On how not to give a talk

[da]

Today was a one-day conference for computer tech staff at the University. There were 200 or so attendees and three tracks of six sessions.

In the morning there was a session on "Presentation Hints And Tips For Techies" (which I did not attend, as I've been to similar sessions in the past, and I wanted to learn about "Anarchy and the Workstation Next Door", next door.) But- excellent idea, Intro Speaking for Techies.

During the morning break, I was chatting with my boss² and his boss² (a Dean) the Vice-Provost for Information Technology (who used to be a School Dean) about whether the conference was actually worth the 1,000-1,500 person-hours it occupied when all was said and done. And that in planning, they consciously decided to hold this Tips session at the conference, instead of a few months beforehand, though boss² thought that would've been a good idea.

Just after lunch, a presenter who shall remain anonymous started his talk by saying, "I went to the tips talk, and maybe I should throw out my slides based on what I learned there. But I'm not going to." He proceeded to give 40 minutes of blindingly obvious background information, followed with ten minutes of semi-useful bits.

Rule number 1; don't give the wrong talk for your audience. Think about the fact that you're speaking to professionals. If in doubt, ask around before you write the talk. Rule number 2, which should've been in the morning session, even if it wasn't: don't lie on the abstract. Don't make the abstract a broad, jucy topic and then only talk about one small bit.

*sigh*.

I will be sharing some thoughts with boss² tomorrow, since we had been expressly talking about ways the conference could be made more useful. But I think it's also been useful to vent here beforehand. :)

Comments

[dawn-guy.livejournal.com]

I (as a presenter) was told that the "presentation tips" session was originally scheduled for a session a couple of weeks before the conference, but I've no idea what happened to derail that plan. I once again under-prepared (by about half a day this time) and gave a somewhat assy but nonetheless moderately useful talk.

Just the networking (I get very little light in my cave and don't leave it nearly often enough) makes the day worth it for me; the few tidbits I pick up from the actual talks are a bonus.

small question:

[cyanpill.livejournal.com]

Were some of those boss2's supposed to be boss1's? Or are all the bosses squares?

A presentation on how to give presentations is never a good thing just before, um, a bunch of presentations. Not only does it make the presenters nervous that they are doing everything wrong, but everyone now knows exactly what they are doing wrong. "If he pulls on his tie he's lying" and then everyone will be focusing more on ties then on what's being said....

[kraig.livejournal.com]

I was at both the talks you mentioned. The tips for presenters was... mostly common dog kinda stuff, but common sense isn't, and it was presented in a way that made sense. I'm glad I wasn't the only underwhelmed person at the other you mentioned: I already knew all that stuff, and it's nothing somebody couldn't get from reading the intro to the topic anyway. I mean, the talk I gave a few years ago was pretty basic too, but it was only 15 minutes and I know there's few people on campus familiar with that particular technology. The talk this year, most of us know what the concepts were and why one would want to use it, the question was how. Or something. It's actually kind of hard for me to say why I was kind of wishing for my 50 minutes back.

One of "my" grad students went to it too: he wasn't impressed. He was already somewhat familiar with the concepts being presented, but not entirely, and he wanted to be sold. Instead, he was anti-sold, to a certain extent.

I kind of agree with not holding the presentation tips beforehand: hold it before, and probably only people who are presenting this year are going to attend, and they want to encourage more people to give talks. On the other hand... yeah.