OSCON Tutorial: Presentation Aikido with Damian Conway
"The way of harmonizing with the Flow (of the universe)"Presentation isn't about subdoing audience, bending them to hour will, turning their energies against them
- More about connecting with the audience
- Sharing knowledge and ideas for their benefit
- Encouraging them to travel a path with you
- Helping them
- when you speak, they may or may not be giving you attention, respect, etc.
- they are giving you their time (most precious resource)
- recognize it as a gift, start to enjoy it
- be comfortable, confident on stage
- audience doesn't care what saying, only that you are saying well
- talk about topics you genuinely understand, actually use
- talk about real experiences that you have had
- if you can't get out of talk, do research, and admit to audience that it is new to you as well
- the battle is always won beforehand
- adjust languange to audience
- confidence that's reassuring (that material is comprehensible to normal human beings)
- flow that is captivating
- all arranged beforehand
- budget 10 hours per hour of speaking
- Damian does more like 20
- most important decision
- what are you going to talk about? always have a choice about it, even if assigned
- talk about what you care about, passionate about, excited about
- all about attitude
- about enthusiasm
- always trumps informative
- hook 'em at the beginning, before they mentally change channels
- in given time, really only giving overview or sampler
- reassurance -- this material is attainable
- build cognitive framework in mind, that provides framework for understanding
- comprehensible material that resonates with audience
- so they can go and learn details later
- entertaining is the way to do this
- supposed to convey vaguest hint of topic
- engender some sense of intrigue
- try working in a pop reference, those who get it will be smug and on your side
- try to make title short
- state main thesis in first three words, field of interest in last four words
- marketing pitch
- informative, without giving stuff away
- should say that talk is interesting and speaker is excellent
- show it by making interesting and excellently written
- give some sense of structure of talk
- short, easy-to-read, catchy, tantalizing
- register shortage
- structure information hierarchically -- the story
- fundamental point of aikido
- will only remember 5 points, so choose 5 most important things
- find story that fits those 5 points smoothly
- connect to ideas that people already have and understand
- metaphor
- now, ready to begin writing the talk...
- easier to arrange information in word, or text editor, than in presentation software
- outline style, so it translates well to slides
- causal style
- chronological
- layered - drill down, build up; good for when length is variable; can adapt to needs of audience -- can choose when to go deep or stay up
- cumulative -- start simple, and build up
- simple narrative
- flow decides what topics go in, or stay out. if it doesn't re-inforce 5 points, it is extraneous
- where is leap too great for audience?
- need to go back and fill in gaps
- squirt raw material into slides
- fix it
- start deleting words - handout best as proper sentences, slide points don't work as sentences
- this really matters
- coherence -- single visual entity
- harmonious whole
- different styles of presentation are needed for different objectives
- style can be a part of the message
- great secret of persuasion is to not use many words
- short declartive statements, no hedging
- minimize decoration
- can use smaller, bulleted text
- softer hues, etc.
- if you don't have one, don't use MS templates
- thief from apple, cool websites, etc
- reverse-engineer from a cool preso that you say
- almost every slide is too busy
- too much text, too many ideas
- Damian typically runs 120 slides/hr
- use images like seasoning
- better made visually than spoken
- use them in an unexpected manner
- meaningful, occasional
- want to animate a process
- if not easy in powerpoint, too complex
- almost never resort to video
- only if absolutely amazing, and really makes the point
- don't distinguish by color alone (color blindness)
- use luminance instead
- also application for a new font, or draw a luminance box around text to highlight, etc.
- tools for picking color schemes, like how artists can do (PowerPoint in MacOS X has one)
- check under worst case scenario -- set os to go black & white; will make slides that work for people of all visual perception abilities
- side-by-side hard for people to grok
- show transitions, only animate what changes
- break up monotony of talk
- keep audience engaged
- variations in pace and style
- can always come up with more material than there is time -- people try to cram it all in
- people can't absorb all of that stuff
- they will need chance to absorb and digest
- asides, humorous bits, examples, etc. give this needed break
- make sure to intersperse some easier concepts
- can use landings as navigational beacons, to notify audience that new topic is starting
- signpost - common slide (like TOC), that you come back to as you progress, showing topics you have talked about, and what is coming next.
- no-one understands charts
- put it in notes
- break chart down, and explain piece by piece
- same goes for graphs
- the best presentations look effortless
- audience desperately wants the material to seem "easy"
- keys: competence, preparation, practice, organization, style, attitude
- be passionate, connect with audience, give of yourself -- but be self-less
- worst case, read and then give summary that isn't on slide
- secret of timing
- most important
- do it aloud
- great way to show audience what you are talking about
- people visualize better than they hear
- practice
- try and script software demos if at all possible.
- make demo smooth -- hot keys to get to example, and run with one touch