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May 10, 2023 33 likes •1.53k views

The Art of Presentations Baochun Li, Professor, Bell Canada Chair on Computer Engineering No matter what you do, excellent public speaking skills are essential An academic job talk A plenary talk at a top conference A sales pitch to venture

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The Art of Presentations

Baochun Li, Professor, Bell Canada Chair on Computer Engineering

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No matter what you do, excellent public speaking skills are essential

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An academic job talk

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A plenary talk at a top conference

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A sales pitch to venture capitalists

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But the fact is, good talks are rare to find

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What do you mean by “a good talk”?

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In November 2011, I read a book that I adore

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Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs”

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“Jobs, exuding confidence, style, and sheer magnetism, was the antithesis of the fumbling Amelio as he strode

  • nstage. ... The crowd jumped to its

feet and gave him a raucous ovation for more than a minute.”

— Walter Isaacson, “Steve Jobs,” Chapter 24, on the return of Jobs to the stage of MacWorld 1997

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This is what we eventually need — confidence, style, and magnetism

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But when you attend typical talks —

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The talk was not so good. The talk went over time. I had no idea what she’s talking about. I was checking my emails.

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I fell asleep.

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But why? What are the problems? And how do we fix them?

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The talk is not organized well. Problems in organizing and preparing for a talk No one can finish reading the slides. Problems in designing slides The speaker talks in a boring way. Problems in delivering a talk

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This talk is about how these problems can be solved

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It is about exuding confidence, style, and magnetism

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It is about the art of presentations

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Three General Rules of Thumb

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Rule #1: keep it simple

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The fact that your talk is simple to understand, doesn’t mean that the work is not good If you make your talk complex, your risks are high — it’s hard to understand in a short period of time

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Find a simple way to explain something complex

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You will never be able to “dazzle the audience” with complexity

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Instead, you push them away from your talk

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Rule #2: be enthusiastic

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You have been working very hard on the work you wish to talk about

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If you want anyone else to be excited about your work, you should be the first

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Your body language and tone of voice supply the overall message impact — Use hand gesture Use maximum power in voice and a microphone Avoid a tone that feels boring

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Rule #3: practice your talk

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It is a performance show — that’s why it needs to be rehearsed

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Many, many times

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Practicing your talk only makes it better

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First in your mind Then in front of a friendly audience (like a research group) In front of your advisor Get feedback and improve your talk

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Practicing may help you build your confidence

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so that you don’t get nervous before the talk

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so that you can take a deep breadth and get started

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with something truly sensational

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Three Rules of Thumb

Rule #1: keep it simple Rule #2: be enthusiastic Rule #3: practice your talk

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Organizing and preparing your talk

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Tip #1: Have one take away message

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This is something for the audience to remember

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Your audience can’t just remember anything they like — you control what they do remember

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That is your take away message in the talk

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Always assume that the audience is 80 years old with a poor memory

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Be explicit about what you wish them to remember Repeat the take away message Keep the message simple

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Tip #2: Work hard on the flow of ideas

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Spend a lot of time to work

  • n the flow of ideas in your

talk

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Start with a pen and paper, like working with a “storyline” on a movie

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Your storyline does not have to be traditional, such as background — design — simulation

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It can be anything you want

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You can even make it a roller coaster ride with twists and suspense

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Your audience will be happy to follow the flow and go for a ride — they may even enjoy the ride!

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Just watch out on the time needed for delivering the talk

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Always leave at least 5 – 10 minutes for questions

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And how about the outline?

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What do you think about the next slide?

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Outline of my talk

  • Problems in mobile cloud computing
  • Related works on computation offloading to the

cloud

  • The design of our multi-layer scheme with the

addition of cloudlets

  • Theoretical analysis of our scheme
  • Simulation results
  • Conclusion
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I think it’s boring

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Since you now have a great flow of ideas, you can remove the outline, and let the show begin to roll from the start

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Along the way, you can add a roadmap when there’s a need

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The roadmap can even be graphically illustrated with subtle animations

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Like this example —

courtesy of Yuan Feng’s exceptional design

  • n her job talk
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Data Center Data Center Data Center Data Center

Cloud

Roadmap

1 GestureFlow 2 Reflex 3 Airlift

1 2 3
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Data Center Data Center Data Center Data Center

Cloud

Roadmap

2 Reflex 1 GestureFlow 3 Airlift

1 2 3
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Organizing and preparing your talk

Deliver one take away message Spend a lot of time to work on the flow of ideas Take the audience on a ride that they enjoy and won’t forget!

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Designing slides

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1

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50

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Tip #1: you are the boss, not your slides

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The best speakers attract all the attention from the audience

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Your slides are a visual aid

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They are your assistants

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You will always be the boss

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The audience should never pay more attention to your assistants, no matter how good looking they are!

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Some students ask me for “PPT” after my talks

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They wanted slides for good reasons

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Most speakers include all the information they are going to talk about in their slides

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That makes the assistants the boss

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Good speakers are not prepared to do this

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If you have their slides, you will not reproduce what they talked about

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Because the slides contain much less information than the talk!

