidentb) Not so muchc) Not at all
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What would you like to learn about presentations?
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Let’s start …
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Why presentations ?
To provide an overview of a subject or some material … to an (interested) audience that knows less than you on this.
Examples of cases you need to give presentations:• Presentation of an academic paper you have written / studied• Lecture (in a course, tutorial, etc.)• Report of your work to your supervisor / boss
… but also (the same principles hold): • Job interview
(summarize in an appealing way you CV, skills, experience, etc. )• Social interactions / discussions
(sharing an idea, narrating a story to friends, on a date, etc.)
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Why presentations ?
• You will definitely need to give presentations in the future
• If you know how to do it efficiently, you will have a competitive advantage
• Learn it know, because in the future (e.g., while at a job) you might not have enough time to study “how to” guides
• You will get a higher grade in HY533
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Overview of the lecture
1. Key characteristics for a good presentation
2. Guidelines for presenting an academic paper
3. A real example
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1. Key Characteristics
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Key characteristics for presentations
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• Structure
• Engage the audience
• Flow & Pace of speech
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Structure
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• giving a presentation == telling a story“No tale is so good that it can’t be spoiled in the telling”
• Steps to start preparing your presentation:1) find the main idea/message you want to tell to the audience2) build the story, i.e., the structure3) prepare the slides based on the structure
• bad structure == wrong message OR no message at all“if you give the right information in the wrong sequence, this may leave the audience confused, frustrated, or bored”
the most
important thing
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Structure: a “story” example
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• Tell them what you are going to talk about• even in a single sentence
• Give some details about the background• give enough details to allow them understand your story• ...but not too many (the background is not the story you want to tell)
• Make a connection (from the background) to your story• how your story starts? what makes it special? why do you tell it?
• Tell the story• in a logical (e.g., chronological) sequence, in order to make sense• stress main points • omit not important (aka. boring) details
• Summarize, i.e. wisdom obtained from the story• good stories, teach you something• remember the whole story, and get the message out of it• how can this (wisdom) help you in the future?
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Engage the audience
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get the audience interested !
keep their focus !
don’t let them get bored!
Yeah, right… how to achieve this?
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Engage the audience
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• A good structure is already a good starting point • those who are really interested, will manage (somehow) to follow you• … but how many will be really interested (if any)? what about the others?
• Ask questions (even rhetorical)• this will make them try to answer the questions, and think what they
know on the subject/problem (i.e., active/passive involvement)• it helps in understanding; increases their interest; they stay focused
• Give examples• easier to understand than a complex definition/system/result• it shows the practical aspects of you story
• Vary your voice level• wake them up, stress important points
• Use optical effects• it’s not only a talk (i.e., oral presentation), you have also the slides• powerful arsenal: images/figures, text, animations, highlighting, etc.
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Flow & Pace of speech
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• Common problems:• “I have to say too many things in this slide, but I have to be fast”• “I cannot talk as calm/cool as this (experienced) guy”• “I say a lot of eeehhhhh… ”
• Common problems have common roots!• You overestimate the material you can talk about in 10’, 20’, …• Not carefully prepared slides• Bad structure• Bad transitions between slides• (did not practice the talk)
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Flow & Pace of speech: some tips
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• Tip 1: be spare• Must present & talk about all the material on a slide • Must speak in a normal pace• Under “Tip 1”, it takes too much time? start removing things!
while time_from_Tip_1 > max_time_for_presentationdo: less slides, “lighter” slides, remove whole sections
• Tip 2: work your transitions• Must have good transitions between slides
• e.g., ask questions (whose answer is in the next slide)• e.g., introduce the new slide, or summarize the previous slide
• Bad transitions? most probably it’s not you the problem, but your slides; change your slides: material, order, etc.
• Tip 3: pause, pause, pause• you already know the material, so fast it's ok for you; but your audience
hears it for the first time, they need some time to "digest" it• a pause is better than a “eeehhh…”
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2. Presenting an academic paper
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From the paper to the presentation
• You have a paper of, e.g., 12 pages• It needs a couple of hours to read it (much more to understand)• Your presentation should last only, e.g., 10’, 20’, 40’, …
How to fit everything in so little time?
What to present?
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What to present
• Step 1: find the main idea/message you want to tell
• Step 2: think the structure
• Step 3: do the slides
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The main message
• Find the main idea/message you want to tell• e.g., in a systems paper: the proposed system solves this problem, or is
better than that we have now, or …• e.g., in a measurements paper: the results show this (unknown till now)
characteristic of the system/network, which can be useful for …• e.g., in a theory paper: the analysis predicts this performance, or shows
that this is the optimal way to do that, or …
This step is very difficult & needs a lot of thinking … but it can make your presentation great!
A well written paper, helps you finding the main messages
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The structure1. First slide
• title & authors (& presenter)
2. Introduction• describe briefly the system (background)
3. Motivation• what is the “problem”• what has (not) be done before
4. The idea of the paper• a single slide, 1-2 bullets (i.e., tell them what you will show)• what is new/different in this paper
The above steps might take, e.g., 25% of the presentation time “If the audience doesn't know after the 2nd or 3rd slide why they should care
about your work and what general topic area your paper belongs in, you've lost them.”
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The structure
5. The main work of the paper• The exact material depends on the paper; some examples:
• describe the approach followed in the paper to solve the problem• say why/how you thought this approach, e.g., there is this mechanism, there is
this theory, there were these measurements, …• give some details (not all; only a few key points) of what you have done• highlight your main findings, or the usefulness of the key points, e.g., show a
figure, an example, etc.• clearly show your main contributions
6. Summary (the take home message)• Remind what the system and motivation are (“tell a story from the
background to the conclusion”)• Repeat the main conclusions/findings of the paper• Say how this could help existing systems or research, solve certain
problems, etc., (i.e., future work)
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The slides
• You don't have to (and you must not) present the entire paper!• don’t feel guilty about omitting important material (it's usually better than
covering more material in a rushed way)• spend time on a slide (or, a part of it, e.g., a complex figure, equation) or
drop it
• “Light” slides: don’t put too much material in your slides• remember: you have to talk about everything that appears on the slide
• Use pictures / figures to describe complex systems or cases• “a picture is worth a thousand words”
• Highlight important points• Text: use colors, boxes, animations• Figures/plots: use arrows, pop-up (explaining details)• Pictures: use animations (when necessary)• Equations: use highlighted/transparent boxes, arrows
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3. A real example
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That’s all folks
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Be careful…
• This is not a typical (i.e., good) presentation• Does not follow all the guidelines• Is not an academic paper presentation• Has too “heavy” slides (so, you can study them at home)
• It does not cover everything• Just some main guidelines for preparing good presentations• More material on Part 2 (lecture on Monday 03 Oct 2016)• Study the extra material (next page); it’s a must
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Extra material (very very useful)
• http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/etc/talk-hints.html
• https://cel.archives-ouvertes.fr/cel-00529505v7/document
• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/academic-program/give-great-research-talk/
• https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCS_96.htm
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Some extra (random) important advice
• Spend time in preparing your presentation! • Respect (and honor) your audience, who spend their valuable time. • e.g, in a 2-hour lecture in a class with 20 students, the audience spends
in total 40hours, i.e., a person-week of work!
• Know your audience!• Modify your presentation depending on the audience (e.g., their
background, interest, focus)
• Be enthusiastic! • The audience is always less enthusiastic (less interested) than you; if
you are bored, they’ll be bored
• Be redundant! • Repeat again and again the same thing throughout the presentation if
it’s important (e.g., to remind, to highlight, to explain)
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