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Tip #2: keep your slides simple

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Presentations should be “zen”-like

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What do you think about the next slide?

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Gender equality in Japan

According to the latest reports from the Japanese Ministry of Labour, 72% of part-time workers in Japan are women. This is the highest ratio reported yet. The number of part-time workers has been increasing for

  • years. For many women, full-time employment is not

available, or their family obligations make it impossible for them to keep full-time hours. Below are some comments from some prominent Japanese politicians: “Japanese work office environment is not yet conducive for promoting gender equality.” “The conservatives ... wanted to keep the Japanese society traditional.”

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How about this?

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72% of part-time workers in Japan are women

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Or even better —

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72%

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When the slide is simple, there is nothing to distract the attention of the audience

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The attention of the audience is a precious resource that you wish to attract, not distract!

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When there is very little to read, they will focus on you, the boss

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Otherwise, they will read the slides until they finish reading

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And if you advance to the next slide before they finish, they will become nervous, and read even more quickly!

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So, the simpler, the better — but how?

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Click to add title

Click to add text

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⌫Click to add text

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Click to add text Click to add text Click to add text Click to add text Click to add text Click to add text Click to add text

<Date> <Speaker> Confidential 1 of 1

simply can’t give up on these pretty logos sure, remind them who you are all the time Use lots of bullets, it’s the beauty of PowerPoint remind them that they don’t have to endure this for too long include a fancy background to distract them from your content, yet faint enough so that they keep thinking what the heck it is

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Don’t be controlled by “templates”

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Remove superfluous decor

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Have plenty of empty space

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Simplicity is your best logo

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Don’t use too many bullets

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If you must use bullets, show them one at a time

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Use huge sans serif fonts

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Use photos and graphics instead of text

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Keep animations and transitions subtle

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Simplify your figures and make them easier to understand

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Would you wish to see this?

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13

e

50 100 150 200 250 300 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 Time Slots Streaming Quality WSP1 WSP2 WSP3 WSP4

  • Fig. 9.

The streaming quality of different WSPs

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Or this?

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WSP 1 WSP 2

Time slots Streaming quality
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Designing slides

You are the boss, not your slides Keep your slides simple

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Delivering your talk

Preparing for the big day

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Tip #1: open and close your talk well

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Like chess, a good opening in your talk is critical — it grabs attention

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Design your opening well

The audience is most alert during the first several minutes of the talk, use it wisely! Don’t spend the first few minutes talking about lots of background information or an outline

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Get straight to your message as soon as you

  • pen
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Here is an example opening

courtesy of Hong Xu’s exceptional design in his job talk

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Optimizing Datacenter Operations with Practical Complexity

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Objective: Very quickly, deliver the message of the talk — tradeoff a bit of optimality to reduce a lot of complexity

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Beyond optimality

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Mega datacenters

A Google datacenter in Council Bluffs, Iowa Source: Google
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Datacenter scale

20 billion: webpages indexed 3 billion: search queries answered 4 billion: video views served every single day

Source: New York Times
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Datacenter performance

Increase server utilization Reduce energy consumption

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1250 2500 3750 5000 2004 2008 2012

Publications related to “datacenter optimization.” Source: Google Scholar

Optimality

Optimization theory is widely used

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But watch out for complexity!

Complexity Performance Which trade-off point?

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Also, close your talk with a lasting impression

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As in gymnastics, a good closing is important — do not rush the closing!

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Tip #2: control the pace of your talk well

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Slow down — the one-way communication channel from you to the audience is lossy Be on time — use a presenter display to know how much time you have left Use a remote control — so that you can walk around

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And never revisit past slides!

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Tip #3: connect with the audience

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Talk to the audience — not to the projector screen Make eye contact — do not look at your laptop display Use body language and gestures — very powerful for connecting with people Move away from the podium — remove physical barriers between you and the audience to make it easy to connect

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Tip #4: do not try to memorize

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You will forget everything, anyway — there is no need for notes Remember the logical flow of ideas — there are a million ways

  • f delivering the same flow
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Delivering your talk

Open and close your talk well Control your pace well Connect with the audience Do not try to memorize

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We are almost done —

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To go the extra mile, here are a few optional tips that are good to know

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#1: Break out from the tradition

Get out of your comfort zone and think critically — What’s the best way to communicate effectively?

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#2: Ask the audience a few questions (and answer them)

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#3: A laser pointer is not the best way to emphasize

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#3: A laser pointer is not the best way to emphasize Use builds and overlays

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#4: Make a few jokes to lighten the mood

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This is hard —

what’s funny to you may not be so funny to someone in a different age group, or with different political, religious, or cultural backgrounds

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Don’t make improvised jokes without planning ahead

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Steve Jobs: a few moments in MacWorld 2007

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Baochun Li

Google “Baochun”

For more — presentationzen.com treesmapsandtheorems.com ted.com/talks